Does walking really do any good?

So on Saturday, September 18th I attended a walk / fundraiser for a cure for Alzheimer's.  This was another event I got to go as a member of the Alpine Garrison.  The Star Wars Universe is not dying anytime soon...but I digress. 

I love the opportunities I get to help out with multiple charities as a character that kids wow over, but I gotta admit that I brought my C game to this one.  It had nothing to do with the event itself, I was just trying to negotiate the emotional mine field of the reason I was there, and the fact that my father suffers from Alzheimer's.  I won't go into detail because I've discussed that in a previous entry, but it was hard for me to get excited about a photo booth fundraiser today.  I even walked a lap in honor of my father, but the question kept coming back to me, "Does walking really do any good"?  It's a rhetorical question, I know.  Don't judge me. I'm a bit frazzled.

I know there are new theories and tests being developed all the time, and I don't mean to minimize the efforts of science, but I'm hard pressed to see any light at the end of this tunnel.  Name one other disease that forces you to lose loved ones twice.  First it takes their mind, but after that you're not sure if you want them to live or die.  I know it sounds morbid but I honestly can't think of a better way to describe it.  If any of you have experienced watching a loved one submit to this, please tell me this is a normal thought process or I'm going to feel even worse.

Did I mention I'm frazzled?  I'm going through this (along with other *stuff*), friends are going through stuff, and I want all the stuff to leave us all alone for a while.

-LG

Origin of the Lobster Girl nickname.

I don't suppose too many people care about how I got my nickname "Lobster Girl", but I promised I'd give it up.  The caveat is that I'll give both versions:  The story people like to tell, and what actually happened.  I won't say which is which.  It'll be up to you to decide which version you decide to go with.

I am a Star Wars cosplayer.  Geeky as it may sound it's a lot of fun to play the bad guy in a stormtrooper / Magmatrooper / Jango Fett costume.  No, I don't wear it around the house or while doing yardwork or whatever (unless I'm trying to win a photo contest, but that's another matter entirely).  I wear it to charity events for multiple causes like disease research (Cancer, Diabetes, Downs Syndrome, Autism), charitable organizations like Make-A-Wish, Toys-4-Tots.  Soon I'll be wearing it to an event at a deaf center to help raise money for a new playground.

Anyway, I was at a friends house (we'll call him Dude for now.......I don't know why) doing some research on how to build a costume.  I was logged into my chat room from his computer.  Dude brought over some Kool-Aid which was apparently spiked because I started typing "I want to be a lobster girl" and various other lobster-related phrases in the chat room.  How I managed to type so coherently and with perfect spelling is beyond me. There's got to be a market for a drug like that somewhere.  Anyway, since then all those that were in the chat room that night dubbed me Lobster Girl, and they have told all their friends so that nickname, whether I want it or not, has been super-glued, epoxied, bolted, and riveted into place.  Most people still just call me Splat, but "Splat, the Lobster Girl" is what they're thinking.

The other version isn't quite as much fun.  I simply left the keyboard I was using for a minute (while still logged in to the chat room) and Dude came over and typed all that stuff under my username.  Yeah, I'd probably tell the first version too.

Interestingly enough.  I had the "Lobster Girl" tag before I got red stormtrooper armor.  Now the name is mine for as long as I know these people whether I like them or not.  To be fair though, I've embraced it because there are certain advantages.  For one, I get noticed a lot more then the classic white stormtroopers when I go to events.  I get called the Love Trooper because I get pictures with lots of pretty girls, and who knows what possibilities are waiting for winning U of U tickets (to anything) or something Valentine's Day related.

-LG

P.S.  I couldn't find a picture of a lobster that looked decidedly female without being slightly pornographic, so for now I'm going with this one.

I held off as long as I could.

So I kept putting off doing a blog of my own for multiple reasons.
First and foremost, I'm old.  I'm always late to anything resembling a technological advance, or at least anything that used to be done in what my generation would dub "the hard way".

Secondly, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about sharing stuff online to anybody weird enough to follow postings by somebody who calls themselves "Lobster Girl".  I don't have to get too personal though. (duh for me)

Third, and most importantly.........I honestly don't know.  There was just something enticing about it.  I'm not one to follow trends.  Most of the time I'm proud to shun them, but for some reason I was drawn to this.  This is one way I can share things (frustrations, successes, happiness, misery, etc....you get the idea) with other people without it being facebook.  I think part of it is that I'll take a little more time to write something coherent.  I've re-read some of my past journal entries and I think to myself, "I sound like a friggin' idiot".

I think I'll blog off for now in the hopes that I'll figure out how to do this better as I go along.  More about the "Lobster Girl" thing in the next one.

-LG