Why I'm Participating in the 5th Annual Seattle Brain Cancer Walk

This year I will be participating in the 5th Annual Seattle Brain Cancer Walk, to benefit Pacific Northwest-based brain cancer research institutions working to find a cure. I also walked in it for the first time last year, and was able to raise over $1,000.00 for the cause. It is very exciting to be a part of this event, but in order for me to be successful I need the support of my friends and family to help me reach my goals.

Many of you may know that my younger sister, Catherine Halloran, was diagnosed with a very large malignant oligodendroglioma tumor in her frontal lobe in March of 2011. Only 2/3 of it was surgically removed, the rest of the tumor was inoperable. She has also suffered irreversible brain damage as a result of this large tumor enmeshing itself with her brain tumor. She underwent radiation therapy earlier this year, and is still struggling with some side effects of the medications she is on. There were also some new growths that could be seen on her latest MRI, we are awaiting further testing to find out what these are. The original tumor is not showing any new growth, so that is hopeful. Her disease is incurable, but through increased awareness and funding, hopefully someday nobody else will ever have to go through what she and our family have experienced.

Within the next 12 months, more than 22,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with a primary or metastatic brain tumor. Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer deaths among children and young adults, yet the research is desperately under-funded. My participation in the Seattle Brain Cancer Walk will not only be providing important financial support to crucial research, but will also help bring much needed public awareness to this horrible disease.

In the spirit of community support and in an effort to fund the most promising research possible, theproceeds from the event will be directed to Pacific Northwest-based brain cancer research projects and collaborations.

My personal fundraising goal is $1,000.00, and I am confident that I will reach it, but I know I can’t do it without your help! No donation is too big or too small, and I appreciate any support you can offer. Anyone is welcome to support my efforts, so please feel free the spread the word to your family and friends. The more people we can involve, the more money can be raised to fund vital research going on in the Pacific Northwest.

If you would like to donate online visit www.braincancerwalk.org and click the “Participant Search” button to find my participant fundraising page. If you would prefer to send your donation by mail please visit the Seattle Brain Cancer Walk website and click the “Donate” button to access the Mail-In Donation Form and follow the instructions contained in the document.

My personal fundraising page is here, and my team is called The Frontal Lopers:

http://community.swedish.org/page.aspx?pid=312&tab=0&frsid=12659

Thank you in advance for your support! Your gift will make a real difference in our fight against brain cancer.

Sincerely,

Helen H.

NOTE: All donations to the Seattle Brain Cancer Walk are tax-deductible.

Old Blog Post - For Chris Z.

An Oldie But a Goodie (from my old e-zine) - Fuck the Sonics!

I wrote this back in 1997 or 1998 when I used to live in a small 400 square foot basement coop apartment on lower Queen Anne. I always got lots of positive response from this (people find my outrage oh so hilarious), so I thought I'd repost it, since my old e-zine is currently collecting dust out there in cyberpsace... It's lonely - give it a visit & see some of the old band pix I used to take, some of them are currently being used as myspace profile shots. :)

FUCK THE SONICS! By: Helen H. (aka Miss Hell'N)

Let me just say this, loud and clear, once and for all. I hate organized professional sports. And do you know what I hate even more than organized professional sports? It's the fans! Yes, I hate you, you bloated, thick-necked baseball cap wearing idiot who comes into my neighborhood and clogs up all the streets with your goddam urban 4-wheel drive vehicles that you NEVER take off-road, and you come to the Key Arena, and you buy your over-priced NBA ticket, and you think you are helping the local economy. Think again, yard ape!

First off, I live one block away from the Key Arena. Yes, I know, I chose to live here. But I have a right to my piece of mind too! And I have the right to rant and rave and speak my mind as well. And hey, this is my e-zine, and you can bite me if you don't like it. I resent that I have to keep a Sonics schedule in my home and at my work, just so I know when I can and cannot drive my car. I resent your lazy couch-sitting t.v. viewing, Bud swilling ass sitting in a big-tired truck, honking at me when I am trying to drive somewhere, heaven forbid, on a "home game day." And I resent you and your buddies walking outside of my window, screaming at the top of your lungs in some bizarre future wife beater mating cry of "Woooooooooo!" at 2:30 in the morning. Just what the hell does that mean anyway? And just what kind of woman would respond to that?

Don't answer that, I already know the answer. Those tanning booth streaky-haired blondes who wear pale pink lipstick and walk around in packs, and wear blue jeans with high-healed black boots, and wear little black turtle-necks with some sort of blazer over the top. And they go to Mexico every year to work on their tans and drink heavily and get laid by other gross thick-necked men such as yourself, only it's not you, it's some surrogate beer beast. And they're really impressed with your over-priced car and your Billy Ray Cyrus haircut, and the money you spend on them. And when they're older, if you get married, they will walk around with you in matching NBA sports attire and yammer on incessantly about the bitch at work whose trying to get them, or the trip they want to take to Branson Missouri. And you will be tuning them out, thinking about how you can best suck in your enormous beer belly that has since drifted so far over your belt that you have no idea where your waist line really is.

I hate you and your friends. You always travel in hordes. And yell things at me like "I like to eat pussy!" And wonder why I shoot you a look that says "If I had an AK-47, I'd be spraying you and all these other sports-loving losers in the general vicinity full of lead!" You are a waste of precious DNA. Every breath that you take is robbing other living things of oxygen. And yet you thrive, and multiply, and prosper. This I cannot comprehend.

Why don't you wise up and realize that the industry you are supporting makes millions off of the backs of the poor and the middle class. Sports teams aren't about regional loyalty or pride. They are about huge profits and exploitation. Players don't give a rat's ass where they play, as long as they're getting paid and getting laid. Team owners don't care where the team ends up, they're just looking for the best way to line their pockets. And the city does NOT benefit financially from the presence of a major league sports team. The Seattle Opera brings in more revenue to the city than any of the organized sporting teams do.

And don't even get me started about the city subsidizing stadiums for privately owned teams. All I'm going to say is that the people voted NO on the Mariners stadium, and yet it is being constructed. And we are going to tear down the perfectly functional Kingdome and put another stadium in it's place. How many stadiums does this town need? Don't we have schools that are in such disrepair that they are not earthquake safe? Aren't our roads chock full of potholes? Haven't we needed a new library for about 15 years now? Isn't there a huge shortage of affordable and low income housing in this city? Who the hell cares? Let's build another fucking stadium! Subsidized vanity projects for the rich! Hey, I want to open a record store in this damn town, will the city build one for me and give me some tax breaks? I seriously doubt it. Organized sports are a PRIVATE business, and should be treated with no more special favors than any other industry. I know that's a radical idea to you rabid sports fans, but hey, call me crazy.

Anyhow, this is why I say, fuck the Sonics! I don't want them to win the playoffs and advance to another round of games. I am sick and tired of idiots roaming the streets of my neighborhood and throwing their money at people who are already millionaires. Wise up! Stay home! And get the hell out of my neighborhood!

The Typing Monkey: "Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go."

The Typing Monkey: "Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go."

Shocked and Stunned, RIP my dear friend Scott

This morning I awoke to the shocking news that my good friend Scott had suffered a massive stroke late last night and underwent surgery. A few hours later I heard from reliable sources that he had not survived and was gone.

I'm going to try and explain just what Scott meant to me in my life, and of course these words will be inadequate to fully convey this. I have not yet lost someone that has been this dear to me and I am still processing this, so please bear with me.

At various times in my life he was a social director, a co-writer of songs, a boyfriend, a sounding board, a rock I could lean on, but most of all a friend I could always count on for love and support.

I first met Scott in the early 1980s when I was just starting to hang out in the small Seattle punk rock scene. My friend Diane introduced me to him, and he quickly became a good friend, introducing me to people and inviting me to parties. Some of my fondest memories of this time include:

• Chicken fighting on his shoulders with Diane and Kurt Kendall from Girl Trouble at the Tropicana in Olympia
• Driving around endlessly in my 1978 white Toyota Corolla, looking for parties that Scott didn't exactly know where the address was, but was sure that the house was in this area, somewhere...
• Scott for a time always had a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps with him wherever he'd go...
• The way that he would open beer bottles with the buckle on his green leather jacket, to impress girls...
  
• Going to parties and watching Scott load up the pockets of his coat with a few extra beers, so he always had some, even after the beer ran out
• How for a time, he referred to himself as "Ride" because he was "along for the ride..."
  
• Kissing for the first time at a party where Nisqually Delta Podunk Nightmare was playing, and getting amused, knowing glances from our friends who were there (who had suspected that we were attracted to one another)
  
• Writing songs together with titles like "Satan's Constipated Again" and "Sid's Sins" which was actually a pretty good song that Doll Squad ended up playing
• Scott standing in front at every Doll Squad show yelling something like "show us your tits" or something equally classy that would make me laugh
• Watching "Headbangers Ball" late at night when we would get home after a show and alternately laughing at, and enjoying the videos on that show
• Missing a Redd Kross show at the Central Tavern because I had just gotten back from a trip, and he had missed me and so we, well, spent a lot of time together, fell asleep, and then showed up when the show was completely over
• Watching The Rutles video so many times that we could recite it by heart (Scott would understand and laugh at the title I chose for this blog)
  

Scott and I were a couple for about three years from 1986 to 1989. We were friends for about three years prior to being together, and remained friends after we broke up until the present. Throughout the years we've had times where we didn't see each other for a while, but then we'd always get back in touch and hang out when we could. We never lost the mutual respect and affection we had for each other, and could easily fall back into our familiar easiness with one another no matter how much time had lapsed.

I remember him being there for me at a time in 2001 when I was upset because a certain group of people who I thought were my friends turned on me - he was there to assure me that I was a good person and hadn't done anything to deserve that sort of treatment. He was a great friend to me when I went through a bad breakup of a five year relationship. He was also there the night that I became romantically involved with my wonderful boyfriend Rich, who he also ended up befriending. I cannot express enough how much his support has meant to me throughout the years.

Scott had this amazing ability to be a friend to everyone. Over the years, I came to appreciate his gift for putting people at ease and his ability to make everyone laugh. I would give anything to see his big smile again, and hear him laugh loudly. There are so many things that will remind me of him, and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to share so much of my life with such a warm and loving person.

Rest in peace my dear friend.

I performed my first wedding!

You may already know this, but I became an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church in 2000. I did it as kind of a joke - a friend of mine had the idea that he wanted to "marry rock & roll" and I told him I'd get ordained & perform the ceremony - I held up my end of the bargain. He, however, chickened out. (I thought it was a brilliant idea, and I still think somebody should do this!)

I sort of forgot that I had "the power" to perform marriage ceremonies, and then my friend Doug told me that he & his girlfriend Danielle were going to get married. I mentioned to him that I was an ordained minister, and lo & behold, suddenly I was committed to performing my first marriage ceremony.

I was pretty nervous about this - afterall you don't want to do anything wrong when you're performing a legal life-changing ceremony. Surprisingly, the rules in Washington state are pretty simple regarding getting married - the couple needs to get a license within 60 days of the actual marriage, and they don't require that the officiant even provide their credentials. (I did give the couple a copy of my credentials, just to be on the safe side...)

Doug & Danielle put together their vows, and we got together a couple of weeks prior to the ceremony to go through them. Much to my horror, I kept on calling her Diane, because I'm friends with another couple named Doug & Diane. So I revised the vows & put Danielle's name in all caps, just to remind myself not to say the wrong name. That was my greatest fear, that I would flub her name - that would've been horrible.

Anyhow, yesterday (April 7th) was the date of the ceremony, and we had the rehearsal the afternoon of April 6th. The weather on Friday (April 6th) was gorgeous - it was sunny all day and the temperature even reached 80 degrees, a rarity for April in Seattle. Everyone was so optomistic that Saturday would also be gorgeous - no such luck!

I didn't have to be at the venue until 12:30 (the start time was 1:00 p.m.), and my morning was pretty hectic - I went to a spin class from hell at 8:15 a.m. (the slowest time in the world is the time you spend in a spin cycle class), and then I had a deep tissue massage scheduled for 10:00 a.m. I got in & out of my class (and the shower - thought that might be a good idea prior to a massage) and to my massage therapist's office by 10:00, but she was running late. Aargh - I had precious little time in between all of my comittments, and I had to be dressed, made up & out of my home by 12:00 p.m. or so. She wanted to extend my appointment (and I could've used it, my upper back was a mess, and it still is) but I had to get out of there.

I made it home quickly (which anyone familiar with Seattle traffic knows can be a minor miracle on any day of the week) and got dressed & ready by noon. My boyfriend showed up a few minutes later, and we made it to the venue by 12:30.

The weather looked pretty iffy when I got up - it was gray, but was not raining & the temperature was fairly warm. But by the time we got to the Lakeside (which is where the ceremony was being held), what had been a sporadic amount of drizzle had turned into a downpour. The chairs & flower arch were all set up outside, and nobody was sure whether or not we were going to try & move the ceremony under a tent, or just go for it. The couple decided to delay for a few minutes, and that turned out to be a good move because the rain finally started to let up.

Thankfully the ceremony was fairly short, and it turned out to be pretty appropriate for the situation. I walked down the aisle with Doug, and I got all teary eyed when Danielle started walking down the aisle to Etta James' "At Last." We opted to use a microphone because there is a lot of ambient noise on Lake Union, so I had to hold the microphone, and the binder that held the vows, which we hadn't practiced, so I felt a little akward about that. We made a last minute decision to have the best man, Danny, hold the rings until they were ready to exchange them. Originally I was going to hold them during the ring vows, but it would've been kind of hard to hold all of these items & not fumble them. I was fairly nervous throughout the whole thing, at one point I noticed that my knees were clenching & unclenching, and weird little things like that. But I kept on having to remind myself that I was merely a facilitator, nobody was really looking at me, etc. Somehow I made it through the ceremony - and I never called Danielle Diane!

Here are the vows that Doug & Danielle created, and they're very nice. I can take no credit for this:

Helen: Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to the wedding of Douglas and Danielle.
Doug and Danielle have chosen this spot to announce their love and commitment for each other,
And to the world.
Marriage is a solemn commitment made by two people that holds the hope
And promise of a lifetime of togetherness.
Their lifetime will hold many trials and tribulations.
Just as the waves of the ocean pass over,
So hard times will pass over this couple.
Be strong, and like the mountains of our region you will last.
Stand together and you can face any storm that comes your way.
Support each other, and soon you will have a smooth path to walk again.
We who are witnessing your marriage,
Hope that your love and respect,
Your trust and understanding,
Will shine through any adversities,
And sing out with the true love and joy that is in your hearts.

Helen: Do you Doug,
Take Danielle to be your wife?
Will you stand together during rough seas,
Mountain storms,
Torrential down pours,
And desert winds?
Will you also stand together during the sunrises,
Sunsets,
And the many blessings and beauty
That the world may bring to you?

Doug: I will.

Helen: Do you Danielle,
Take Doug to be your husband?
Will you stand together during rough seas,
Mountain storms,
Torrential down pours,
And desert winds?
Will you also stand together during the sunrises,
Sunsets,
And the many blessings and beauty
That the world may bring to you?

Danielle: I will.

Helen: The wedding ring is a symbolic icon.
Alone the ring is just a piece of metal
Heated and formed without love.
But today,
We will transform these cold pieces of metal
Into beautiful symbols
Of everlasting love.
They will be placed on your fingers
And shine forth like a beacon in the storm
Shouting out that you are not alone in this world,
That you have someone to share your life with.
When you are apart from each other
Let this symbol shine in your heart
As well as on your hand.
This symbol that says you have chosen each other
Above all others.

Doug: Danielle,
I give you this ring as a symbol of our vows,
And with all that I am
And all that I have,
I honor you.
Please receive this ring
As a symbol of my love
And as a constant reminder
That I have chosen you
Above all others
To be the one to share my life.

Danielle: Doug,
I give you this ring as a symbol of our vows,
And with all that I am
And all that I have,
I honor you.
Please receive this ring
As a symbol of my love
And as a constant reminder
That I have chosen you
Above all others
To be the one to share my life.

Helen: I would like to read
An Apache blessing for this marriage:
Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons,
But there is only one life before you.
May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead
And through all the years.
May happiness be your companion
And your days together be good and long upon the earth.

Helen: You all have been given the pleasure
Of witnessing this very special occasion
That formally announces
The marriage of Doug and Danielle.
Now they have spoken their vows to each other
And given their promises.
They have declared that they are in love
And they will live together in holy matrimony.
They now wear the rings of love on their hands
And in their hearts.
So, by the authority vested in me,
I now pronounce them to be Husband and Wife. Doug, you may kiss your bride

Helen: Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to present to you
For the first time as husband and wife
Doug and Danielle

***********************
Whew! We all made it through without any major catastrophies, the rain didn't ruin things for anyone, and even provided some comic relief as the vows mention "torrential down pours." It was very meaningful for me to have been able to perform a marriage ceremony for Doug & Danielle, they are wonderful people. I don't think I'll be starting a wedding officiant business anytime soon, but it is pretty special to be able to do this for people who are your friends.

If I get any photos of the ceremony, I will post them later to this blog, and possibly on my web site.

The coolest thing I've seen this week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN51VU-Zf5M

Laziness...

So I was going to get so much done on my days off in between jobs - ha! So far I've gotten absolutely nothing done. Unless you count 2 loads of laundry which I haven't even hung up yet. Yipe! I had envisioned getting all sorts of productive things done - cleaning & organizing my place, organizing & purging my paperwork & files, doing touch-up painting that needs to be done, purging the extra things I have & downsizing my belongings... why oh why can't I find the motivation to do these things? I think I need to have activities on my calendar in order to get myself to accomplish things. Otherwise, there's no pressing reason for me to tackle certain tasks, so I don't do that. Ay yi yi. Okay, I'll post this blog entry, and then try to get something accomplished here. Or else get a maid! :)