Pardon my misspellings of drunkenness, but let me make a point. I have, and have never had, any choice about my hieght. Genectics and all...Now whereas I fight it, let me assure you you are correct, I can do something about my weight. It's hard, but possible to loose a few pounds, but inches....?
So recently I had a couple leaveing the restaurant say this:
"Did anyone ever tell you you were tall?"
I flashed, unwillingly, to all those people who called me amazon, who called me jolly green giant (whose vegetables to this day i cannot buy) to all the paper wads and name calling I received....
And I said, in some sort of flippant moment at 6ft 2in..."No,why?"
Both of the members of this couple stopped dead to say, "Uhm, cause you are."
I replied, in my best confused, dumb blonde voice, "Really?"
Yeah, dumb asses, I know, and have been told every day since 6th grade at least. It's the reason they threw stuff at me, the reason everyone made fun of me and the reason i never had a boyfriend. Yeah, after all these years, you are not the first to tell me....but i didin't say that.
This startled couple left the retaurant but not my mind.
What I thought about though, was a lady at church.
She put my mom into a panic. In sixth grade she mentioned to my mom..."gigantism."
My mom took me to a growth specialist. They found out i didn't have gigantism, thank the gods, but however, they could give me some hormones.
"I'll take them." I said.
Let me explain what they do....
"Yes, I'll take them...."I stressed...
"well they will stop your growth (at somewhere between 5 ft 9 aqnd 5 ft 10) but there are some side effects."
"I'll take them," I repeated.
"The side effects can include breast enlargement, etc etc, tenderness here and there, etc"
"I'll take them." I again made clear.
"Also there is this and that...oh and you'll need a pelvic exham."
"What?"
"Before taking them you'll need a standard pelvic exham."
"a what?" I asked at the bright age of sixth grade.
They explained it.
I said, "Nevermind."
I was so frightened at this age at somthing that would become, as they explained, standard at older ages, that i said...."Uhm, what? No."
My mom became frightened that i had lost my virginity, something that wouldn't happen until after graduation although she couldn't know. That I said no.
I said yes to my biggest fear, in fear of someting that at that age sounded worse.
What i have now, is hindsight.
I refused the drug, on fear of the exam, which sounded so dreadful.
What was my gain/loss?
4 inches.
What is four inches?
everything.
Now, four inches would have made me shorter than my ex-husband, the same hight as my current boyfriend.
How many choices is that, unmade for me, made for others, that could have been avoided?
Too many to count.
I know girls 5ft 9, 5 ft 10, and they have normal lives and can buy clothes at walmart.......I must go to different stores=sometimes specialty stores...
My sister is less than me, and more...
Was that my life if I had not been frighteneed?
Few know of the hormone therapy choice i made then...now all of you do.
now you know....how many nights I have been up wondering about those four avoidable inches.
Did they make my life?
Or curse it?
Was god's DNA meant to be lead out, or thwarted?
I am who i am..
But would four inches made me happier? more confident? more normal?
More normal yes. More girl-like, yes. better?
I'll never know. but I think that yes..better.
It's my curse, these four inches, avoidable inches.
But now they are a part of me, my life.
And there are days you cannot know how they hurt.
Tall sizes are for up to 5 ft 11.
I'd have fit that, not been 3 inches above even the tall sizes at all the department stores.
I'd have been their high end of normal.
All for a choice, I was expected to make at 11.
Easy to say now, I want that choice back.
But then, to spread for strangers, that would prod my truly virgin soul.
At that age, I know, I made the right choice. I was too young.
But now,
I'd give ANYTHING for those measlesly four inches.
Measure for once, your life in inches.
What is an inch?
Everything.....in a child's dignity.
Even more in an adult's soul.
Who knew that exchange then?
How could I?
Today, now, I am just below 6 ft 2. My joke is that I am 5 ft 13 and a half.
Aren't I funny? How witty.
My soul....measured in four inches.
My life...years of those four inches.
Never ask what if...the answer for your self image may be more questions than you can handle.
Everyday, I remember that day.
"I don't care what it is, make me stop." What? What did you say the price was?
Know your limits.
Know yourself,
And you want the Houdini of tricks?
Love yourself anyway.....every fucking son of a bitch, god cursing, self image-harming inch.
Whatever your curse...look back, you may be surprised how much choice you had.
I have all my functioning fully formed arms, legs, mind, even clit....seriously there are more unfortunate...
It hurts, dear god it hurts.
Give thanks for your four inches of hurt. Fuck, it could be worse.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Embarrassment to the Species
Shades of Grey. That is the name of the world's stupidest, most cowardly, completely devoid of all the instincts innate to its species, cat. The cat actually belongs to my boyfriend. My presence in the apartment when we first started hanging out as friends post my divorce, terrified her even while I was two rooms away.
Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!
The only way I could have been more threatening, sitting on the couch watching tv, is if I decided to vaccuum. This is a wrongness most species understand, in fact, I myself share the aversion to the appliance.
The things that scare Shades most: anything on the floor. Heaven forbid if the item is *ugh* fluffy. She tentativly reaches out a paw, not actually touching of course, and rears back as if the sweater is in fact a stricking cobra. There is one exception to the floor, plastic bags. Those are friendly and should be slept on or chewed on, or both. She, in her 'fluffy bad' concept, also avoids like the plague the bed, as it tends to be populated by a comforter, an enemy best avoided with poofed tail and big eyes.
Once several years ago, her instincts fired. She is not prey! I am a cat--a predator! (this story was related to me by my boyfriend, as it is before we met.) She was out on the back deck, on the rail, when a pigeon alighted. Time to wax on-wax off, said her kitty brain. She stalked...slowly..so slowly stalked up to it. Succesfull at sneaking up on the head bobbing bird, she swatted it with her clawless front paw. The bird bobbed a step away, and turned toward the odd furball to its left. It need not have bothered, Shades had already retreated in a fluff of panic back into the house. Instincts had said strike, she did, and aaaeeeiiyyyaaahh instincts were WRONG! Thank god she got away before the demon could breathe fire back at her.
It took us about a year to make friends. After she got to where she would let me pet her and such ( a big point for me as I worried that my boyfriend might dump a girl his cat didn't like) I decided to buy my way further into her heart. Inspired by a friend's story of becoming what he called "treat machine" to his wife's beagle pup, I began occasionally buying the cans of wet food.
This was a good move, not only am I in good graces, it taught her to read a calendar. I fed a can to her every other day, and now, every other day, she begins to pay special attention to me, knowing the good stuff is coming.
I know that my boyfriend puts high stock in his brother, with whom he is very close. Knowing that the brother must approve of me, I think I'll begin to bring him cake or beer every other day or something. Though, having him wake me up every other day meowing at me, might become annoying.
Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!
The only way I could have been more threatening, sitting on the couch watching tv, is if I decided to vaccuum. This is a wrongness most species understand, in fact, I myself share the aversion to the appliance.
The things that scare Shades most: anything on the floor. Heaven forbid if the item is *ugh* fluffy. She tentativly reaches out a paw, not actually touching of course, and rears back as if the sweater is in fact a stricking cobra. There is one exception to the floor, plastic bags. Those are friendly and should be slept on or chewed on, or both. She, in her 'fluffy bad' concept, also avoids like the plague the bed, as it tends to be populated by a comforter, an enemy best avoided with poofed tail and big eyes.
Once several years ago, her instincts fired. She is not prey! I am a cat--a predator! (this story was related to me by my boyfriend, as it is before we met.) She was out on the back deck, on the rail, when a pigeon alighted. Time to wax on-wax off, said her kitty brain. She stalked...slowly..so slowly stalked up to it. Succesfull at sneaking up on the head bobbing bird, she swatted it with her clawless front paw. The bird bobbed a step away, and turned toward the odd furball to its left. It need not have bothered, Shades had already retreated in a fluff of panic back into the house. Instincts had said strike, she did, and aaaeeeiiyyyaaahh instincts were WRONG! Thank god she got away before the demon could breathe fire back at her.
It took us about a year to make friends. After she got to where she would let me pet her and such ( a big point for me as I worried that my boyfriend might dump a girl his cat didn't like) I decided to buy my way further into her heart. Inspired by a friend's story of becoming what he called "treat machine" to his wife's beagle pup, I began occasionally buying the cans of wet food.
This was a good move, not only am I in good graces, it taught her to read a calendar. I fed a can to her every other day, and now, every other day, she begins to pay special attention to me, knowing the good stuff is coming.
I know that my boyfriend puts high stock in his brother, with whom he is very close. Knowing that the brother must approve of me, I think I'll begin to bring him cake or beer every other day or something. Though, having him wake me up every other day meowing at me, might become annoying.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
getting there
So, not too surprisingly, this is the world's least entertaining, most boring blog. It's not an accident, and anyone who knows me would tell you my personality, the way I am in real life, is far from boring. I don't mean I'm the most fantastic person you could meet (although many drunks have told me so, some without even slurring or drooling that much.) No instead my personality leans toward the annoyingly melodramtic.
So why is my blog different? Several reasons. I rant and rave in person to let off steam, so well...no steam brewing right now. Two, I actually write more coherently (and spell and punctuate better) when I'm calm. Any state of excitement or anxiety makes run on sentences paragraphs long that even I cannot later make sense of. Three, and here's the biggie, I'm kinda private actually.
That last line has sent all my friends, hell even my aquaintances, into gales of disbelieving laughter. But there's a big difference between what I will say (and how I carefully word it) in person, and what I'm willing to have recorded. Recorded. In court, someone types EVERYTHING down, you know, the court recorder. It's legal; it's binding.
Writing real things down doesn't allow me to convince you later you misunderstood me. Or, well I was being melodramatic. Or, I was hyperbolizing at the time, you know, to be funny. Or the always popular, Geez, I cannot believe you bought anything I said while drunk! Yes, my reality baring conversation was your foolishness, you silly, you!
In college, being that writing was my major concentration, I took amongst other things, poetry classes. I write the absolute most boring poetry. (this blog is a real page turner by comparison.) I wrote about, oh I don't know, the sky or picnic tables at parks before I'd write about the day I stared at the sky asking the great beyond why my Grandad died, or what it felt like to have a man older and smarter than me, an accountant, decided to make a move on me while sitting on the picnic table at our supposedly platonic picnic. The real things were to real, too accountable, to record where just any fool could read it, critique the poem, or *gasp* critique ME.
One of the reasons I'm a horrible blogger is I've never journaled in any way before. It's not in my innate nature, for the above reasons. Even in a private journal, I'D have to face it again, and that wreaks havoc on my preferred methods of denial. I'm gifted with a fantatastic memory, so I don't need a record for myself. And the things that fade out in my mind, fade for a darn good reason, thank you.
"Hey, girl, remember that time you got drunk and danced on the pool table half naked?" Hmm, I cannot possible recall what you mean.---Yes, that works nicely. As opposed to: Hey girl, remember that post where you recorded for all mankind and prosterity the time you got drunk and....well you see my point.
No, this isn't an excuse for my boring blog. It's partially an explanation, but more aptly it is both an appeal for patience, and a warning/introduction for what is to come.
Oddly, I am now very aware that I started this blog because I was inspired by the open bravery of a friend's blog. (www.barenada.com) I think I want to try this, a sort of open forum of exposure, meant to get some things off my chest, invite commentary, make some realities permanant to me, and yea, even get a bit o writing practice in.
If you've already given up, cool 'nough. Who'd blame you? I was aware, as I stated in my first post, that I may well be the only one who ever reads this, but facing these things myself is a good enough reason to write. But, I do now have an intention, to write more intimate thoughts, to record some inner worries, to admit some things to myself and the world.
And now that I've written the above--recorded that intent for all mankind--I've made step one. I'm getting there.
So why is my blog different? Several reasons. I rant and rave in person to let off steam, so well...no steam brewing right now. Two, I actually write more coherently (and spell and punctuate better) when I'm calm. Any state of excitement or anxiety makes run on sentences paragraphs long that even I cannot later make sense of. Three, and here's the biggie, I'm kinda private actually.
That last line has sent all my friends, hell even my aquaintances, into gales of disbelieving laughter. But there's a big difference between what I will say (and how I carefully word it) in person, and what I'm willing to have recorded. Recorded. In court, someone types EVERYTHING down, you know, the court recorder. It's legal; it's binding.
Writing real things down doesn't allow me to convince you later you misunderstood me. Or, well I was being melodramatic. Or, I was hyperbolizing at the time, you know, to be funny. Or the always popular, Geez, I cannot believe you bought anything I said while drunk! Yes, my reality baring conversation was your foolishness, you silly, you!
In college, being that writing was my major concentration, I took amongst other things, poetry classes. I write the absolute most boring poetry. (this blog is a real page turner by comparison.) I wrote about, oh I don't know, the sky or picnic tables at parks before I'd write about the day I stared at the sky asking the great beyond why my Grandad died, or what it felt like to have a man older and smarter than me, an accountant, decided to make a move on me while sitting on the picnic table at our supposedly platonic picnic. The real things were to real, too accountable, to record where just any fool could read it, critique the poem, or *gasp* critique ME.
One of the reasons I'm a horrible blogger is I've never journaled in any way before. It's not in my innate nature, for the above reasons. Even in a private journal, I'D have to face it again, and that wreaks havoc on my preferred methods of denial. I'm gifted with a fantatastic memory, so I don't need a record for myself. And the things that fade out in my mind, fade for a darn good reason, thank you.
"Hey, girl, remember that time you got drunk and danced on the pool table half naked?" Hmm, I cannot possible recall what you mean.---Yes, that works nicely. As opposed to: Hey girl, remember that post where you recorded for all mankind and prosterity the time you got drunk and....well you see my point.
No, this isn't an excuse for my boring blog. It's partially an explanation, but more aptly it is both an appeal for patience, and a warning/introduction for what is to come.
Oddly, I am now very aware that I started this blog because I was inspired by the open bravery of a friend's blog. (www.barenada.com) I think I want to try this, a sort of open forum of exposure, meant to get some things off my chest, invite commentary, make some realities permanant to me, and yea, even get a bit o writing practice in.
If you've already given up, cool 'nough. Who'd blame you? I was aware, as I stated in my first post, that I may well be the only one who ever reads this, but facing these things myself is a good enough reason to write. But, I do now have an intention, to write more intimate thoughts, to record some inner worries, to admit some things to myself and the world.
And now that I've written the above--recorded that intent for all mankind--I've made step one. I'm getting there.
The Beginning of (my) Gaming
To write a blog about myself and not include something about my gaming would be as remiss as writing a relationship blog and never mentioning I was female. However, to write about a topic that became so vast in my life, one should start at the beginning, and so here it is.
I was born in 1971, I can remember the Iran hostage affair as the "moment of silence" it would bring into my second-grade day's life. I, therefore, remember all the big things of the eighties as childhood memories, having finished out the decade by graduating high school in 1990, as if to perfectly coincide my leaving childhood with leaving that decade, so yeah, I had an atari.
We got it when I was in fifth grade, or perhaps a bit before. I enjoyed it, and played many games both that my father bought or I would occasionally trade, library loaning style, with my freinds. I remember several favorites, but the real winner for me was called Adventure. My avatar was a cube, but I got to fight dragons and unlock castles. The fault was after a while, the game became old--something I could do in my sleep. It's world was static, not randomly generated, so it was pretty much the same everytime.
I also enjoyed racing games, and as a side note must say I sort of miss the simplicity of them. You got a poorly represented car, then you tried to go fast without wrecking. The physics of those games were stupidly simple, but I sort long for the days when I could just load up and race. Now, I must spend time tweaking my suspension and engine and whatnot before ever getting to a track. I asked for more realism, now I want less--isn't that just the way. Remember when a football game asked you before a play, 'run, pass, punt?' Now I can control every man on my team, and I both love and hate Madden's NFL for giving me what I wanted and making me work at it.
We did get a computer somewhere in the middle of the decade, but we got an IBM pc, which at the time and for my age group was lame. (it was in fact more adaptable and powerful that my friend's comodores and apples,) but getting games for it wasn't all that easy. It was a work comp, not a gaming comp. Remember there wasn't a best buy and gamestop on every corner, the comp gaming had yet to boom, and my allowance was something like 50 cents a week. So I played a lot of text only star trek and castle wolfenstien (oh yes, there was one before the fps, btw.) but otherwise spent my time learning to program in basic drawing kitty cats that would move across the screen.
We didn't have a nintendo, but most of my friend's did, and I was temporarily addicted to Mario, despite my complete lack of competence at hand-eye coordination. So I finished the decade as I came into it, not gaming.
In the early 90's my dad had been given by a workmate some computer game he wanted me to try. I repeatedly refused. I do not like the pointlessness of spending my time at the computer gaming. It's stupid. No, Dad, not interested. Ok, fine, what is this game called again? Doom? What a stupid name. ....Now enter a few weeks of solid living in my basement killing demons with cool weapons. LOVED IT! Then, after those weeks, left it.
The latter half of the nineties had me again not interested in gaming, but in 97 I married a man addicted to them. It was fine, he did that, I did other things. I then read an article about a game once panned by all critics but was the best selling game of all time until the Sims unseated it years later, Myst. Now, THAT was awesome, but it had no real replayability, and there wasn't much else like it, at least not of the same caliber, so again, I remembered I didn't like gaming.
Then the game that changed it all for me, Diablo. Diablo was different, I was a person, not a cube, and I could be several types of persons. My diablo stories are a post all their own, and maybe I'll let you in on how lame I was at it at a later date, but for now the important thing about Diablo was it set the stage for the passing fad to become a raging addiction.
One evening I got up from TV to see what hubby was doing. He was playing a game. It had people, set in a medievil sort of place, and he was sewing things to make money. He walks up to another little person and asked a question. The answer was amazing.
"Wow," I said, "that game has a very sophisticated dialog tree."
"No," he explained, "that is an actual person. That's why."
Well, that was silly, how would a person be able to contact him like that while he was playing a game? He explained the game was over the internet, and people all over the world were hooked up, doing the same sort of thing he was, and he could talk to them.
"And those clothes you are sewing...you can wear them?" I ask. He changes his little avatar's outfit.
"Whoah! it's like Barbies with swords! I soooo have to try that!"
The game was called Ultima Online, and was what is now called an MMORPG, massively multi-player online role playing game.
He warned me, as I was not the gaming type, that it was complicated and hard to learn, and required lots of time. Well, long story short, I played it for years, had three accounts, four houses, and did volunteer work for the company that ran it.
Since then, I've played many non MMORPG's. The other pieces in the Myst series, the Civilazation series, other role playing games, but my fav is still the MMORPG's. I've played and beta-tested many of them. I've played, oh let's see, Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Dark Ages of Camelot, Sims Online, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, and a smattering of others. Some of them I can remember the worlds and my characters, but the name of the game escapes me. And currently, I am playing World of Warcraft. I've played around with Lord of the Rings Online and Guildwars, but not enough to really mention.
A couple of years ago I was on a panel at a sci-fi/fantasy gaming convention (I actually did three panels that year) on online gaming, particularly the aspect of female gaming. Female gamers are well on the rise, and have been for years, but we are still a minority in the game world.
I still think of them as Barbies with swords. As a child I loved Barbie dolls. My sister and myself would dress them up and spend hours out of our days constructing storylines for them. At least one storyline lasted for months. Our dolls didn't have weddings or tea-parties. They were warrior princesses, sometimes mages, that adventured out to save their kingdoms. It's the fun of make-believe with the social aspect of playing with others, and like I said, there's lots of swords and weaponry.
Online Gaming is often considered the province of geeky high school children and college kids bored between classes, but I have played these games with lawyers, physicists, teachers, and other professionals rangin in age from my own children (my eldest daughter started playing UO at 4) to people in their fifties, of many genders and several nationalities. I once had a guy in Singapore I used to play with all the time, and he had schooled in his youth at Oxford, and I still miss my old buddy from Everquest who could play with me in the early mornings because he lived in Australia. There was the french woman who I couldn't hardly speak with due to our only having a smattering of each other's language. Everytime I healed her she'd reply, mbc--just like we say ty, when we mean merci.
These games have nicknames, Evercrack, World of Warcrack, because of their addictiveness. South Park dedicated an entire episode to WoW. They are big business. There are people who are actually employed to play these games, because the games' money have the highest exchange rate on the planet. You can spend real life money to buy money and items in game--very irritating to those of us who play, but a reality nonetheless. You can buy characters and accounts even.
Getting to enjoy these games in your life while still enjoying your real life is a trick that took me a while to learn, and some people never do, but I'm glad I have that excapism personally.
I was born in 1971, I can remember the Iran hostage affair as the "moment of silence" it would bring into my second-grade day's life. I, therefore, remember all the big things of the eighties as childhood memories, having finished out the decade by graduating high school in 1990, as if to perfectly coincide my leaving childhood with leaving that decade, so yeah, I had an atari.
We got it when I was in fifth grade, or perhaps a bit before. I enjoyed it, and played many games both that my father bought or I would occasionally trade, library loaning style, with my freinds. I remember several favorites, but the real winner for me was called Adventure. My avatar was a cube, but I got to fight dragons and unlock castles. The fault was after a while, the game became old--something I could do in my sleep. It's world was static, not randomly generated, so it was pretty much the same everytime.
I also enjoyed racing games, and as a side note must say I sort of miss the simplicity of them. You got a poorly represented car, then you tried to go fast without wrecking. The physics of those games were stupidly simple, but I sort long for the days when I could just load up and race. Now, I must spend time tweaking my suspension and engine and whatnot before ever getting to a track. I asked for more realism, now I want less--isn't that just the way. Remember when a football game asked you before a play, 'run, pass, punt?' Now I can control every man on my team, and I both love and hate Madden's NFL for giving me what I wanted and making me work at it.
We did get a computer somewhere in the middle of the decade, but we got an IBM pc, which at the time and for my age group was lame. (it was in fact more adaptable and powerful that my friend's comodores and apples,) but getting games for it wasn't all that easy. It was a work comp, not a gaming comp. Remember there wasn't a best buy and gamestop on every corner, the comp gaming had yet to boom, and my allowance was something like 50 cents a week. So I played a lot of text only star trek and castle wolfenstien (oh yes, there was one before the fps, btw.) but otherwise spent my time learning to program in basic drawing kitty cats that would move across the screen.
We didn't have a nintendo, but most of my friend's did, and I was temporarily addicted to Mario, despite my complete lack of competence at hand-eye coordination. So I finished the decade as I came into it, not gaming.
In the early 90's my dad had been given by a workmate some computer game he wanted me to try. I repeatedly refused. I do not like the pointlessness of spending my time at the computer gaming. It's stupid. No, Dad, not interested. Ok, fine, what is this game called again? Doom? What a stupid name. ....Now enter a few weeks of solid living in my basement killing demons with cool weapons. LOVED IT! Then, after those weeks, left it.
The latter half of the nineties had me again not interested in gaming, but in 97 I married a man addicted to them. It was fine, he did that, I did other things. I then read an article about a game once panned by all critics but was the best selling game of all time until the Sims unseated it years later, Myst. Now, THAT was awesome, but it had no real replayability, and there wasn't much else like it, at least not of the same caliber, so again, I remembered I didn't like gaming.
Then the game that changed it all for me, Diablo. Diablo was different, I was a person, not a cube, and I could be several types of persons. My diablo stories are a post all their own, and maybe I'll let you in on how lame I was at it at a later date, but for now the important thing about Diablo was it set the stage for the passing fad to become a raging addiction.
One evening I got up from TV to see what hubby was doing. He was playing a game. It had people, set in a medievil sort of place, and he was sewing things to make money. He walks up to another little person and asked a question. The answer was amazing.
"Wow," I said, "that game has a very sophisticated dialog tree."
"No," he explained, "that is an actual person. That's why."
Well, that was silly, how would a person be able to contact him like that while he was playing a game? He explained the game was over the internet, and people all over the world were hooked up, doing the same sort of thing he was, and he could talk to them.
"And those clothes you are sewing...you can wear them?" I ask. He changes his little avatar's outfit.
"Whoah! it's like Barbies with swords! I soooo have to try that!"
The game was called Ultima Online, and was what is now called an MMORPG, massively multi-player online role playing game.
He warned me, as I was not the gaming type, that it was complicated and hard to learn, and required lots of time. Well, long story short, I played it for years, had three accounts, four houses, and did volunteer work for the company that ran it.
Since then, I've played many non MMORPG's. The other pieces in the Myst series, the Civilazation series, other role playing games, but my fav is still the MMORPG's. I've played and beta-tested many of them. I've played, oh let's see, Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Dark Ages of Camelot, Sims Online, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, and a smattering of others. Some of them I can remember the worlds and my characters, but the name of the game escapes me. And currently, I am playing World of Warcraft. I've played around with Lord of the Rings Online and Guildwars, but not enough to really mention.
A couple of years ago I was on a panel at a sci-fi/fantasy gaming convention (I actually did three panels that year) on online gaming, particularly the aspect of female gaming. Female gamers are well on the rise, and have been for years, but we are still a minority in the game world.
I still think of them as Barbies with swords. As a child I loved Barbie dolls. My sister and myself would dress them up and spend hours out of our days constructing storylines for them. At least one storyline lasted for months. Our dolls didn't have weddings or tea-parties. They were warrior princesses, sometimes mages, that adventured out to save their kingdoms. It's the fun of make-believe with the social aspect of playing with others, and like I said, there's lots of swords and weaponry.
Online Gaming is often considered the province of geeky high school children and college kids bored between classes, but I have played these games with lawyers, physicists, teachers, and other professionals rangin in age from my own children (my eldest daughter started playing UO at 4) to people in their fifties, of many genders and several nationalities. I once had a guy in Singapore I used to play with all the time, and he had schooled in his youth at Oxford, and I still miss my old buddy from Everquest who could play with me in the early mornings because he lived in Australia. There was the french woman who I couldn't hardly speak with due to our only having a smattering of each other's language. Everytime I healed her she'd reply, mbc--just like we say ty, when we mean merci.
These games have nicknames, Evercrack, World of Warcrack, because of their addictiveness. South Park dedicated an entire episode to WoW. They are big business. There are people who are actually employed to play these games, because the games' money have the highest exchange rate on the planet. You can spend real life money to buy money and items in game--very irritating to those of us who play, but a reality nonetheless. You can buy characters and accounts even.
Getting to enjoy these games in your life while still enjoying your real life is a trick that took me a while to learn, and some people never do, but I'm glad I have that excapism personally.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Work, sort of. Rant, definately.
So I returned to work post-surgery in the third week of August, but due to not having full strength back in my shoulder/arm, I'm hosting instead of serving. The very first job I ever had in a restaurant, oh so many years ago, was hosting, so I know what it entails. However, when I did that I was the only host on the floor. Now, in corporate land, we run our busy weekend shifts with five to six hosts. Two to three of them actually seat people, taking them to tables, getting the high chairs and whatnots, and bringing menus from their deposit areas back to the front. One person organizes where everything will go. Another takes the names for the waits, handing out pagers and fixing quote times. The last, is what we call Greeter 1, but should be titled, World's Most Boring Job.
This person, and I'm not making this up, opens the door and says, "welcome." Years ago I worked for a temp agency and spent a week at a print shop coallating papers. That was riveting compared to this. When I'm assigned this job (which is less frequent now that we have newer people hired in) I cannot help but wander off. I'm normally a pretty good worker, but this takes all my work ethics and pushes them past where they will go. Despite how low my hourly wage is for this, it seems ridiculous for a job that in no way other than boredom resembles what I'd call 'work', but for the boredom, I think it should warrant hazard pay...as its making me crazy.
I think it would bother me less badly if it wasn't so pointless. Our restaurant has double sets of doors; I'm only opening the internal set, so I'm not saving you much. You still have to open the outer doors yourself. Telling you welcome is pointless, as at least two other hosts and your server after me will do the same thing. And the worst, is that you will quickly figure out I'm pointless. The first employee a person sees upon entering is expected to answer thier most pressing question, "How long is the wait?" and being that I haven't left the freakin door for two hours, I haven't a clue.
On a side rant...to those who never worked in a restaurant...that question is pointless. Even in the position of taking names, and therefore making expected quotes, I cannot answer that question without knowing if you want smoking, non, or first available, and the even more important, how many in your party?
I'm amazed every week, especially on sundays when we get the most large parties, that people get angry that tables get seated before them. NOTE: two people can fit in a four-person-top booth. Fifteen people cannot, and as booths are affixed to the floor, I cannot push them together for you, so yes, those four couples will go before you. And yes, I know those eight people came in after you, but they wanted the currently empty section of smoking. I do not feel that you should sacrifice your health, even for the short term of a dinner (which greatly affects the taste of the meal) to sit in smoking. I'm just saying, don't blame me that other people would like to exercise their rights in enviroments that still allow them to do so.
My job is not created, nor is my personality geered to, trying to jip you out of your good dining experience, quite the opposite. We are not playing favorites, either with the parties or the servers. When I organize who gets seated where, I am looking at a set of names and group numbers, and no one has recorded for me your race, religion, or how nice you are. It just goes how it goes best, in the quickest method possible for everyone. I can see that a table has paid, and hope they will get up soon and you can sit there, but if they decide to then drink their coffee for another hour, there's nothing I can do about it. And although everyone in the restaurant dislikes their doing it, we will later not stop you from doing the same thing, nay, we will just keep bringing you the coffee.
Last sunday I really wished someone had included personal information on a party. I sat these three people in the center table in the dining room, having not been warned that one of them (on a sunday afternoon post church crowd lunch, mind you) was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Jesus hates pussies." I wouldn't have made them wait longer, but I'd have sent them into a booth somewhere to avoid the angry looks and complaints from the tables around them. I politely explained to the other whispering patrons there was nothing I could do, to which they explained their religious affiliation back to me. As if that changed matters. What I wanted to say was, "Like it or not, the same ammendments that give you the chance to worship as you'd like gives him the freedom to wear that shirt any day of the week." But that would have just hurt the tips of the servers on the floor.
Oh, and although I'll now wrap up my sunday restaurant rant, one last point. Bible tracts from your church can be left WITH the tip, but not instead of it. You might be surprised to learn, but I cannot feed my children on your compliments or good wishes for my soul, no the grocery store still only accepts money.
This person, and I'm not making this up, opens the door and says, "welcome." Years ago I worked for a temp agency and spent a week at a print shop coallating papers. That was riveting compared to this. When I'm assigned this job (which is less frequent now that we have newer people hired in) I cannot help but wander off. I'm normally a pretty good worker, but this takes all my work ethics and pushes them past where they will go. Despite how low my hourly wage is for this, it seems ridiculous for a job that in no way other than boredom resembles what I'd call 'work', but for the boredom, I think it should warrant hazard pay...as its making me crazy.
I think it would bother me less badly if it wasn't so pointless. Our restaurant has double sets of doors; I'm only opening the internal set, so I'm not saving you much. You still have to open the outer doors yourself. Telling you welcome is pointless, as at least two other hosts and your server after me will do the same thing. And the worst, is that you will quickly figure out I'm pointless. The first employee a person sees upon entering is expected to answer thier most pressing question, "How long is the wait?" and being that I haven't left the freakin door for two hours, I haven't a clue.
On a side rant...to those who never worked in a restaurant...that question is pointless. Even in the position of taking names, and therefore making expected quotes, I cannot answer that question without knowing if you want smoking, non, or first available, and the even more important, how many in your party?
I'm amazed every week, especially on sundays when we get the most large parties, that people get angry that tables get seated before them. NOTE: two people can fit in a four-person-top booth. Fifteen people cannot, and as booths are affixed to the floor, I cannot push them together for you, so yes, those four couples will go before you. And yes, I know those eight people came in after you, but they wanted the currently empty section of smoking. I do not feel that you should sacrifice your health, even for the short term of a dinner (which greatly affects the taste of the meal) to sit in smoking. I'm just saying, don't blame me that other people would like to exercise their rights in enviroments that still allow them to do so.
My job is not created, nor is my personality geered to, trying to jip you out of your good dining experience, quite the opposite. We are not playing favorites, either with the parties or the servers. When I organize who gets seated where, I am looking at a set of names and group numbers, and no one has recorded for me your race, religion, or how nice you are. It just goes how it goes best, in the quickest method possible for everyone. I can see that a table has paid, and hope they will get up soon and you can sit there, but if they decide to then drink their coffee for another hour, there's nothing I can do about it. And although everyone in the restaurant dislikes their doing it, we will later not stop you from doing the same thing, nay, we will just keep bringing you the coffee.
Last sunday I really wished someone had included personal information on a party. I sat these three people in the center table in the dining room, having not been warned that one of them (on a sunday afternoon post church crowd lunch, mind you) was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Jesus hates pussies." I wouldn't have made them wait longer, but I'd have sent them into a booth somewhere to avoid the angry looks and complaints from the tables around them. I politely explained to the other whispering patrons there was nothing I could do, to which they explained their religious affiliation back to me. As if that changed matters. What I wanted to say was, "Like it or not, the same ammendments that give you the chance to worship as you'd like gives him the freedom to wear that shirt any day of the week." But that would have just hurt the tips of the servers on the floor.
Oh, and although I'll now wrap up my sunday restaurant rant, one last point. Bible tracts from your church can be left WITH the tip, but not instead of it. You might be surprised to learn, but I cannot feed my children on your compliments or good wishes for my soul, no the grocery store still only accepts money.
There I am!
Okay, so the surgery was in May, and I was too drugged up/miserable/busy trucking to physical therapy to post for a while. After that, well, as embarrassing as this is--I couldn't get back in to my blog. It refused to recognize any input I gave it.
I finally gave up on it a couple of months ago, then recently got some advice on a course of action that should have dawned on me long ago. So, here we are again.
If you read the first post, titled imaginatively "One" you know that I basically caved into writing a blog. Well if that is facinating, wait till you hear this: Moments ago I caved into a Myspace page.
My favorite comment on not needing a myspace page isn't even mine, it's my ex-husband's. At his high school 20 yr reunion someone asked him if he had a myspace page. He replied, "No, I'm 38."
I have been asked repeatedly if I had one, and always said no without embellishment as to why. What is amazing about this is the other person's response. Their mouth drops open, their brows furrow, and they stare at me, completely lost for words, in confusion. It's the confusion that gets me. As if my having the internet without myspace is vaguely equal to having a house without plumbing.
As it is now, I have a myspace page with no photos, and precious little information. The simple reason why I never got a page before is the same for the sparseness of the page now. I'm lazy. I spend enough time compulsively worrying about how I am in person, and yet lazily almost never wear make-up or dress in decent clothes. Can you really be surprised I'd get my page more dressed up when I care even less about internet popularity?
In any case, there I am. I will at least eventually title my little myspace and link here to it, but although it WILL happen, I wouldn't, as the old idiom goes, hold my breath for it.
I finally gave up on it a couple of months ago, then recently got some advice on a course of action that should have dawned on me long ago. So, here we are again.
If you read the first post, titled imaginatively "One" you know that I basically caved into writing a blog. Well if that is facinating, wait till you hear this: Moments ago I caved into a Myspace page.
My favorite comment on not needing a myspace page isn't even mine, it's my ex-husband's. At his high school 20 yr reunion someone asked him if he had a myspace page. He replied, "No, I'm 38."
I have been asked repeatedly if I had one, and always said no without embellishment as to why. What is amazing about this is the other person's response. Their mouth drops open, their brows furrow, and they stare at me, completely lost for words, in confusion. It's the confusion that gets me. As if my having the internet without myspace is vaguely equal to having a house without plumbing.
As it is now, I have a myspace page with no photos, and precious little information. The simple reason why I never got a page before is the same for the sparseness of the page now. I'm lazy. I spend enough time compulsively worrying about how I am in person, and yet lazily almost never wear make-up or dress in decent clothes. Can you really be surprised I'd get my page more dressed up when I care even less about internet popularity?
In any case, there I am. I will at least eventually title my little myspace and link here to it, but although it WILL happen, I wouldn't, as the old idiom goes, hold my breath for it.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
If you love him--sue him?
My boyfriend and I are riding back from lunch. We got taco bell and ate it in the woods at a park. It was very nice and particularly as I'm starting to stress quite a bit. My near sleepless night with the sling has not set me up well for this day, let alone the surgery coming up.
The lunch is relaxing, and we ride quietly watching the world go by back to the apartment.
"I've been thinking about something," He says.
Considering all the worries and stress of late, the no money thing with me, the house shopping thing with him, this isn't likely to be good.
"I've been considering this for a while, and think I have a decision."
Gulp, and?
"I think we should file for your shoulder with my renter's insurance."
I fell in his kitchen, in his renter insured apartment. I admit I made the joke I should have lied and said I did it the next day in the kitchen of the restaurant, but its not in my character to do so.
"Wouldn't that effectively be that same as sueing you?" I ask.
"Well sort of, but its one of the reasons someone gets this insurance."
He explains about the deductabiles on my insurance, about how little my disability pay covers, about how he doesn't intend to use the same company for his homeowners when he gets his house. He's so sweet, so earnest.
I laugh my ass off. "I cannot sue you! You're my boyfriend! That's crazy."
I suppose I'm willing to have him look into it, but it just seems utterly ubsurd to me. I would file with my homeowners if something broke on my house, but filing for something broke on me...for water on the kitchen floor at 4am...I just cannot see it happening.
Am I the only one who sees this as just, well, freaky odd?
The lunch is relaxing, and we ride quietly watching the world go by back to the apartment.
"I've been thinking about something," He says.
Considering all the worries and stress of late, the no money thing with me, the house shopping thing with him, this isn't likely to be good.
"I've been considering this for a while, and think I have a decision."
Gulp, and?
"I think we should file for your shoulder with my renter's insurance."
I fell in his kitchen, in his renter insured apartment. I admit I made the joke I should have lied and said I did it the next day in the kitchen of the restaurant, but its not in my character to do so.
"Wouldn't that effectively be that same as sueing you?" I ask.
"Well sort of, but its one of the reasons someone gets this insurance."
He explains about the deductabiles on my insurance, about how little my disability pay covers, about how he doesn't intend to use the same company for his homeowners when he gets his house. He's so sweet, so earnest.
I laugh my ass off. "I cannot sue you! You're my boyfriend! That's crazy."
I suppose I'm willing to have him look into it, but it just seems utterly ubsurd to me. I would file with my homeowners if something broke on my house, but filing for something broke on me...for water on the kitchen floor at 4am...I just cannot see it happening.
Am I the only one who sees this as just, well, freaky odd?
Half a lazy-boy
The follow up visit has passed, the MRI read, the surgery scheduled. My rotator cuff is fine, and much as the orthodoc surmised, it is indeed my cartilage. I have torn cartilage, part of which is occasionally catching in my joint. This is sort of reassuring as when I did the injury I kept insisting for days it felt like there was a rock in my joint I couldn't move around, like sticking a crayon in the open hinge-crack of a door.
Surgery means no serving for 2 to four months, depending on how long it takes to heal, but hopefully I'll at least get to work as a host not too long after the surgery, just long enough for stiches to come out and such. One other trick to this is I don't know which surgery of two I'll actually be getting, as the call on that will be made once they get in there and see, a time when I'll not be awake to give much input.
If the torn pieces are not too damaged, the tissue around it ok (which I'm worried about as I worked with it for over a month before going to the doc) then they will try and piece the cartilage back together. This is the prefered method, but has a drawback. If they are wrong, then there is a second surgery later on to try and fix that error. Method number two is getting in there, seeing a cluster of damage, and simply cleaning out all the cartilage. There is no replacement. I would simply not have that cartilage anymore. I am told this would result in some lifetime lack of stability in the shoulder. It wasn't till later, after the shock wore off that I began to wonder, what is a 'lack of stability?'
I can see if lack of stability is problematic enough, it may preclude my ever safely wanting to serve again, as the job is hard on that shoulder and would place it at higher risk of future damage.
My surgery is scheduled for about a week and a half away, but they already have me in a sling. This is primarily to get me used to dealing with it, particularly sleeping in it.
Last night was rough. It isn't what I think of as a standard sling. It's a sling, but between it and my body is a curved pillow the size of a couch armrest that positions the arm out from my body. The arm points forward as opposed to across my front. This completely rules out trying to sleep on my left. On my back works ok. But on my right side, this puts my arm elevated up on the cushion, instead of flat on my side, meaning gravity tries to slide my arm up into my shoulder, the same motion as a one sided extended shrug. Sleeping on my tummy was already pretty much out as I cannot raise my arm, but I had worked out a method. I slid the mattress a few inches over, so I could drop the arm onto the boxspring. This Macgyvered nighttime armrest had worked pretty well to allow me to sleep some on my tummy, but not with this piece of a lazy-boy strapped to me.
Add to this that one strap chafes my neck, and the other (around my waist) feels like its bruising my ribs [a la the princess and the pea] I'm surpremely unhappy with the thing. And this doesn't yet include the pain of surgery recovery. I'm beginning to think I spoke to early when I thought boredom was going to be my worst problem. I'm ever the optimist.
And it looks, well, dorky. [--Man I had to run back to grade school real quick to get that description.]
I did my model pose with it on for my boyfriend.
"Can you think of a way I could possibly look more ridiculous than with this couch cushion strapped to me?" I shriek.
"Yes," He calmly says. "You could have two."
I guess he's the optimist.
Surgery means no serving for 2 to four months, depending on how long it takes to heal, but hopefully I'll at least get to work as a host not too long after the surgery, just long enough for stiches to come out and such. One other trick to this is I don't know which surgery of two I'll actually be getting, as the call on that will be made once they get in there and see, a time when I'll not be awake to give much input.
If the torn pieces are not too damaged, the tissue around it ok (which I'm worried about as I worked with it for over a month before going to the doc) then they will try and piece the cartilage back together. This is the prefered method, but has a drawback. If they are wrong, then there is a second surgery later on to try and fix that error. Method number two is getting in there, seeing a cluster of damage, and simply cleaning out all the cartilage. There is no replacement. I would simply not have that cartilage anymore. I am told this would result in some lifetime lack of stability in the shoulder. It wasn't till later, after the shock wore off that I began to wonder, what is a 'lack of stability?'
I can see if lack of stability is problematic enough, it may preclude my ever safely wanting to serve again, as the job is hard on that shoulder and would place it at higher risk of future damage.
My surgery is scheduled for about a week and a half away, but they already have me in a sling. This is primarily to get me used to dealing with it, particularly sleeping in it.
Last night was rough. It isn't what I think of as a standard sling. It's a sling, but between it and my body is a curved pillow the size of a couch armrest that positions the arm out from my body. The arm points forward as opposed to across my front. This completely rules out trying to sleep on my left. On my back works ok. But on my right side, this puts my arm elevated up on the cushion, instead of flat on my side, meaning gravity tries to slide my arm up into my shoulder, the same motion as a one sided extended shrug. Sleeping on my tummy was already pretty much out as I cannot raise my arm, but I had worked out a method. I slid the mattress a few inches over, so I could drop the arm onto the boxspring. This Macgyvered nighttime armrest had worked pretty well to allow me to sleep some on my tummy, but not with this piece of a lazy-boy strapped to me.
Add to this that one strap chafes my neck, and the other (around my waist) feels like its bruising my ribs [a la the princess and the pea] I'm surpremely unhappy with the thing. And this doesn't yet include the pain of surgery recovery. I'm beginning to think I spoke to early when I thought boredom was going to be my worst problem. I'm ever the optimist.
And it looks, well, dorky. [--Man I had to run back to grade school real quick to get that description.]
I did my model pose with it on for my boyfriend.
"Can you think of a way I could possibly look more ridiculous than with this couch cushion strapped to me?" I shriek.
"Yes," He calmly says. "You could have two."
I guess he's the optimist.
Tippy Headron
I'm downtown and sitting in my jeep on the phone getting ready to leave, idly wondering as I watch the meter tick down if they would give me a ticket if I was actually in my car still. I strongly prefer not to drive while on the phone. I make exceptions on the interstate while just trucking along, but downtown Derby holiday traffic is quite another matter. I'm chit chatting away, engine off, and notice something on the sidewalk.
It's a pigeon, sort of huddled up next to the wall. It's not standing, its sitting there, slightly poofed out with its legs tucked away. I sort of wonder if it might be injured, although its giving no other signs of being so, but don't think too much on it as I will niether save this bird nor would I consider 'putting it out of its misery.'
Another pigeon comes along. It's beautiful with its metallic green sheen on its chest, strutting about the sitting bird. I look away as I'm talking and when I look back the green chested pigeon in fluttering away on top of the sitting pigeon--seemingly doing the thing we refer to as the former half of the phrase 'the birds and the bees.'
I joke into the phone, "man, it's getting a bit Animal Kingdom out here. There's a couple of pigeons having their own derby party here, eew."
I decide to give the birds some privacy and look away. Some birds flutter in front of my window as they come to land with the couple. I look over to see that four more have joined. I make the obligatory orgy joke, which I immediately regret as birds number 2, 3, 4, and 5 begin taking turns on the sitting bird.
I know this has nothing to do with me, nothing even to do with my species, but actually I'm finding it disturbing. It's like some bizzare gang bang attack. I explain into the phone what's happening and, apologies for my craziness expressed, explain I'm seriously going to have to get off the phone and drive away.
Then, while bird number five is up there, Greenchest gives two quick pecks to the sitting birds head. "Oh hell no! I've got to get off the phone!" The birds continue taking turns flapping on top and then giving two or three pecks to her head, all as she just sits there. It completely freaks me out, and I drive away.
As I pass a reflectively windowed building I see my trick tire has gone half-way to flat again, but don't want to stop anywhere near the horror to get air.
I have no idea if the bird was injured and so being ill-treated, as I know birds will all turn on an injured one, or if it some common, but yucky, spring mating ritual with pigeons. I actaully felt a bit guilty over having just left them all there--as if pigeons fall under the good samaritan law or something. I know that adultry to produce stronger offspring is common in birds, so maybe its a prostituion ring or something. I blame it all on urban sprawl myself, and now that I've typed it here and got it out of my system I plan to regulate it to the denial/forgotten category of my brain.
It's a pigeon, sort of huddled up next to the wall. It's not standing, its sitting there, slightly poofed out with its legs tucked away. I sort of wonder if it might be injured, although its giving no other signs of being so, but don't think too much on it as I will niether save this bird nor would I consider 'putting it out of its misery.'
Another pigeon comes along. It's beautiful with its metallic green sheen on its chest, strutting about the sitting bird. I look away as I'm talking and when I look back the green chested pigeon in fluttering away on top of the sitting pigeon--seemingly doing the thing we refer to as the former half of the phrase 'the birds and the bees.'
I joke into the phone, "man, it's getting a bit Animal Kingdom out here. There's a couple of pigeons having their own derby party here, eew."
I decide to give the birds some privacy and look away. Some birds flutter in front of my window as they come to land with the couple. I look over to see that four more have joined. I make the obligatory orgy joke, which I immediately regret as birds number 2, 3, 4, and 5 begin taking turns on the sitting bird.
I know this has nothing to do with me, nothing even to do with my species, but actually I'm finding it disturbing. It's like some bizzare gang bang attack. I explain into the phone what's happening and, apologies for my craziness expressed, explain I'm seriously going to have to get off the phone and drive away.
Then, while bird number five is up there, Greenchest gives two quick pecks to the sitting birds head. "Oh hell no! I've got to get off the phone!" The birds continue taking turns flapping on top and then giving two or three pecks to her head, all as she just sits there. It completely freaks me out, and I drive away.
As I pass a reflectively windowed building I see my trick tire has gone half-way to flat again, but don't want to stop anywhere near the horror to get air.
I have no idea if the bird was injured and so being ill-treated, as I know birds will all turn on an injured one, or if it some common, but yucky, spring mating ritual with pigeons. I actaully felt a bit guilty over having just left them all there--as if pigeons fall under the good samaritan law or something. I know that adultry to produce stronger offspring is common in birds, so maybe its a prostituion ring or something. I blame it all on urban sprawl myself, and now that I've typed it here and got it out of my system I plan to regulate it to the denial/forgotten category of my brain.
M R I don't like that sound!
Tuesday is my much anticiapted MRI to see what's up in my shoulder. A couple days before I called to make sure I didn't have to be prepared to give any samples, starve myself the night before, or any other pre-reqs for the test. Much to my relief none of these are necessary. She begins on the phone to ask all the standard questions about age, the injury, etc, then some pertaining specifically to the MRI. Have you ever had metal shavings in your eye? Do you have tattoos? Are you claustraphobic? Any previous surgeries? Then gives me instructions for the day. Do not wear any metal. You may want to take some tylenol as it may help relax you.
Wait, what? I doubt tylenol would have much of any effect on me were I to grind it up and snort it. And why do I so need to be relaxed? hmm, claustraphobic? "Wait!", I finally put this together with my TV watching experience through my vicodin haze, "This is one of those tomb things, right?"
"Well, ours isn't like that." Nurse Helpful assures me. "But you do need to lay still for up to 45 minutes and some people find it helpful to have something to relax them. Ma'am, are you claustraphobic?" she repeats.
"No, not really, although I do have a thing about weight on top of me."
I don't like getting under cars for instance, wether they're on four tires or up above my head at the mechanics, the fear of being crushed is an odd thing for me, but tight spaces isn't that big a deal. "And sitting still for long periods is no problem for me, I've modeled for art classes--and my mom herself had me do it since I was a kid as she was an artist."
So tuesday arrives, and I'm not even close to being concerned, but just in case I play it safe and take a whole one of my vicodins, since I'm a bit concerned they may put my shoulder/arm in an uncomfortable position for that 45 minutes.
Firstly, Nurse Helpful is a liar. It is exactly one of those tombs. In her defense I will say I saw a brochure there later that explained their MRI machine is what is called an 'open bore' meaning it is much wider a tomb than the older models, but although my nose wasn't in danger of bashing on the top of the bore, it was no more than a good handspan and a half away. But I'm ok with the space, there's lots of cushions around me so its not that uncomfortable, I've done art classes and I've taken a vicodin--we're a-ok. They even give you headphones and let you pick the radio station.
I gave thought to this radio station choice and went with NPR. I listen to it a great deal and it will save me from sitting in there for forty-five minutes hearing DJ banter and used car commercials. I'm scooted into the machine and the nurse leaves the room and I hear the tic-tic-static of the radio changing. Damn--its my most hated NPR program: Diane Rhiems. Her voice is annoying and her questions do not follow one another or often seem to have any actual bearing on her guest's topic. I do NOT want to listen to this for the next 45 minutes. I decide to be the irritating patient and squeeze my little call for her to choose another station, but just before that--
Eek! What the hell was that noise? It's four incredibly loud tones followed by omnious silence filled mostly with me anticipating more of that noise. Nothing. I figure the machine must be calibrated for the person or something and guess we must be underway now. I've just about got my heart rate down from the suprise noise when
eer eeng aaark ooorr
It happens again. I now have figured that this noise will just happen occasionally and I just need to get a grip. I close my eyes, ignore the headphones, and try to meditate a bit. I've just about slipped away into my happy place when a head pokes in the machine just above mine and says, "are you sure your not wearing any metal?"
"Gah!" I squeek out. He scared the vicodin out of me for a minute, and I damn near flight or fighted us to the pain. Then I begin getting paranoid. Could someone have left a staple in me or something at one time? Will it be sucked through my guts to stick like a comic book magnet weapon inside this not really very "open" bore? Could I be wearing my gold trimmed panties?
In answer to his question I put my hand down my pants to feel only the very soft cotton of my boring panties. He either doesn't see it from his position or ignores it and asks, "Do you have an underwire bra on or anything?"
Oddly, perhaps because of the vicodin on my none too full tummy, I reach my hand up and cup my breast and answer, "I'm not wearing a bra."
Ok, so now the loud noises would be welcome.
He wheels me out, we never find any metal, and I'm wheeled back in. I totally forget to ask about the radio as I'm so embarrassed from feeling myself up. Well, it doesn't matter. These headphones are obviously not intended for you to listen to anything that hour, they are intended for you to listen to anything ever again as the machine is very noisy. The four tones are replaced with constant sound as the machine scans. And here I'd always thought of magnets as peaceful little oddities. They are in fact very angry things more in common with dwarven blacksmiths.
There are basically 4 or 5 scans, each lasting about 4 minutes, and each with a different sort of rythm or tone. One was like being in a metal barrel resting on the top of a diesel engine humming outside a rest stop, others were more like having the chain saw massacre carving fresh meat against the same metal barrel.
Once it got going it wasn't a big deal. I kept my eyes closed and hovered around in my vicodin thoughts. When it was over and I was scooted out I told the nurse, "if anyone ever asks me why I studied eastern meditation, I now know my answer."
The real bummer is the doc wasn't allowed to tell me anything at all about the scans, so I felt no closer to solving the mystery of whether or not I was on the road to surgery.
Wait, what? I doubt tylenol would have much of any effect on me were I to grind it up and snort it. And why do I so need to be relaxed? hmm, claustraphobic? "Wait!", I finally put this together with my TV watching experience through my vicodin haze, "This is one of those tomb things, right?"
"Well, ours isn't like that." Nurse Helpful assures me. "But you do need to lay still for up to 45 minutes and some people find it helpful to have something to relax them. Ma'am, are you claustraphobic?" she repeats.
"No, not really, although I do have a thing about weight on top of me."
I don't like getting under cars for instance, wether they're on four tires or up above my head at the mechanics, the fear of being crushed is an odd thing for me, but tight spaces isn't that big a deal. "And sitting still for long periods is no problem for me, I've modeled for art classes--and my mom herself had me do it since I was a kid as she was an artist."
So tuesday arrives, and I'm not even close to being concerned, but just in case I play it safe and take a whole one of my vicodins, since I'm a bit concerned they may put my shoulder/arm in an uncomfortable position for that 45 minutes.
Firstly, Nurse Helpful is a liar. It is exactly one of those tombs. In her defense I will say I saw a brochure there later that explained their MRI machine is what is called an 'open bore' meaning it is much wider a tomb than the older models, but although my nose wasn't in danger of bashing on the top of the bore, it was no more than a good handspan and a half away. But I'm ok with the space, there's lots of cushions around me so its not that uncomfortable, I've done art classes and I've taken a vicodin--we're a-ok. They even give you headphones and let you pick the radio station.
I gave thought to this radio station choice and went with NPR. I listen to it a great deal and it will save me from sitting in there for forty-five minutes hearing DJ banter and used car commercials. I'm scooted into the machine and the nurse leaves the room and I hear the tic-tic-static of the radio changing. Damn--its my most hated NPR program: Diane Rhiems. Her voice is annoying and her questions do not follow one another or often seem to have any actual bearing on her guest's topic. I do NOT want to listen to this for the next 45 minutes. I decide to be the irritating patient and squeeze my little call for her to choose another station, but just before that--
Eek! What the hell was that noise? It's four incredibly loud tones followed by omnious silence filled mostly with me anticipating more of that noise. Nothing. I figure the machine must be calibrated for the person or something and guess we must be underway now. I've just about got my heart rate down from the suprise noise when
eer eeng aaark ooorr
It happens again. I now have figured that this noise will just happen occasionally and I just need to get a grip. I close my eyes, ignore the headphones, and try to meditate a bit. I've just about slipped away into my happy place when a head pokes in the machine just above mine and says, "are you sure your not wearing any metal?"
"Gah!" I squeek out. He scared the vicodin out of me for a minute, and I damn near flight or fighted us to the pain. Then I begin getting paranoid. Could someone have left a staple in me or something at one time? Will it be sucked through my guts to stick like a comic book magnet weapon inside this not really very "open" bore? Could I be wearing my gold trimmed panties?
In answer to his question I put my hand down my pants to feel only the very soft cotton of my boring panties. He either doesn't see it from his position or ignores it and asks, "Do you have an underwire bra on or anything?"
Oddly, perhaps because of the vicodin on my none too full tummy, I reach my hand up and cup my breast and answer, "I'm not wearing a bra."
Ok, so now the loud noises would be welcome.
He wheels me out, we never find any metal, and I'm wheeled back in. I totally forget to ask about the radio as I'm so embarrassed from feeling myself up. Well, it doesn't matter. These headphones are obviously not intended for you to listen to anything that hour, they are intended for you to listen to anything ever again as the machine is very noisy. The four tones are replaced with constant sound as the machine scans. And here I'd always thought of magnets as peaceful little oddities. They are in fact very angry things more in common with dwarven blacksmiths.
There are basically 4 or 5 scans, each lasting about 4 minutes, and each with a different sort of rythm or tone. One was like being in a metal barrel resting on the top of a diesel engine humming outside a rest stop, others were more like having the chain saw massacre carving fresh meat against the same metal barrel.
Once it got going it wasn't a big deal. I kept my eyes closed and hovered around in my vicodin thoughts. When it was over and I was scooted out I told the nurse, "if anyone ever asks me why I studied eastern meditation, I now know my answer."
The real bummer is the doc wasn't allowed to tell me anything at all about the scans, so I felt no closer to solving the mystery of whether or not I was on the road to surgery.
843
Monday offered me a chance to alleviate my out of work boredom with some work. A friend and I are putting in a bid to cater someone's wedding in January. The bride is an incredibly nice girl we know, who has a flaw particularly bad for things like being a bride, she is notoriously indecisive. It's not that she cannot pick what she wants so much as she has no idea what it is she wants. Her soon to be mother-in-law will actually be the person deciding on the caterer; however, so it will probably come down to pricing more than anything else.
We have each catered things before, and are famous amongst our friends for putting up the best fare at parties. (I once did a ten course dinner just to see what it was like. It's like washing a lot of dishes--some halfway through even--in case you're curious.) We have both sold Pampered Chef before, and so have just about every tool known to the kitchen kingdoms. Of course, as it's not our wedding we have no real power over the menu, but even more interestingly for us, neither of us have cooked for 300 people before. To give us yet another twist, the recpetion hall has no facilities for our use other than one standard home fridge and a couple of outlets. Thank goodness for crock-pots, sterno and buffet servers.
I'm looking over the menu as we make out the ingredient list before heading off to Sam's and such to do some pricing. What kinds of veggies does she want on the veggie tray? Does she want dip with the chips? Does she actually mean to have both the little smokies and the meatballs in bbq sauce? And is cheese tray a cheese ball, dip, sliced cheese for the little sandwhiches, cubes, or some combination therein?
A quick phone call gets our answers, the meatballs get some marinara, and we're doing cubes for the cheese tray. Quickly before we get off the phone I ask my partner, "how many types of cheese would she like to see on the tray?" I know some people think pepper jack a practical joke for bars, and other feel it akin to angelic visitation.
My partner's face smirks a bit as she looks at me over her pink Razr phone and asks, "The bride wants to know how many cheeses there are."
With a straight face, lost completely on the bride who cannot see me, I say, "Oh, 'bout 843. Give or take."
I have no idea how many cheeses there are, but there are alot. Then you get into marbled combinations, smoked varieties, herb flavored, salmon enhanced, fois gras fused...I mean 843 might be way too concervative a number really. I know I should be more helpful for the poor girl, but the only thing that wants to come out now is some version of,
"Well I reckon there's white, orange, and the yeller kind. Plus the mixed." And even then that's unfairly not recognizing the type shot out of cans like silly string during slumber parties.
It's not like the bride is stupid or anything, she's just not very worldly. In middle class southern Indiana, white, yellow, or peppered is a valid way of ordering the cheese on your burger. I'm sure if she stopped and thought about it, instead of us waylaying her in a phone call in the middle of her day, she'd know she uses parmesan on her spaghetti, mozz in her lasagna.
In the end its to be pepper jack, colby/jack marbled, and mild cheddar, a perfectly reasonable mix for an inexpensive wedding. But I must admit, I'm very tempted to tell the bride it will be brie, muenster, and velveeta--just to see her face.
This is how I picture the reply in my head,"Well velveeta's good, but I don't know if my new husband likes monster cheese."
We have each catered things before, and are famous amongst our friends for putting up the best fare at parties. (I once did a ten course dinner just to see what it was like. It's like washing a lot of dishes--some halfway through even--in case you're curious.) We have both sold Pampered Chef before, and so have just about every tool known to the kitchen kingdoms. Of course, as it's not our wedding we have no real power over the menu, but even more interestingly for us, neither of us have cooked for 300 people before. To give us yet another twist, the recpetion hall has no facilities for our use other than one standard home fridge and a couple of outlets. Thank goodness for crock-pots, sterno and buffet servers.
I'm looking over the menu as we make out the ingredient list before heading off to Sam's and such to do some pricing. What kinds of veggies does she want on the veggie tray? Does she want dip with the chips? Does she actually mean to have both the little smokies and the meatballs in bbq sauce? And is cheese tray a cheese ball, dip, sliced cheese for the little sandwhiches, cubes, or some combination therein?
A quick phone call gets our answers, the meatballs get some marinara, and we're doing cubes for the cheese tray. Quickly before we get off the phone I ask my partner, "how many types of cheese would she like to see on the tray?" I know some people think pepper jack a practical joke for bars, and other feel it akin to angelic visitation.
My partner's face smirks a bit as she looks at me over her pink Razr phone and asks, "The bride wants to know how many cheeses there are."
With a straight face, lost completely on the bride who cannot see me, I say, "Oh, 'bout 843. Give or take."
I have no idea how many cheeses there are, but there are alot. Then you get into marbled combinations, smoked varieties, herb flavored, salmon enhanced, fois gras fused...I mean 843 might be way too concervative a number really. I know I should be more helpful for the poor girl, but the only thing that wants to come out now is some version of,
"Well I reckon there's white, orange, and the yeller kind. Plus the mixed." And even then that's unfairly not recognizing the type shot out of cans like silly string during slumber parties.
It's not like the bride is stupid or anything, she's just not very worldly. In middle class southern Indiana, white, yellow, or peppered is a valid way of ordering the cheese on your burger. I'm sure if she stopped and thought about it, instead of us waylaying her in a phone call in the middle of her day, she'd know she uses parmesan on her spaghetti, mozz in her lasagna.
In the end its to be pepper jack, colby/jack marbled, and mild cheddar, a perfectly reasonable mix for an inexpensive wedding. But I must admit, I'm very tempted to tell the bride it will be brie, muenster, and velveeta--just to see her face.
This is how I picture the reply in my head,"Well velveeta's good, but I don't know if my new husband likes monster cheese."
Nox Blox
(sorry for the delay in posting...here goes the catch-up reports)
Saturday
My boyfriend and I do lunch with some friends, and that evening go to a friend's house for a cook out. One of my favorite things in the world is to sit outside on someone's back deck, talking into the night. I also like card and board games with friends, and if someone is handy enough with a guitar, a night time sing-a-long is nice, but all I need is the relaxed deck-talking to suffice.
The past-time of deck-talking should be carefully paired with the correct beverage, which is determined by who you are with, the time of year and the time of day. Afternoon in the fall with a friend is high tea, change it to the summer and its fresh lemonade. Cool early spring evenings are coffee, no matter how many people are present. But sometimes, it should be beer. As stated before, I'm a beer snob. So cool early spring evenings is Guiness, whereas fall should be a hoppy ale, perhaps something like a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. But every now and again, particularly in late spring to summer, its something more refreshing. Margaritas, Long Island Ice Teas, or what I call the beer cocktail.
Beer cocktails are one of my glaring exceptions to my otherwise snobby beer life, and my snobby beer friends often believe it a complete falicy bordering on blasphemy, but I stand by it. What I call a beer cocktail is when one adds things to beer normally reserved as an ingredient best found in a carved out watermelon--some kind of fruit salad beverage. In my case, corona with lime. If I think of it as beer I find it coming up short, but as a summer beer cocktail I find it refreshing. It's all in the presentation to the mind.
We had a great grilled steak meal, the cocktails, great conversation, and then the floor show with dessert. Dessert was Nox Blox. Nox is a brand of unflavored gelatin, that when added to jello it makes the jello easy to cut into nearly indestructable cubes. You know how your jello gets a bit melty around the edges on a warm day? Not so with Nox Blox.
The floor show was performed by a 5 mos old beagle puppy named Haley, which my friends have had for just under two weeks. Out of curiousity we put a piece of Nox Blox down onto the deck for Haley, where she eyed the wiggling, jiggling red form suspiciously before lighting sticking her mouth near it for inspection. We were watching her only idly, getting ready to turn back to the conversation when Haley began what I can only assume was some doggy method of exorcism.
The Beagle did NOT like the Nox Blox--not the taste so much, but the whole existence within her world of something totally alien and evil. She pounced to it, front paws on each side, then she'd back up, turn around--giving the Nox Blox fair chance to run away (it just jiggled remorselessly)--then she'd pounce it again. She would paw at it, but at it's touch, she'd leap backwards. She'd pounce towards it, paws framing the threatening cherry dessert, then circle threateningly. She looked to us for help, but she could see no help was to come from people who actually had the gullibility to EAT the evil things.
She would try putting it in her mouth, just at the very edge, but it would wiggle between her doggy lips and out it would go. Nox Blox are fearless, they do not respond to barking or physical threats--sure they quake a bit in fear, but refuse to leave one's territory. Finally she tried tricking the Nox Blox by rolling her head near it. She'd walk up and begin to turn, clearly intending to roll it under her head, but at the last minute she'd realize it would require her touching it, and back off to roll a bit.
Obviously, the only recourse is to walk off and ignore it, but sometimes it seemed to want to follow her--hanging, rolling, or dragging under her chain as she moved away. Eventually unhooked from her leash, she could safely pretend she had never seen it before, and hope it would take a similar stance towards her.
This is a level of denial I would love to attain. Animals are curious about things like Nox Blox, or maybe mirrors, only long enough to ascertain they indeed do not understand it--then one never need believe it's even there again after that.
I think I may try this method of dealing with my boss. When he talks to me I will not look at him, if he moves into my path of vision, my head will simply turn away. When someone points at my manager, I will stare hopefully but full of confusion at the end of their finger.
The animal kingdom understands denial in ways we can only hope to one day crack.
Saturday
My boyfriend and I do lunch with some friends, and that evening go to a friend's house for a cook out. One of my favorite things in the world is to sit outside on someone's back deck, talking into the night. I also like card and board games with friends, and if someone is handy enough with a guitar, a night time sing-a-long is nice, but all I need is the relaxed deck-talking to suffice.
The past-time of deck-talking should be carefully paired with the correct beverage, which is determined by who you are with, the time of year and the time of day. Afternoon in the fall with a friend is high tea, change it to the summer and its fresh lemonade. Cool early spring evenings are coffee, no matter how many people are present. But sometimes, it should be beer. As stated before, I'm a beer snob. So cool early spring evenings is Guiness, whereas fall should be a hoppy ale, perhaps something like a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. But every now and again, particularly in late spring to summer, its something more refreshing. Margaritas, Long Island Ice Teas, or what I call the beer cocktail.
Beer cocktails are one of my glaring exceptions to my otherwise snobby beer life, and my snobby beer friends often believe it a complete falicy bordering on blasphemy, but I stand by it. What I call a beer cocktail is when one adds things to beer normally reserved as an ingredient best found in a carved out watermelon--some kind of fruit salad beverage. In my case, corona with lime. If I think of it as beer I find it coming up short, but as a summer beer cocktail I find it refreshing. It's all in the presentation to the mind.
We had a great grilled steak meal, the cocktails, great conversation, and then the floor show with dessert. Dessert was Nox Blox. Nox is a brand of unflavored gelatin, that when added to jello it makes the jello easy to cut into nearly indestructable cubes. You know how your jello gets a bit melty around the edges on a warm day? Not so with Nox Blox.
The floor show was performed by a 5 mos old beagle puppy named Haley, which my friends have had for just under two weeks. Out of curiousity we put a piece of Nox Blox down onto the deck for Haley, where she eyed the wiggling, jiggling red form suspiciously before lighting sticking her mouth near it for inspection. We were watching her only idly, getting ready to turn back to the conversation when Haley began what I can only assume was some doggy method of exorcism.
The Beagle did NOT like the Nox Blox--not the taste so much, but the whole existence within her world of something totally alien and evil. She pounced to it, front paws on each side, then she'd back up, turn around--giving the Nox Blox fair chance to run away (it just jiggled remorselessly)--then she'd pounce it again. She would paw at it, but at it's touch, she'd leap backwards. She'd pounce towards it, paws framing the threatening cherry dessert, then circle threateningly. She looked to us for help, but she could see no help was to come from people who actually had the gullibility to EAT the evil things.
She would try putting it in her mouth, just at the very edge, but it would wiggle between her doggy lips and out it would go. Nox Blox are fearless, they do not respond to barking or physical threats--sure they quake a bit in fear, but refuse to leave one's territory. Finally she tried tricking the Nox Blox by rolling her head near it. She'd walk up and begin to turn, clearly intending to roll it under her head, but at the last minute she'd realize it would require her touching it, and back off to roll a bit.
Obviously, the only recourse is to walk off and ignore it, but sometimes it seemed to want to follow her--hanging, rolling, or dragging under her chain as she moved away. Eventually unhooked from her leash, she could safely pretend she had never seen it before, and hope it would take a similar stance towards her.
This is a level of denial I would love to attain. Animals are curious about things like Nox Blox, or maybe mirrors, only long enough to ascertain they indeed do not understand it--then one never need believe it's even there again after that.
I think I may try this method of dealing with my boss. When he talks to me I will not look at him, if he moves into my path of vision, my head will simply turn away. When someone points at my manager, I will stare hopefully but full of confusion at the end of their finger.
The animal kingdom understands denial in ways we can only hope to one day crack.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tired of crazies
So I drive an old Grand Cherokee that I bought for 500 dollars. One of my back tires is so bad off, it must be aired up at least as often as I gas up. Sometimes I go out to find it low or nearly flat, and then bee-line to the closest (about a mile to mile and a half away) gas station to air it.
So the other day, I go out, and unbelieveably both my back tires had gone nearly flat overnight. I stared at them both blankly and then frowned, but they had not even the decency to look embarrassed about it.
I got in and began my trek to the gas station. At a light, a man in a truck next to me begins to wave and yell. I know what he's going to say, but don't wish to seem rude. I roll down my window.
"Lady, do you know you have two flat tires?" He says as in a tone as if to say I caused this by having a uterus.
I nod, showing my tired frustration, then begin rolling back up the window while saying, "thanks!" cheerily.
"Lady!"
"Yes?" I stop the window.
"You have TWO flat tires!"
I consider explaining the difference between flat and nearly flat, as well as pointing to the gas station I'm in the lane for, but instead just nod, with an expression of 'sorry' on my face--as if I'm truly sorry for making him have to tell me this while we are stopped at the light.
"Well," he begins with pure exasperation, "you need to get them fixed!"
By this time I'm fed up with Captain obvious and mumble "Yes, Dad."
He doesn't hear me, but he can see I've said something, and so replies--I'm still trying to believe he's still talking to me and depserately want the light to change-- "You have to do something about that."
Finally, I've had it and ask, "You wanna give me your spare? I'm just carrying the one, and BOTH my tires are flat!"
I mean seriously you'd think he'd notice I'm OBVIOUSLY having a not so great morning as it is. The light changes and before he takes off he yells,
"Witch!" Only he mistakenly used a B instead of a W.
It actually takes me a moment to take off and turn into the station I'm so stunned at this reply. I'm amazed that my bad morning had so personally disgusted and offended this man in his gigantric truck.
I told a friend who explained to me that to vehicles, apparently flat tires are synonymous with flipping the middle finger, and so I had just given him a double birdie.
So now I guess I get it. I am just not that fluent in car cussing I guess.
So the other day, I go out, and unbelieveably both my back tires had gone nearly flat overnight. I stared at them both blankly and then frowned, but they had not even the decency to look embarrassed about it.
I got in and began my trek to the gas station. At a light, a man in a truck next to me begins to wave and yell. I know what he's going to say, but don't wish to seem rude. I roll down my window.
"Lady, do you know you have two flat tires?" He says as in a tone as if to say I caused this by having a uterus.
I nod, showing my tired frustration, then begin rolling back up the window while saying, "thanks!" cheerily.
"Lady!"
"Yes?" I stop the window.
"You have TWO flat tires!"
I consider explaining the difference between flat and nearly flat, as well as pointing to the gas station I'm in the lane for, but instead just nod, with an expression of 'sorry' on my face--as if I'm truly sorry for making him have to tell me this while we are stopped at the light.
"Well," he begins with pure exasperation, "you need to get them fixed!"
By this time I'm fed up with Captain obvious and mumble "Yes, Dad."
He doesn't hear me, but he can see I've said something, and so replies--I'm still trying to believe he's still talking to me and depserately want the light to change-- "You have to do something about that."
Finally, I've had it and ask, "You wanna give me your spare? I'm just carrying the one, and BOTH my tires are flat!"
I mean seriously you'd think he'd notice I'm OBVIOUSLY having a not so great morning as it is. The light changes and before he takes off he yells,
"Witch!" Only he mistakenly used a B instead of a W.
It actually takes me a moment to take off and turn into the station I'm so stunned at this reply. I'm amazed that my bad morning had so personally disgusted and offended this man in his gigantric truck.
I told a friend who explained to me that to vehicles, apparently flat tires are synonymous with flipping the middle finger, and so I had just given him a double birdie.
So now I guess I get it. I am just not that fluent in car cussing I guess.
My shoulder
So March 22nd there was a going-away party for a co-worker. It involved a nasty mix of alcohol and karaoke, two things that can only mix nastily. I can always measure my drunkeness at these affairs by how many times I sing, this was a good night, just sang once. After getting home and changed for bed, I went to the kitchen for a drink. I filled the cup from the faucet, then turned around to drink. (It's hard to imagine your water as refershing and clean while looking at dirty dishes in your sink.) As I did so, my feet slipped on some heretofore unnoticed water on the floor, and down I went. On my way, I made the feeble attempt at catching myself with my left hand on the counter. I missed. My elbow, unbeknownest to me, decided to martyr istelf and catch on the counter anyway, causing my whole arm to be swept up in a very swift and crunching manner.
So, at about 4am on the 23rd, I damaged some piece in my shoulder. I waited a month, but today finally went to an orthopedic doctor. Now I face an MRI next week, and unless its much better than we all think, I may well be facing surgery. I'm not a big fan of the concept, but its not the surgery itself I find bothersome, its missing work. My situation doesn't demand much money to live, just to live as I would like. But that isn't much compared to the whole, how am I supposed to fill my jobless days?
I, most of the time, like serving. I'm of the age that I am supposed to be in some sort of career styled after my college degree, but as I had kids instead of a degree, that is not the case. Serving is good money for the hours worked, and offers a job wherein you can form those wacky schedules conducive to going back to school. (not to mention an extra day off is often easily had by getting someone to just pick up your shift--no trying to eek or count out personal days.)
So serving is money, fast paced but basically easy, and often entertaining. If you've ever been eating out and wondered if your server was talking about you in the back--yes, we are... and it's hilarious. I work with great people, some of whom are some of the funniest people I've ever known.
So my shoulder isn't just cheating me out of money, but costing me a huge loss in material at not being able to make fun of customers with my coworkers.
So I guess I'll just make fun of you to your face right here. I'll come eat at your restaraunt later, and you can go in the back and talk about my list of special instructions with your friends then.
So, at about 4am on the 23rd, I damaged some piece in my shoulder. I waited a month, but today finally went to an orthopedic doctor. Now I face an MRI next week, and unless its much better than we all think, I may well be facing surgery. I'm not a big fan of the concept, but its not the surgery itself I find bothersome, its missing work. My situation doesn't demand much money to live, just to live as I would like. But that isn't much compared to the whole, how am I supposed to fill my jobless days?
I, most of the time, like serving. I'm of the age that I am supposed to be in some sort of career styled after my college degree, but as I had kids instead of a degree, that is not the case. Serving is good money for the hours worked, and offers a job wherein you can form those wacky schedules conducive to going back to school. (not to mention an extra day off is often easily had by getting someone to just pick up your shift--no trying to eek or count out personal days.)
So serving is money, fast paced but basically easy, and often entertaining. If you've ever been eating out and wondered if your server was talking about you in the back--yes, we are... and it's hilarious. I work with great people, some of whom are some of the funniest people I've ever known.
So my shoulder isn't just cheating me out of money, but costing me a huge loss in material at not being able to make fun of customers with my coworkers.
So I guess I'll just make fun of you to your face right here. I'll come eat at your restaraunt later, and you can go in the back and talk about my list of special instructions with your friends then.
Feedback
So many years ago I discovered the internet to be vastly interested in giving me an education, helping me lose weight, selling me homes, buying my homes, giving me bigger boobs, making my penis more exciting, and all sorts of other things that as it happens, I have no interest in. As such I began using two e-mail accounts, one for people I know, the other for everything else from business to shopping to surveys. The account for me, the account for spam. The e-mail account here is the spammy one. So, if you want to rant back, and want me to read it, use as your subject heading "Blog:" followed by your choice of subject. Otherwise I'll just delete it to the junk file.
The name, hopsgirl, I'll clear up right now, as I've had odd questions about it in the past. (a) I'm a girl, uh duh. (b) hops refers to the ingredient in beer. I'm what many refer to as a 'beer snob.' Meaning I prefer taste over marketing. I love a good, funny, super-bowl worthy beer commercials, just not their product.
For those who do not know, beer has four basic ingredients. Water, yeast, hops and grain. Hops is what gives beer its bitterness, amongst other things. I drink my coffee black, my tea unsweetened (with lemon preferably), my wine dry and my beer hoppy. I'm a bitter sort of gal.
The name, hopsgirl, I'll clear up right now, as I've had odd questions about it in the past. (a) I'm a girl, uh duh. (b) hops refers to the ingredient in beer. I'm what many refer to as a 'beer snob.' Meaning I prefer taste over marketing. I love a good, funny, super-bowl worthy beer commercials, just not their product.
For those who do not know, beer has four basic ingredients. Water, yeast, hops and grain. Hops is what gives beer its bitterness, amongst other things. I drink my coffee black, my tea unsweetened (with lemon preferably), my wine dry and my beer hoppy. I'm a bitter sort of gal.
One
So if I had a dime for everytime someone asked/whined about my not reading their blog--well I'd have a good sized bag for the Coinstar machines. (a dime bag without the haze?) So yes, I'm basically self-centered and selfish. So why me, here, now? Perhaps I'm inspired by some occasional blog reading to do my own. Perhaps I have some things I want to say to the world. Mostly I like to rant to myself, and as the most likely sole reader, this works as well as any other venue. But today, it's because the doctor has just taken me and my damaged (possibly rotator cuff)shoulder off work. Turns out beer and vicodin are not completely the cure for off-work boredom.
I have no theme, no long term goals, for this blog. The title, Central Barren, is taken from a nearby--we have four houses and no zip code-of-our-own--town. I always thought it a funny, unambitious, name for a town. Central is the middle, Barren is nothingness, or the lack of ability to create something. Ergo, Central Barren is downtown no-where, the middle of nothing. It seemed right for a blog dedicated to my unproductive self.
I'm above average intelligence, but well below in ambition. I'm somewhat creative, but very unproductive. I'm not a big fan of change, but cannot stand regimented regularity--must have the spontaneous occasionally. So today, its a blog. Tomorrow, it'll probably be the abandonment of the blog.
So read if you got nothing better to do, and since I've got nothing on my schedule, I'll just write.
I have no theme, no long term goals, for this blog. The title, Central Barren, is taken from a nearby--we have four houses and no zip code-of-our-own--town. I always thought it a funny, unambitious, name for a town. Central is the middle, Barren is nothingness, or the lack of ability to create something. Ergo, Central Barren is downtown no-where, the middle of nothing. It seemed right for a blog dedicated to my unproductive self.
I'm above average intelligence, but well below in ambition. I'm somewhat creative, but very unproductive. I'm not a big fan of change, but cannot stand regimented regularity--must have the spontaneous occasionally. So today, its a blog. Tomorrow, it'll probably be the abandonment of the blog.
So read if you got nothing better to do, and since I've got nothing on my schedule, I'll just write.
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