Free-Range Weirdo

My MRI results have come back, and while I can’t decipher the handwriting completely, it appears that I have a bit of arthritis under my kneecap. It stands to reason that my right knee is having the same issue – the pain is similar but not nearly as acute as it is on the left side.

SIGH.

I had a feeling it would be something like this, because on the evening of my MRI, I was checking myself out in the mirror and I found my first grey hair (on my head, AHEM). I might have had it for years, but this is the first time in a LONG time that my natural hair color has grown out enough to make the grey ones stand out. Wheeeeeeeee! I’m already mostly deaf, and now there’s arthritis and grey hair! What’s next, a sudden urge for rice pudding?

I knew that there wouldn’t be any kind of panacea for this, but a cursory look around the internet tells me that there is not a whole lot that I CAN do. Most of what I read was “well, there are activities that will aggravate you knees. Stop doing them. They include walking, running, stairs, lunges, and squats.” ALL THINGS I NEED TO DO. I also read a lot of “lose some weight, fatty.”

I AM WORKING ON IT.

So there’s that. I am only mostly disgruntled about it (instead of completely disgruntled) because I am about to turn 37 and shit starts falling off of people, you know? My knees have NEVER been good, so this is just the next step in my alarmingly rapid degeneration into an elderly woman. I already drink a lot of tea and am a shawl enthusiast, you see.

However. There are things that need to get done, namely this Ironman quest I have set for myself (just because I’m elderly doesn’t mean I’m SANE, you know). Which means I am going to have to learn to be best friends with painkillers and ice packs. JOY.

I haven’t been to the doctor yet to discuss my options. I’m guessing surgery is probably out, and I’m sure there will be things available like physical therapy and drugs, so we’ll see what happens there. In the meantime, I suppose I should locate my razor, address the yeti situation on my body, and hop in the pool.

I was going to post a something about my favorite band director who died on Monday, but it’s not ready. Instead, you get A List.

Things I found in the sofa cushions:

1. Dog hair. Oddly enough, the majority of the dog hair was white – the dog is mostly black with a white belly. She is also NOT ALLOWED ON THE SOFA.

2. 1 M&M, green. This is astonishing, considering the number of M&Ms ingested by the kid. She’s very good at keeping track of her sweets, apparently.

3. 1 cough drop, mysteriously wrapper-free. No idea what’s going on there.

4. 2 drink coasters

5. Circular bamboo knitting needles, size 10 x 36″. I think these are the ones that are slightly jagged and thus need to be thrown away.

6. 1 battery-powered pink glow stick. Why I don’t have 500 of these for Phish shows, I do not know. Oh, wait – yes I do know. It’s because of drugs.

7. 1 Koosh ball. I recently bequeathed my 3 Koosh balls to Jillian.

8. 1 drumstick. Sweet fancy Moses, please let her play any instrument except drums, thank you and Amen.

8a. I would even accept the trumpet.

8b. Which is really saying something.

9. 1 toy sushi knife. I’m not sure if the kid is hiding weapons for later use or if she simply misplaced them. Either scenario is terrifying, which is why she’s not allowed to play with the actual knives. Yet.

10. 3 sets of nail clippers. I occasionally stash nail clippers in my knitting bag(s) and for some reason, they are never there when I’m looking for them. I could probably save a lot of time if I simply begin by looking in the sofa cushions.

I’m only human. I know I said I would write every day in 2012 but right now the urge is just not there. I don’t have anything to say. I don’t want to talk about anything. I don’t want to DO anything.

I need to build a blanket fort, I think.

I do not like snow.

Wait, that’s not strictly true.

I like snow as an abstract concept. I know it looks pretty and creates a sense of coziness and inspires the feeling of wanting to be curled up on the sofa with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book.

However, the reality of snow is much more terrible. It’s cold, for one thing, and I do not like to be cold. It causes things to be very slide-y and that makes me fall down (or very nearly so) and I don’t like that, either.

It causes people to FORGET HOW TO DRIVE. Ugh.

Did I mention it’s cold? Well, it is. It’s very cold. Do not want.

Once in awhile, though – snow is quite nice. It’s very pretty on the trees and it muffles the everyday sounds of the neighborhood, which I like. I know this is surprising, since I just wrote a whole screed about my deafness. But there are quite a few annoying sounds that I still can hear so it’s nice to have the whole world try to match up with the inside of my head once in awhile.

The snow keeps the crazy people out of my grocery store. That’s a HUGE plus. I love the grocery store, but not so much on the weekends when you get the Insane People, the Bored People, and the Grocery Tourists. Snow helps keep those folks at home where they belong and so the store is only filled with Professionals such as myself. Quite nice.

I don’t think I did. This has been an extremely long and boring week. Lots of waiting around for other things to happen before I can do what I need to do. Boring.

Anyway, we’re supposed to get some snow tomorrow. That will be a nice change from this spring-like weather we’ve been having. And by “nice change” I mean “it doesn’t really have to snow, I’m totally cool with this weather.” I’m no fan of snow after the first 15 minutes of “ooh pretty.” That’s enough for me.

Jillian has been hoping and praying for snow since September, so maybe a little bit would be nice. I guess. I might even be able to get her to put socks on. That kid is a hippie in training.

What else… what else…

Nope, nothing.

Well, that happened. I had my MRI today and the whole experience was pretty interesting. I’m not a huge fan of being sick/injured but I like interesting medical procedures.

I lay down on the table and put my leg on a little tray-like thingy. The technician put the top on so my leg was in sort of a tube, then she put headphones on me (it’s noisy), said “try not to move your leg, this takes about 20 minutes” and left the room.

Of course, as soon as she said “try not to move” my leg started going “HEY! I ITCH! I NEED TO WIGGLE! SCRATCH ME!” Using only the power of my mighty mind, I managed to lie completely still the whole time. The local Lite Rock station was playing through the headphones, and it wasn’t too bad at first – there was a James Taylor song, followed by U2, followed by that one John Waite song from the 80s (which is normally one for singing in the car), and then…

Matchbox 20.

It could have been worse, obviously, as there are myriad “lite rock” landmines out there, but Matchbox 20 is about as bad as it gets. Ugh. At least it wasn’t Nickelback.

I should get my results sometime next week and then… then we’ll see.

I am disabled. It sucks to have to write that out, but it’s the truth. I am hard-of-hearing (officially) and will likely be 90% deaf by the time I’m 50. Doesn’t that sound fun? <<–HAHAHA Do you see what I did there?

On the one hand, it’s not all that bad. There are thousands of life’s tiny annoyances that don’t even register with me: other people’s cell phones, alarm clocks, microwave beeping, etc. I can’t hear any of those things. On the other hand, I can’t hear things like smoke alarms, my own cell phone ringing, the teapot whistling, or birds. I miss being able to hear birds.

Having an invisible disability of this type sucks rancid hyena nuts. If it were something obvious, there would be so much less explanation happening in my life. Whenever I meet someone new or hang out with a new gang of people, there is always a quick heads-up explanation of why I have to be Creepy Staring Girl and a warning of what happens when I’ve had enough alcohol that I stop trying to figure out what you’ve actually said and start answering to what I heard. That’s always a good time, but there is a streak of squirmy discomfort that underlies the whole thing. I hate it.

When I’m at a restaurant, I automatically look to Freddie to “interpret” what the waiter is saying. This is especially bad in places we’ve never been to before or places that are very dark. It’s one of the major reasons why I tend to order the same thing every time – I already know what follow-up questions the waiter is going to ask, and therefore I don’t need to glance at Freddie and/or answer a completely different question than what was asked of me. That happens WAY more often than I’d like. So I order the same things, usually. It’s just safer.

Going out with friends can be excruciating. I always try to take a moment early on in the evening to remind people that I Cannot Hear You and I Will Stare At Your Face because I am pretty good at reading lips. I’ve had to acquire that particular parlor trick to hide the fact that if I can’t see your face, I likely have no fucking clue what you’ve said.

Watching TV can be problematic. I have gone off on terrible rants when the closed-captioning is fucked up and/or non-existend (Breaking Bad DVDs, I’m looking at you). I wrote a horrible screed to Netflix because for whatever reason, when you stream a movie or TV show through our Blu-Ray player, subtitles aren’t available. HOW IRRITATED AM I? Through the iPad or the Wii, it’s no problem. But through the Blu-Ray? Nope. Fuck off, Blu-Ray. Or Netflix. Whomever is responsible for that horrible oversight can get fucked right in the ear.

If I were given three wishes, you can bet your left arm that my #1 wish would be to get my hearing back.

I scheduled the MRI for my knee for tomorrow afternoon. The list of questions I had to answer just to schedule the appointment was astonishing, but I suppose they have to be extra-thorough so as not to have people exploding and stuff.

It should be interesting, as I’ve never had an MRI before. I’ve had x-rays and ultrasounds and EKGs and EEGs and a CAT scan, but never anything so fancy as this. I hope it gives the doctor something to look at so we can get some answers about why my knee hurts ALL THE TIME and then we can fix it!

The ladies at the radiology place were MILES more pleasant than the bitches at the doctor’s office. You see? NOT DIFFICULT.

So, if something goes wrong, all I ask is that I get superpowers out of the deal. Let’s cross our fingers, okay?

I hate people, as a group. I love and enjoy many individual persons, but you get a bunch of people in a group and I get the urge to get a flamethrower.

I don’t come by this dislike in a vacuum, either. I have worked a number of jobs where I have had to be in contact with a vast number and variety of folks. And people, as a rule, suck. They’re pushy and rude and slow and stupid (or overly smart) and they just… don’t pay attention, 90% of the time.

Knowing this, I tend to err on the side of extra-polite and obliging when dealing with working folks. I am nice to waiters, I am patient with cashiers, and I have no problem standing in a long line at Target because they only have 3 registers open.

(By the way, WTF, Target? EVERY time?)

It’s because I’ve been there, on that side of the desk. I know the frustrations that come with jobs of that type, and so I am more inclined to try to be the bright spot in someone’s day instead of the person they talk about during their lunch break. If people only knew how many conversations in my office or in the back room at Borders started with “Oh my god, this fucking guy.”

So, like I said, I am more than inclined to be patient when I’m the customer. 9 times out of 10, that patience is acknowledged and appreciated. That 1 time out of 10, however… is when I’m at the doctor’s office.

Now, here’s the thing. I have worked in a busy doctor’s office as the front desk lady. I FULLY understand what it’s like to have to constantly ask and answer the same questions over and over. It’s annoying and frustrating and not a little soul-crushing, at the end of the day. That particular doctor’s office nearly did me in, between the drunk Family Practice doctor and the wannabe Brazilian gangsta chick who also worked the desk with me. That girl was straight-up scary, but she only threatened me once. Then we had a nice talk about the availability of untraceable poisons (all bullshit bluffing on my part, of course) and she left me strictly alone after that.

But I digress.

Last week, I finally decided that I couldn’t fix the infection that was attacking my ear so I went to the doctor. I don’t go to the doctor all that often, because I am relatively healthy. So I’m not intimately acquainted with their flow of work, shall we say. When you go in, if you have a scheduled appointment, you are supposed to go to a certain window. If you are a walk-in and need to see a PA, you are to go to a different window. That’s what I did. However, apparently, if you catch someone at a VERY bad time, she tells you that walk-in PA appointments are “for emergencies only” and that I should maybe sit down and wait until she can find a free 15 minutes in some doctor’s schedule to have a look at me.

And boy, do I wish I’d taken a picture of that ear – it was amazing. I wasn’t aware that an ear that was twice it’s normal size and the color of a candy apple didn’t qualify as a goddamned emergency.

I mean, excuse the fuck out of me for interrupting you and asking you to DO YOUR FUCKING JOB.

*throws up hands*

Ohhhhh, I’m at the WRONG WINDOW, am I? I SEE.

Her obvious annoyance with me now knowing which of the 56 windows I was supposed to approach pissed me off. I GET IT, because I have been there, but she could have at least made a stab at hiding it. It was, after all, 9AM. Starting your day with that does not make for a fun morning, eh?

This 366 project is already chapping my ass. It’s probably because I have become soul-crushingly boring in my old age.

Not to worry, I’m sure I will get pissed off about something and decide to write about it.