Category Archives: 366

It’s nice to wake up on a weekend day and not have anything you absolutely HAVE to do. Even with a tiny hangover, today was just loose and free and lovely.

We dropped the kid off at Hebrew school and then hit up the grocery store, then we came back and basically did nothing. Freddie and Jillian played Wii games and did a Hello Kitty puzzle together while I did online jigsaw puzzles (yeah. I know) and started a pot of chili.

Thoroughly boring. Bliss.

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 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?