I’ve always put off New Year’s Resolutions until March. My birthday’s in March; I figure I can get away with my newest year being close enough to everyone else’s. This year I feel like doing something different. Next December 31st, there are a few things I want to be able to say I have done throughout 2008. Some of them are stupid, some of them embarassing, some of them you’ll just have to decide for yourself.

Personal hygiene: take a shower every day, no matter how tired I am. Brush my teeth, floss, and mouthwash twice a day, no matter how late I’m running. Use my facewash twice a day.

Personal health: exercise (with or without Kaity) every other day. Take my medicine every day. Lose 40 pounds. That’s less than a pound a week, and less than half of my ultimate goal. Absolutely no more smoking – not when I’m out with friends, not when I had a stressful day, not after sex.

Financial: No more overdrafts. I’d love to say no more late bills, but that’s definitely not going to happen unless I can achieve this.

Relations: No goals. I can’t set myself up for anything right now.

Everyone seems to focus on “When does life begin?”, especially when they’re involved in the abortion debate. Today I wished I could say for certain that I knew when it ends.

Wikipedia lists several options for when death is pronounced. It used to be defined as cessation of breathing and a heartbeat. Now there are tests for brain-death that include EEG (electrodes on the scalp) and radiology (to look for cerebral edema).

I did a test today to see if a patient was brain-dead. It disturbs me to think that I couldn’t tell how it would turn out until after it was over. I put such a high value on my feelings and being “in tune” with people, but I could not tell you if that person was alive or dead. I could not tell you if there was anything different about that person (at the most basic level) than any of my other patients.

How can I know when someone is going to call before the phone rings? How does anyone feel when they’re being watched? How can simple things like that happen, and there’s no way to say, “Yes, this person is alive,” or “No, this person is dead.”

I’m frustrated right now, and I’m not sure that this is as clear as I wanted it to be.

An interesting Personality Test, after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am not sure whether I hate myself or … no, I do.  I hate who I was three years ago, and I hate that I never learned anything from it.

Last night I took a Sharpie and wrote all the things I want in my mate. I didn’t have any paper, so I wrote on me. I feel like I ought to write them down before they wash away.

In no order, though basically from top down:

• Be patient with me.
• Believe in this.
• Plan your future.
• Be independent. Financially.
• Be secure in your skin.
• Have children with me.
• Have your own friends.
• Have a passion
• Love me.
• Enjoy communication.
• Have compassion.
• Take me for walks.
• Be a hard-working, ethical man.
• Have a creative outlet.
• Like my friends.
• Be intelligent.
• Try to understand when it feels like you never could.
• Love the family you come from.
• Be my cheering section.
• Be my kind of funny.
• Don’t be a bigot.
• Be humble, but know your worth.
• Be handy with tools.
• Be healthy.
• Improve yourself.
• Complement me.
• Keep no secrets from me.

I think that was all of them. At least, I can’t find any other ones.

I am such a ‘tard sometimes.  I was driving home tonight and had convinced myself that the guy behind me was following me, so I drove around the block a couple times before going to my house (and he’d kept going straight after I turned).  I got myself so worked up that my heart was racing right out of my chest as I was going into the house.  I am a tardo.

I just invited Marcus over to watch Eureka with me on Tuesday night.  I don’t regret doing it, but it makes me wonder why I do the things I do.

When he and I first broke up, I spent a lot of time with my friend Kaity. I was over at her house almost daily. It started out as just wanting to not be at home, but then it just became habit. After a while I realized what I was doing and that I was totally intruding on her time and space and I stopped doing it, but I think (though she was too nice to ever say anything) that I’d overstayed my welcome before I’d realized it.

Last weekend Marcus and I ended up going to the movies together. Then he came over to fix my computer a few days later. Then he came over to fix it again, because he couldn’t duplicate the problem.

[On an aside, that's been happening to me a lot lately, and it's got to be the most frustrating things ever. It's the same feeling I'd get when I'd be home sick and I thought my mother would think I was faking it. It's close to paranoia, but it's different because it's real. It's fear of being not believed. /tangent]

So I worry that by inviting him over to watch tv, I’m going to get into the habit of hanging out with him all the time.

I worry also that if I ever do get another boyfriend, I’ll scare him off with my love of rigidity & schedules. I can see it now: “We can’t have MEATLOAF for dinner! We’re having SPAGHETTI! It is WEDNESDAY, REMEMBER? Don’t you pay any attention to me? Don’t you LOVE ME?!”

I think I mentioned this in a previous entry, but it’s just another example of how I am way too neurotic to be a real person right now.

I went to the comic book store on Saturday.  I walked around and didn’t have any idea what I was looking at.  I’ve never read a comic before.  At least, not if you don’t count online comics or the Archie comics.

It took all of 2 minutes for the resident geek clerk to come ask me if I needed any help finding anything.  When I told him that I was just looking around he asked me the question I was dreading: “So do you like DC or Marvel?”

Now, I am pretty opinionated about comic book movies.  I love the Spiderman movies and XMen movies and Fantastic Four movies and I hate the Superman and Batman movies.  And I was pretty sure that the ones I like were from Marvel comics, but I couldn’t be certain.  So I ended up having to say that I didn’t know, that I’d never really read anything before.

So then what was I doing in a comic book store?  I could tell that was what he was thinking, so I quickly added that my friends (what friends?) are all comic nerds and they thought I should start reading some.  But of course, I didn’t have any recommendations from any of my imaginary comic friends, so I said that I was just looking for titles that sounded familiar.

“So do you like zombies?  Horror movies?”

I don’t think he could have come up with two things I hate more.

“Eh, not really.  I really like fantasy novels, but I’ll read just about anything.  Just not zombies.”

We then spent the next twenty minutes looking around for something — anything — that wasn’t insanely scary.  And he kept coming up with titles that seemed really childish.  Fairy tales and the like.  But eventually I walked out with four that seemed pretty decent.  Two of them (X-Men Fairy Tales, or something like that) were ones that he picked out, mostly because I felt bad that he’d spent so much time trying to find something I liked.  And I figured what the hey.  Maybe I would like them.

He rang me up and he was so delicate taking them out of the packages to get the price, only touching the edges.  As I walked out I realized that just during those last two minutes of interaction I’d gone from being totally self-conscious in a place where I didn’t belong to wishing that I did belong (even wishing that I was the comic in the bag) and having a little bit of a crush on him.  Then I realized that I have probably been single too long at this point.

But he was so careful with those damn comics and I haven’t taken a single one out to actually read because I feel like he’ll know if I messed them up.  I mean, what if I wrinkled one?  What if I spilled something on it?  What if I got it wet?!

I am way too neurotic to be a real person right now.

You get to experience what its like to be a depressed, tormented artist… just without the motivation or talent.

My car needs maintenance done and it’s going to be $300-$400.  Besides my student loans, I’ve got one bill left to pay off, but it went so long that now I’ve got bill collectors calling me.

Between my hormones being fucked from this PCOS bullshit and getting fat & tired from my insulin levels being out of whack for the last year+ … I’m terrified that everything that was wrong with Marcus and I was because I was too fucked up to fix anything and that I ruined what could have been a very good thing.  I’m scared that I’ll never be able to say with certainty that this was the right thing to do.

It’s taking everything I have to not call him and beg him for another chance.  To let me get oriented with my medication and really try to do this right.

One of the things I forgot about dating Jimmy was how he always seemed better for Beth than for me.

That reminded me of how, in the beginning, I thought Marcus was better suited for Alix than for me.

Makes me wonder what Derek is up to ;)

I am only partially ashamed to own that Mariah Carey album.

I had the most awesome dream about Matt Czuchry last night, only he had a different name in the dream.  I don’t remember much about it besides that he was hot, funny, and he hearted me and kept wanting me to touch his muscles.

I was happy to oblige.

Oh, and my landlord filled my apartment with bees.  In my dream, I mean.  That sucked.

I’m at an increased risk for uterine cancer, even in my 30s or 40s.

I won’t have children without help.

This explains why I have dark skin on my inner thighs.  I’m not part black, Jimmy.

This explains my skin tags.

This explains my fat tummy (even when nothing else is, which admittedly isn’t the case right now).

This explains my facial hair and my acne, neither of which I had in high school.  Who doesn’t have acne in high school?  Me.

This explains why I haven’t gotten my period in over a year without Provera.

This explains why the sonographers always say, “Wow, your ovaries are really long!”

This explains why my hair has been falling out and clogging my shower drains for four years now.

If I’m understanding the connections between PCOD and insulin-resistance, and if I’m understanding what insulin-resistance is, it explains why I absolutely cannot skip a meal without crashing.

http://www.healthology.com/menopause/video3097.htm

What pisses me off is that I have always said, “There are too many children in the world without homes or families.  If I ever have fertility problems, I’m not going to try anything extra.  I will just adopt.”  And I’ve always kind of snickered to myself and laughed at the impossibility of that happening; my mother had six kids, after all.

My sister has always said (like since she was old enough to get her period, and even before then), “If you ever need my eggs or my uterus, you can borrow it.”  I laughed at that, too.

I wanted to be the one of my mom’s kids to give her lots of grandbabies.  I kind of figured she’d get one or two from Mike, two or three from Andy, none from Alix … who knows about Ben or Beth.  But me … I was going to carry on the legacy of trying to populate the planet and give her six or seven.  And I realize that this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given that I just said there are too many kids in the world.  But I think (however erroneously) that there’s a difference between saying, “We are intelligent, healthy, wealthy-enough adults who want to raise a child” and saying, “We’re having septuplets because it was God’s WILL.”  No it wasn’t.  God’s will was that you have NO KIDS.  Is there a genetic cause for infertility?  By circumventing nature’s lockdown on your ovaries with expensive treatments, are you condemning your children to the same (or worse?) fates?
  Does this make any sense?

If I’m not supposed to bear children, then I’m not going to press the issue.  I just wish I was.

In an effort to be both visible and pointless, here’s a current list of artists on my computer.  Collaborations are not listed separately (I’m not going to list Andrea Bocelli and then Andrea Bocelli with Sarah Brightman).  Everything is listed, and no matter how tempting, I did not take out the particularly embarrassing ones.

c-z to follow …

Now I bet you wish I knew how to make an after-the-jump tag, don’t you?

*nsync
¡Forward, Russia!
10,000 maniacs
3 doors down
311
408
50 cent
a new song
a perfect circle
a touch of class
aaliyah
about
absnt
academy chorus
ace of base
adam sandler
adema
aerosmith
afi
akon
al caiola
al green
al hirt
alabína
alan jackson
alanis morissette
alice in chains
alicia keys
alien ant farm
alison krauss
amy winehouse
andrea bocelli
andrew wk
andy coats
angelmoon
ani difranco
animotion
anna nalick
aqua
aretha franklin
atb
athena cage
atmosphere
audioslave
avril lavigne
ayla
azzido da bass
b*witched
baby bash
babyshambles
badly drawn boy
badmarsh & shri
barbara hendricks & the moses hogan singers
barenaked ladies
basement jaxx
beastie boys
beats international
beck
beirut
belinda carlisle
belle & sebastian
ben folds
ben folds five
berg sans nipple
bethany dillon
better than ezra
beyoncé
bill withers
billy joel
björk
black eyed peas
blaque
blind melon
blink 182
bliss
blondie
blood, sweat & tears
blue cheer
blue devils drumline
blue man group
blue october
blur
bôa
bob crane
bob dylan
bobby darin
bon jovi
boney james & rick braun
booker t & the mg’s
boris karloff
borne
bowling for soup
brad paisley
brainbug
brak
brian setzer orchestra
bright eyes
britney spears
bruce springsteen
bubba sparxxx
buckner & garcia
buffalo springfield
burial
bush
busta rhymes

We’d been quite silent to each other, or at least me to him, for a few days, but by yesterday I had actually cooled off.  Cooled off, but decided.  Yes, I was mad at him.  Yes, I knew I didn’t want to be with him anymore.  But I’d also decided that I didn’t want to ruin our birthdays, so I’d put off any talk about Things until March.  By yesterday morning we were doing our usual morning-grunt “small talk”, and then I left to meet up with a friend for plans we’d made earlier.  I mean, we were speaking enough for him to ask me to take the movies back and for me to ask him if there was anything he wanted while I was out.

But when I came home from dropping the Blockbuster movies off and picking up lunch, he asked if I wanted to talk.  I said we should eat first.  Even without knowing what he wanted to talk about, I knew I wouldn’t have an appetite afterwards, and I hadn’t eaten all day.

When we couldn’t put it off any longer, we actually sat down and talked.  He said he needed to know if I wanted this relationship to go any further.  And that was basically that.  He’s going to use his federal refund to get out of here.  He’s taking Gremlin.  Most everything else still needs to be decided.

The friend I’d gone out with earlier in the day invited me out to dinner.  While I was on the phone with her, he got paged in to work, so the timing worked out well that I dropped him off about 6 last night and headed over to her house.  He’s talked to me a few times on the phone since then, but he hasn’t come back here yet.

I’ve been living with this feeling all day, and I only just recognized it.  It’s the short-of-breath, tingly-all-over, mostly-numb-but-I-probably-ought-to-be-feeling-much-worse-than-I-do feeling I got when my mother divorced Alan.  I didn’t remember what that feeling was, only that I kept telling counselors that I felt “numb”.  I was too young to form the words for it then.  Even now, words are failing me.

I asked for this.  I wanted this to happen.  But now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it.  I don’t know how to be alone.  I don’t know how to take care of myself.  I don’t know if I’m supposed to cry or scream or what.

I’m tired.

Marcus and I have decided to split up. So yeah. I’m over at a friend’s house right at the moment (not staying, just for hanging out), so this will have to be brief.

He’s going to move out soon, probably in the next couple of weeks. I’m more than a little scared. I know this is the right thing, though. I just want someone to tell me I’ll be okay. Sometimes I wonder if I even know how to be alone.

Oh my god, he is sanding his feet. With sandpaper. I think I’m going to barf.

powered by performancing firefox

I haven’t been writing much for NaNoWriMo. Since Friday I’ve been dealing with a major headache, stabbing me right between my eye and temple, and then curling around behind my ear. Since Sunday I’ve been dealing with my neck getting stiff, so today I went to the doctor.

One of many reasons I love my doctor is that since he’s a D.O., he offered me muscle relaxants (apparently it’s tightness in my neck that’s causing my headaches, not the other way around) and offered to do OTM. Because of my liver issues (and other reasons), I opted to forgo the muscle relaxants. He said that if this didn’t work (and it might take a couple tries), we could always try medicine later.

He brought me nearly to tears pressing on this spot that recreated my headache, then popped my back and neck in ways that I never knew were possible. I’m half dreading, half eagerly ready for next week’s appointment. As he put it, “it hurts like a bitch,” but I think that I feel better now. It’s actually hard to tell. Between now and then, he showed me some new stretches and gave me a schedule for icing my neck and shoulder.

I think I’d have a hard time being a doctor and not be able to actually fix a person. I couldn’t be a radiologist (although I daydream about living across the planet and reading exams from my living room). I definitely could not be a pathologist. But if I had a chance to use my hands to actually fix something, not just see it and recognize it for what it is …

Maybe I’m just jaded (at 23? What?) and discouraged by a career in medical imaging. I feel like the most help I can do for anyone is getting an IV on the first try, calling ahead to the valet to get the patient’s car brought around before we get down to the door, or making sure to have plenty of warm blankets on hand for laying under and over the patient during the scan. Maybe I’m just feeling inadequate today because of issues I was having yesterday getting the radioactivity off my hands after being an idiot making point sources. But regardless, I don’t feel like I help anyone. I simply identify bad news. Sure, it’s not like their care ends there, but it’s all I get to see.

Anyway, my shoulder is not liking this typing thing. It’s kind of on fire and stuff. There was more I wanted to say, but it will have to wait.

Those were what the last culture was testing for. They came back negative (obviously). I went to my doctor in follow up, and he did another urine dip and sent the rest off for culture. Another negative dip, the culture hasn’t come back yet.

I broke down and actually cried when I asked him if he thought it would be okay to stop all the other tests for a while. I’m tired of everything coming back negative and feeling like it’s all in my head. We agreed that the only thing I haven’t had yet is a HIDA scan, and I don’t know why my gastroenterologist refused to do it. He ordered one for me, and after that, I’m done. Fuck. I’m always and forever going to feel like shit. I don’t know why I’m wasting my money and their time on this.

…

Last night my stomach hurt, and I tried to make it to sleep before it got any worse. It didn’t work so well. I couldn’t lay down, I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t sit still. It hurt to do anything. I took another one of my pain pills I got in the ER. It still hurt, but at least I went to sleep (about half an hour, maybe 45 minutes later). I was trying to avoid taking one, because Monday I felt kinda hungover/still intoxicated. So much for that plan.

I’m a fucking train wreck. I’m just so tired of feeling sick all the time. I just want to do my job.

I was recently reading an entry of Heather’s that had to do with getting Leta to sleep through the night. The comments were fairly interesting, but none of them really seemed remarkable until I ran across one (#450) that said, “I have no children I don’t even want one but I have years left in which i might change my mind.”

I was thinking about how I’m 23 years old right now. Already more than a month has passed since my birthday. It seems like just last spring I was celebrating my 21st birthday. Where did 22 go? I don’t really remember it very well. That’s kind of a good thing, considering how bad a year it was (mostly). But that doesn’t explain for the whole of year 21, either. The last two years have just disappeared one me.

There are about 13 chances to get pregnant each year. Most doctors will agree that the younger you are, the better chance you’ll have of getting pregnant and the fewer complications are likely. That means that between now and 9 months before my 30th birthday, I have 81 chances left, minus however many I lose to coming off hormonal birth control.

I’m not ready to have a baby yet. Financially, mentally, socially … I’m just not in the right place in any regard. But I want to keep all these things in mind, so I don’t forget my goals.