Stop that, stop that...

Well hell. I was all geared up for high drama on Friday but we didn't get it. I can only conclude that the folks at the clinic work VERY HARD to deflect any hint of high drama*, damn bless their consummately professional hides.

Current word is that there is very little doubt about what IT** is, but there is lots of head-scratching about how IT got so far out of control, since we got the official All Clear twice. So there are tests to be done and results to be studied before we find out what's going to happen and when.

How orderly and anti-climactic is that? I appreciate their professionalism, but as anyone who has had to wait for a definitive diagnosis can attest, WAITING SUCKS BALLS.

Ahem.

While we're waiting for something to happen, I thought you might enjoy a peek at my first few thoughts after I heard The News almost two weeks ago. At the time I didn't even notice they were, uh, a little out of character, which makes it even better:

• I really needed a cigarette. (I haven't smoked in 30 years.)


• I got really annoyed with my hair and decided to cut it all off. (I just spent a year growing it out.)


• I felt the urge to get a tattoo. (WTF??)


• I wondered if I know anyone who sells weed. (Decided I probably don't.)

So when my psyche gets shoved against the wall, I turn into a sixteen-year-old. Fascinating.

I managed to get a grip and channel my urge to act out into a somewhat positive direction -- I bought Mr. B an iPad last weekend. Let me tell you, that is one cool toy. If that doesn't make him behave in the doctor's office, nothing will.

I estimate we have another week or so of floating in null space before the shit hits the fan. That should give you plenty of time to get your riot gear ready.

*<Insert Tale of Sir Launcelot joke>

**<Insert Knights Who Say Ni joke>

(Can you tell we recently watched Holy Grail?)
 

Peeking over the edge

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize that whatever is about to happen in the next few minutes or hours could change your life forever?

Sure, with the luxury of hindsight, we can look back and recognize all sorts of decisions that changed the course of our lives -- like the moment I decided to send Mr. B that first email -- but at the time we didn't have a clue that anything out of the ordinary was going on.

But those stomach-wrenching moments when you are well aware you are walking up to the edge of a cliff with no idea what will happen when you take that step over the edge... those are a whole 'nother thing. Like, say, the morning of your wedding. Or when you feel the first pang of labor. Or even when you pick up the stick you peed on ten minutes earlier and slowly turn it over.

Anxious, much?

In half an hour, I am going to leave work to catch a ferry to catch a cab to the Highly Regarded Cancer Treatment Center where Mr. B and I will be told what in the hell is going on.

After that, who knows?
 

At least I'm enjoying the ride

Wow - what a WEEK I'm having! It's been rough, but yesterday the sun finally came out and the temps approached 70 degrees. That made me happy. I also realized that it was about a year ago that Mr. B and I set our wedding date. That made me happy too.

Despite that happy occasion, Mr. B said the other day that June is shaping up to be his least favorite month. I pondered that, trying to place his surgeries, etc. in order, but my memory is crap. I had to go through the blog archives to remind myself what happened when. I then created this handy info-graphic to put it all in perspective. Sure enough, June has been in the bottom of the curve for the three years running.
 

LEGEND:

A: We're dating! Yay!

B: The dermatologist found what?!? OMG! But it's OK, just got to cut it off. Oops, missed a spot -- there. All better.

C: We're moving in together! wOOt!

D: What's that thing on your head? Shit, here we go again. It's still OK, though - just gotta make another scalp donation. All better.

E: We're married! Yay!

F: Ruh-roh...

Seeing it all laid out like that really drove home what a freakin' roller coaster ride the last three years have been, and I'm not even going to count my own little health hassles.

Here's some food for thought: A few months ago Blogger stopped FTP support for self-hosted blogs so I moved my family blog back to Blogger. I had started it since way back in 2004, right before the 25th anniversary of my first marriage. Lots of ancient history there.

I figured since I was now newly-remarried and all, it was a good time to do some housecleaning. I changed the blog name and the tagline, and even chose a new template. I wrote the tagline without even thinking, just as a placeholder, really. But looking at it now I think The Universe was trying to tell me something:

"It's all fun and games until it isn't. And even then, it tends to be fairly interesting."

Heh. Interesting. Yeah, that fits.

Interesting or not, I keep staring at that graph, hoping the pattern continues and we see the red line swing sharply upward in a few months.

Fingers crossed, 'k?
 

Top Five Reasons Today Sucks

5. Fifteen hours, fifty-nine minutes, and thirty-five seconds of chilly, damp, gray daylight. The temp just broke 60 degrees, barely. Thanks, solstice.

4. The soles of my feet hurt for no reason. WTF??

3. Left the house extra early this morning to do a pain-in-the-ass errand on the way to work, only to find that approximately 40 people with the same idea had queued up ahead of me. Had to bail out and head to work early. I hate showing up at work early because I don't get extra points for that. Plus, now I have to leave work early to see if I can get 'er done before the place closes.

2. Walked in to the office to find one of the servers had died, at the ripe old age of twelve years. Managed to shunt most functions to another server, only to have the mail server crap out. Took me three hours to find out that the antivirus software had blocked port 25 all of a sudden for no good reason. This was all complicated by the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing.

1. Oh, and we found out Thursday, about an hour after my last blog post, that it's baa-ack. And it's not going to be a relatively easy cut-and-run kind of deal this time either.

FML.

On the plus side, if you like hearing me whine, there's bound be be quite a bit of it in the near future. Cheers!
 

Great Moments in History #91

Scene: Lunchroom at work, circa 1985 or so. Four co-workers are sharing a table and enjoying typical co-worker banter. Two of them -- Joe and Mr. B -- begin a discussion about some random yet apparently important topic.

Joe (frustrated, pushes back from the table): Dammit, you always do that! I can never be right! No matter what I say, you always correct me!

Mr. B (pauses, considers Joe's statement): Actually, Joe, that's not strictly true....

The group falls silent for approximately two beats, whereupon Evil Twin and Liz burst into laughter.

Best part is, I'm not even making that up. And that's why we liked hanging out with Mr. B.
:)
 

Tidal wave

Wanna hear something really sick and twisted? Yeah? Thought you might, you rascals! OK, here it goes. Ready? Three, two, one...

I miss my period.

Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are. I never ever in a million years thought I would ever confess to such a ridiculous thing. After all, there are tons of media sources out there telling us we don't need our periods. We can stay on birth control for years without a break with no consequences. We have options. We can be FREE!

Sounds good in theory, doesn't it?

Here's the deal: A few months back I had to take the Ol' Lady Bidness into the shop for some detailing, and the doc suggested that while I had 'er up on the lift, she could throw in this quick little treatment that would leave my goods intact but pretty much bring an end to the Red Tide, at least for a few years, by which time I would have completed the transition to cronehood and be done with it for good.

Cool, right? How could that be a bad thing? The Tide had never been much of an issue until recently, but it had started become increasingly erratic and, um, insistent, The chance to knock it down a few pegs appealed to me. And think of the positive effect on the environment, what with my decreased usage of paper products and all. Think of the trees! Win-win, right?

In the beginning, it seemed too good to be true. The additional treatment didn't make recovery any more (gulp) gross than it would have been anyway. I kept my eyes on the prize, and a scant six weeks later I was clean as a whistle. I was thrilled! New white panties for everyone!

Until...

Until the first day I felt compelled to punch a hole through someone's larynx for no good reason. I looked at my trusty Tide chart, as I always do, to see if I could pin this solar flare on my ovaries, or if I was finally losing my mind for realz.

Uh-oh. I flipped back and forth through the months, counted forward from the last recorded flood over and over, but the Tide had been toying with me over the last year and I couldn't find any consistent pattern.

The awful truth broke over me like someone breaking a fake egg over my head on the playground. Sure, my period had virtually stopped, but my ovaries continued merrily squirting globs of hormones into my bloodstream as if nothing ever happened and I now had no way to rationalize predict my "Fuck All Y'all" days. No longer could I claim it was PMS. Now I was just an unpredictable bitch.

And that's why I miss the Tide. At least then I would have an alibi when I find myself fighting the urge to grab my toothbrush and credit card, set fire to the house, and flee for the wild.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.
 

Taking Turns

Dear Fellow Motorist,

I know, I know. You believe beyond any doubt that you're doing the right thing when you give up your right-of-way by stopping in the middle of the street to let some Swaggerwagon out of a parking lot, or wave the other guy ahead at a 4-way stop, or whatever. You think you're being generous and considerate and loving your fellow human.

But do you know what you're really doing? Hmmm? Do you? I will tell you what you are really doing: You really are boning those of us stuck behind your stupid ass.

Surprised? I thought so. It may be a stretch for you, but just imagine that sometimes we may actually have to consider the results of our actions on things that aren't right in front of our faces.

Why oh why do you think people you can see are more deserving of your goodwill than those behind you? In what universe are you allowed to bend the rules of the road completely without consequence simply because you think your motives are pure? I don't even pretend to understand what kind of stunted thought processes it takes to make those decisions seem valid, but I do know that YOU ARE PISSING ME THE HELL OFF.

Listen, the only way we can safely drive down a ridiculously narrow ribbon of pavement in opposite directions at high rates of speed separated by only a thin stripe of yellow paint without slaughtering each other is because we cling to the belief that everyone will FOLLOW the fucking RULES and behave in a predictable manner. So when you nobly offer up your turn to someone you decide is more deserving, not only are you telling me, the person behind you missing the next stoplight because of your generosity-cum-assholery, that I am less worthy than the numbnuts trying to make an ill-advised left turn out of Burger King during rush hour, but you immediately become something much worse than a garden variety Asshole; you are now an Unpredictable Driver. And my made-up statistics show that Unpredictable Drivers are the ones who always fuck everything up, every single time.

So I beg you, pleaseoplease just follow the fucking rules, take your lawfully given right-of-way, and no one will get hurt.

Not threatening, just saying is all.

Oh, and be sure to have a nice day, Asshat.

 

Haircut chicken

I've surrendered. I played haircut chicken and my hair won.

I usually get a haircut every four or five weeks. Recently I got cocky (I know, you're shocked) and decided to see how long I could go before I ran screaming from the mirror. See, I've been growing my hair out for the last year or so, and it's slowly getting there, but I was hoping to push through the final stages and FINALLY get the little goofy bits that swoop out from the side of my head at a ninety degree angle grown out past my ears before I went in for my next fifty-buck trim.

I was this close.

I thought it was traumatic enough when, last fall, I was confronted by the hard truth that I was going to have to re-lean how to use a blow-dryer after probably a decade-long hiatus, but I did it. I even learned how to wield a straightening-flatttener-iron-thingy with a reasonable amount of skill. I weathered the Expensive and Irritating Over-Foiling Event of January 2010 with only minimal psychic scarring, and didn't hardly freak out this spring when I realized my hair looked exactly like it did my freshman year on high school. In 1973.

But I persevered. I thought I had seen the worst my hair could throw at me. Until this week.

This week something happened -- some extra millimeter of hair growth tipped the system into chaos and all hell broke loose. During this morning's primping I realized my hair now looks like it did on my driver's license photo over a decade ago, the one that made me swear I Would Never Ever Grow My Hair Out Again.

Well played, hair. I will take you in this weekend to the fancy-pants stylist and pay the big bucks to weed-whack you back into submission, even if it does take another six months to get the stupid swirly bits to grow out. I have learned my lesson and will never fool with The Schedule ever again.

The Hair hath Spoken, and It was So.
 

Take your grey to work day

Usually I can bring Sweetie to work with me a couple of days a week. Usually. Unfortunately, the last few weeks have been pretty busy and she's had to spend a lot of time at home alone.

But today, o frabjous day, the moon and stars aligned and Sweetie got to come to WORK! And she was SO EXCITED!! However, her office etiquette is a little rusty, so this is what I have spent most of the day looking at.

(pant pantpant...) "Whatcha doin'? Huh? Is it time to go OUT?"

After a few head pats followed by some hard-core ignoring, I can usually get her to go lie down on her bed which is a whole four feet from my chair. If I keep ignoring her, sometimes she'll give up and fall asleep.


Or so I think... until I start to feel a prickly, burning sensation running from my right ear down my neck.


"What?!? I am lying down!"

There's nothing quite like the greyhound laser-gaze to make you feel a little self-conscious.