There will be some serious topics coming but I try to maintain my devotion to fairness even when things upset me. For instance, things could have gone better at my last Pain Doc appointment. Instead of reporting on what was likely mere confusion caused by me and my problem of serious time constraints, I realized that my 28 day appointment cycle makes July a rare but regular two appointment month. After my next appointment, I hope to have plenty of positives to report.
Also, Melissa went on a brief vacation with her side of the family but without me. This was by my choice. Their goal was to see a show I would have hated and travel is just plain bad for me. Unfortunately, I learned there's some truth to calling Melissa my better half. I was hopelessly dysfunctional without her to the point where an extended trip probably would have killed me from the sheer neglect I'd have put myself through. How to do better surviving on my own is a topic all disabled people should take seriously.
In addition to those serious topics, I have kept myself very busy. Was I doing something too important to sit down and write something that might help someone else survive better? No. I was keeping myself very busy because the broken chair makes it nearly impossible to relax comfortably while out of bed. If you think that frustrates me, you should see how Maddie the cat reacts to not having lap time for her naps. That got coupled with the great flea invasion of 2012 so that it seemed the world was conspiring against my favorite grey kitty.
Then there were days like yesterday. Melissa was off yesterday and we had a whole day's worth of agenda to complete after Melissa's fourth straight closing shift. Unfortunately, my reversed sleep schedule took a day off on Wednesday. I'd hoped to sleep Wednesday night but it didn't happen. By the time she woke up (very early for her) on Thursday, I was at the end of my rope. My goal was to make a quick trip out that accomplished one or two things but I had a severe headache, extreme touch sensitivity and I was twitching like a madman.
While I was no longer up for a productive trip, I hoped that Melissa would get us some breakfast before I could get worse. Then I might feel better enough to take a little trip and knock one thing off my list somewhere. The cat is out of the bag about the Barnes and Noble "Nook" e-reader that the in-laws bought me. I had tried to keep this information away from them but it never worked worth a damn. The ratio of hours spent on the phone with customer service to hours spent reading was approaching 1:1 and I am very bad on the phone.
This leaked to them with the expected bad feelings but they actally felt guilty about it. As I had snapped to a tech on the phone, my in-laws don't have money to burn. It was very impressive that they had purchased this thing that is relatively easy on the arm muscles to use. I'm trying to get over the guilt associated with someone deciding to make buying me something a priority and move on with life. They were kind and kindness should not bite you on the ass. Melissa and I decided that the way to make this gesture work was to exchange the Nook for an upgraded version that didn't suffer from early adopter bugs and pay the upgrade costs ourselves.
While we were at the bookstore doing this, I was going to spend as much time as I could stand checking out a variety of books that I wouldn't normally consider buying. My interests are already what you'd have to consider eclectic but I'm always interested in broadening those horizons. I never thought that I'd be a tea drinker or someone who listens to symphonic music so I wanted to give poetry reading a try. I'm old and mature enough to no longer be afraid of being that guy who reads poetry and all so why not?
Unfortunately, Melissa doesn't go from zero to full speed in two seconds flat on her days off. While she put way too much thought into the concept of breakfast, it became lunch time. She revealed a hidden agenda of wanting to get me out of the house which I opposed with an asterisk. The asterisk is the always available "do it because you love me and trust me" exception. She invoked that quietly and we ended up at Arby's which is, in fact, "good mood food."
It was a very busy store and I used up the very last of my energy for the day without realizing it. By the time we left, I was barely able to walk and carry an orange cream milkshake at the same time. (It was such a good milkshake.) I couldn't be that close to the "Staples" office supply store without certain feelings emerging. Since I looked up fetish in the dictionary and learned it is not a dirty word by definition, I have admitted to my office supply fetish. She talked me into waiting for an upcoming sale at her store but I reminded her that my favorite pen in the whole world is sold at "Staples" and not her store. She went in and bought me a 12-pack obligingly after she realized that we wanted the same thing. She wanted to keep me out of what might as well be the Heroin Emporium for me and I didn't want to take another step.
When we got home, she found an old school primer. I don't know what age group it was intended for but there was an essay justifying the study of literature even for those who planned careers with nothing to do with the subject. That makes my guess high school since it was printed in 1966 before college was so nearly universal. I found the section on poetry and was genuinely delighted. Yes, the textbook aspects were as annoying as the editors suggested they might be but the poetry was delightful. I read a poem about cherry blossoms that was short, pleasant on the tongue and revealing of a small part of human nature.
I'd never enjoyed lyric poetry before with my admittedly limited efforts linked exclusively to the narrative form. Why am I interested in poetry? There has always been an all but forbidden link to the romantic in poetry for me. I think of sitting close to a certain someone (aka Melissa but I had the image before I knew her) reading aloud so that the words helped form some sort of mood. I don't care if your minds are in the gutter because I know my image doesn't change whether I'm too sick to react to a thousand mostly naked dancing girls or if my mind is in the gutter with you. Romance, comfort and solace have always been linked very closely for me.
It only took a few short poems before my eyes were closing and I was worried about dropping a hardback book on Maddie who was asleep on my lap. She seemed to like it when I read to her. I went upstairs to take a short nap to escape the pain and then Melissa awakened me at 8 PM. It was too late to do more than the barest exchange at the bookstore so I told her the truth. I wanted to sleep more than anything. By 2AM, I was stiff from lying in bed for too long. Our mattress is too hard or something so that my hips and the sides of my gut feel bruised after so many hours in bed.
The beginning of yesterday didn't really fit in the beginning of the story like it should so I'm going to put it here. After hours of trying to get to sleep, I reached a point where I suspected (correctly as you know) that I had lost the chance to sleep and have a productive day. Therefore, I spent some more time working on my latest novel effort with the working title "Twice in a Lifetime." My last writing session broke off suddenly when the story went to a place so dark you would think it had to be the product of an evil imagination but it was inspired by a number of stories I'd been told in confidence. Even blended together so that I doubted the actual people could recognize the tiny fragments of their own lives, the story was too hard to write.
As I've done recently, I took some inspiration from Stephanie Meyer when my own life experience failed me. Instead of vampires, I used my knowledge of military matters to create a corporate paramilitary team. Instead of my protagonist having to watch helplessly while the second love of his life struggled with horrors he could not help, I made them external. The "bad guy" became a physical threat and so Peter the protagonist called in the cavalry. As the now outgunned potential threat of an unmarked van (that could have been harmless) fled, the couple was whisked away in armored black SUVs. As Melissa put it, "is there really any other color for them?"
It was quite the breakthrough for me because I've been writing a lot lately of what I thought a friend had called dumb girly stuff back in high school. It turns out he had said boy'n'girly stuff at the time but I had taken note of something Melissa had said far more recently. As I complained about "Twilight" movies leaving the novel plots behind to include pointless violence, she noted that there had to be something in it for the boys. She explained that I'm unusual in my long held preference for character development with little action. Throwing in a little action that will integral to the story and not tacked on will expand my potential readership.
That writing was fun but it used up a little too much energy. I got to use the other side of my brain as I picked the perfect weapons mixture for a covert team that wants to use weapons that will minimize collateral damage if there's a fight but will intimidate their way out of the fight in the first place. If you're a Stargate fan, you might recognize the P-90 but you might not realize that it's a real gun. I'm sure the show used it because it looks cool but police and some military units use it because it won't shoot through people and walls to kill the wrong people so easily.
I'm getting far afield here but there is a point. Even a bad day like yesterday with crippling pain and dizziness that kept me in bed can have all sorts of high points. I got to eat roast beef, curly fries and drink Diet Dr. Pepper. I am no longer using my very last good pen and frantic about its potential loss. Maddie left a nice warm bed to come downstairs and sit on my lap in yet another show of affection for me. Now, I'm going to post this and try to fill today with as much good as I can.
Belgian Independence Day is approaching and there's a beer sale. What can I say? I know what I like.
