February 13, 2003: the stone at the center of the galaxy
On the one hand, my life has been pretty staid for the past couple of weeks.
I've borrowed the Buffy Season 3 DVDs from Chris and am watching a couple a night. I hurt one of my ankles and have been icing it every night, and going to Curves three times a week. I am suffering through the kitten's adolescence with good grace, work is work, as usual, and I call my parents every weekend and clean the house every Saturday.
Pretty damned standard.
Okay, there have been a few exceptions.
I've been spending evenings with old friends, catching up. I had Karawynn over last week, and then Icepick came over on Monday. Rich was over on Tuesday, and on Friday Chris is coming over. It's been low-key and lovely to catch up with people.
And last weekend, my friend Kevin came and visited for a few days from Minneapolis. i've known Kevin online for a few years, and, well, he's not quite so tall in text. Excessive height aside, he's a delightful person to be around, and pretty much the ideal houseguest. We had dinner on Friday with a bunch of mutual friends at the Icon Grill, which has lovely food and extraordinarily strong drinks. Or perhaps it was the fact that I had worked out and hadn't eaten in eight hours that made that Pink Elephant so delightfully, er, warming when I only had half of it.
Sometime about the time I was three-quarters of the way through my drink, Kevin leans over and goes, "Your car is an automatic, right? Good." It's really embarrassing to be such a lightweight some days. I told him that I would be fine by the time we were done with dinner, and I was.
If there's one thing that Seattle does right, it's desserts in good restaurants. Kevin's Funeral Fudge Cake was seven layers of chocolatey goodness, and Scott's hot fudge sundae came on a dinner plate. oh, gods, that was amazing.
Mmm. excuse me. I need to go drink some water and remind myself that sweets are bad for me.
I've also been making the rounds of the doctors, as I usually do in February and March. Last year, it was because I was getting ready to have surgery; this year, it was just because it's what you do.
So I went to a new nurse practitioner, who rocks my world. Though I like my gyn, I never really connected with her; Candace, however, is niftykeen and I would not hesitate to recommend her to anyone. She did have some disquieting observations for me; the most disturbing by far is that she suspects that I have Cushing's Disease.
On one hand, that would actually be kind of cool, because Cushing's is fixable with surgery and the symptoms actually resolve after you've been operated on.
On the other hand, the surgery required is on the pituitary gland. Which is at the base of the brain. IN THE MIDDLE OF MY HEAD. This would be less freaky if I hadn't studied anatomy; as it is, i'm familiar with what's between my sinuses and my pituitary gland. There are a *lot* of fiddly things in there, lots and lots of nerves, not to mention the covering of the brain itself.
It's enough to give a girl the idgy shivers, I tell you what.
Her assistant gave me a call yesterday, as well, with more untoward news; evidently, my Pap smear came back "slightly abnormal".
I failed my Pap test! Now my cervix will never get into Harvard!
I go in in a few months for a retest; if I'm still abnormal, I get all the fun of the biopsy and everything. (Well, I will still be abnormal. I meant my cervix being abnormal. Or something.)
Joy. Really. I mean it.
In better, non-medical news, the days are getting longer. I came home early yesterday to work from home, and the sun was shining and the air was almost warm. It didn't quite smell like spring, but it was getting there.
The cherry trees are beginning to blossom, and everywhere I look there are bulbs poking up from under the ground. And yesterday, the fog was blowing away from the water, and the sun was blindingly silver on its tendriled surface.
I've been delving into my past recently; reading old files from 1993 through 1998 or so. It's hard to believe that my breakup with S was five years ago next month.
It's weird that I sort of miss him, even now. He was a good friend, even if we were fatally ill-suited as partners. I regret burning my bridges with him. I don't regret an ounce of the anger but I regret that it killed the friendship between us. I made amends to the other person involved, who I hurt badly; I wish I were brave enough to send a simple "I'm sorry" to him.
Maybe in another five years. Or in another lifetime, when we are both cats.
I scarcely recognize the girl who did all of those writings that I was going through. I recognize the turn of phrase, the rising emotion punctuating a paragraph; but the memories are clouded and at one remove. I've acquired a few things in the intervening years, most importantly a spine and along with it some self-esteem. My pages have been bound into place; I have a beginning and an ending, even if neither is easy to read.
I'm not done growing up yet. Maybe I never will be. But I'm farther along than I was ten, five, or even two years ago.
I'm still writing the book of myths, the line unraveling at the beginning even as the ending trails from my pen.
