Last week I went to see my sleep doctor to update him on my progress with my CPAP machine. I have a new air delivery system called a “nasal pillow”, which is much better than my mask. It doesn’t hurt the bridge of my nose, it doesn’t make my face break out, and it doesn’t at all make me feel as though I’m inserting two tiny rubber penises into my nose every night. Oh, no wait-it DOES do that. But I digress.

Even though I had to get on 3 different highways and drive to what felt like Alabama to get to his office, I was looking forward to this appointment because I would also get to report progress on my WEIGHT LOSS.

So I got checked in, and the nurse put me in the examination room, and the doctor came in, and we began to chat, and then he asked how things had been going for me, and I got to say, “I joined Weight Watchers and I have lost 18 pounds since February!!”

And do you know what his response was, this health care professional, this man who was supposed to be dedicated to my health and well-being, this man who had told me to lose weight in the first place to see if it helped to relieve my sleep apnea?

“Hm. On purpose?”

On. Purpose.

Then he told me that I was one of, like, less than 1% of people who actually did what he told them to.

Really? Hm. I wonder why that could be?

“Just because I have breasts, that doesn’t mean I have magical powers over infants.”

-Brennan to Booth on “Bones”

This past weekend my husband had to go out of town, and since I haven’t yet reached the point in my recovery where I can stay by myself for extended periods of time, my parents came to stay with me.

We started talking about all the TV shows we love to watch, and how glad we are that the writer’s strike is finally over and there are finally new episodes for us to watch. And then suddenly, in the tones of someone undergoing an exhaustive cross-examination at the hands of a crack prosecutor, my mom announced,

“And I already know which shows I’d pick if something happened, and I was only ever allowed to watch 2 shows for the rest of my life.”

I totally understand this behavior, this compulsion to try and anticipate every possible situation one might encounter in the future, and then formulate an appropriate response and/or defense strategy. I myself am quite skilled at it.

Not surprisingly then, many of the sessions with my coach involve the two of us delving into my extensive library of Scary Stuff I’ve Made Up In My Head and attempting to clear out this dense cloud of thought forms.

In one particular session we were having a hard time breaking through, so in an effort to make her point my coach asked, “Well, do you worry about having to learn Braille, just in case you ever go blind?”, thinking that surely, this extreme example would help me to see how irrational I was being.

But apparently she had forgotten who she was talking to, because OF COURSE I said, yes! “Yes, I worry about having to learn Braille, just in case I go blind one day.” Because…doesn’t everyone?

Sometimes, I even scare myself.

Overheard at my knitting class:

“So I was sitting in the living room knitting, and my 18-year old son walked in. He stopped, saw what I was doing, and then asked, ‘Mom, are you practicing being old?’

If the school year ends on May 21st,
and you have waited until April 22nd to call me,
AND your child has failed every test this semester,
it is mathematically impossible for them to get a “B”.

Thank you for you kind attention to this matter.

You may have noticed that lately, I appear to have dropped off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, this is due to my having had a pretty major relapse in my recovery from The Autumn Of Illness. Thankfully, there has not been a return of The Hostile Alien Bacteria. But everything else-the arthritis, the fatigue, the feeling like I’m being pulled naked across asphalt all day long-that’s all back.

I finally had my first pain-free day in about a month last Sunday. And I’m tentatively optimistic, because I’ve now had 3 in a row.

So hopefully I should have a little more to say around here. I appreciate everyone sticking around while I’ve peeled myself up off the floor yet again.

I found out that I have another stupid cavity.

“Well,” said the hygienist, poking me with a very sharp stick, “you have a pit that we’ve been watching for a while, and now it’s developed into a cavity.”

Hm, really? Well, thanks so much for sharing that information with me, when it can do me absolutely no good whatsoever.

“But it’s only a little cavity. And it will only need a little filling.”

That did not make me feel any better.

But it did make me wonder; is that anything like being just a little pregnant?

Lost In Translation: Awkward Signs From Around The World

And after I saw number 35, I wanted to know how I too could become an “ass manager”.

A teenager wearing a T-shirt which proclaimed,

“Cancel my subscription: I’m done with your issues.”