No wonder everything hurts!
Category: My So-Called Life
Squeezed
You feeling that pressure? Feel like you’re in a vise? That’s this April. That’s this frigging grand cardinal cross and the April 15th total lunar eclipse. Ugh.
All of a sudden, I need new glasses. (My doctor pointed out that I practically put my face into the computer screen, and it’s probably not helping the herniated disks in my neck. Did I mention that most days, my arms are numb from the elbows down? But not in a good way — it kind of hurts and it’s hard to hold onto things. I haven’t played the guitar in a long, long time, which makes me sad.)
This time around, I’m going to buy glasses online. But I’m mildly anxious about telling the optometrist at the local eyeglass place I won’t be giving her my business. Isn’t that insane? I mean, they’re the ones jacking up the prices so high that people can’t afford them. $500 for glasses — I’ve owned cars that were cheaper than that! And the actual costs are much lower.
But the real worry right now is my car’s air conditioner. Oddly enough, this happened last summer. It stopped working on a Saturday (I remember it was a Saturday, because I stopped at a Pep Boys, figuring it just needed more coolant.) The parts manager told me it was the coolant pump and it was $700. No way, I said, and left. It started working again, so I put it out of my mind.
A couple of days ago, it was hot and I went to put the AC on. Uh oh. I called the mechanic who did the head gaskets and he said now that he thought of it, there was no coolant in it when he worked on the engine, and it probably had a slow leak. That night, I remembered what happened last summer. And now I’m really pissed, because the thought of going through a Philadelphia summer without an air conditioner in my car is rather daunting.
There are a lot of things in my life that would be a lot simpler if I had a credit card, but I don’t. I recently considered putting a few hundred bucks aside to get one of those secured cards that rebuilds your credit, but then my catalytic converter went and there went that idea.
How about you guys? Where are you squeezed right now?
Dream
This was a funny one, because it was such an obvious pastiche of other things. I was walking in Cornwall (where they film BBC’s “Doc Martin”) by myself, and to get to where I was going, I had to slide under a hole in the rocky cliffs to get through (my recent MRI). While I was halfway through and couldn’t move, the guy who plays the police chief in “Doc Martin” (the one who looks like my chiropractor) shows up and starts talking to me. I realize he’s the serial killer everyone’s been looking for, and he’s going to kill me. I reach into my pocket and write that on a matchbook I stick back into my pocket (an episode of “Bones”.)
My father’s voice
I think I’ve gone about six months this time without slamming one of my toes into something, usually resulting in a broken toe or a lost toenail. So it was about time for it to happen again. Fortunately, this time nothing’s broken.
And after all these years, I still hear my father yelling, “What the hell have I told you kids about running around the house in your bare feet?”
Dream
My ex-mother-in-law appeared to me in a dream. I told her how healthy she looked (she’s been dead for more than 15 years) and she burst into tears. She ripped open her shirt and said, “Look what they did to me! They got it all wrong!” Her chest was covered with peculiar scars. (In real life, she has multiple open-heart surgeries and a full mastectomy.) I felt very sad for her.
Trapped
Just got home after getting an MRI on my neck. They asked me if I’m claustrophic (I’m not) but I didn’t realize it would be like getting wedged into a horizontal well for a half-hour. Now I know why I see all these ads for open MRIs!
1:24
So I was asleep the other night and was awakened by the sound of a gunshot, a really LOUD gunshot. But it wasn’t outside, it was both inside my head and outside, right next to my left ear.
I glanced over at the bedside table — it was 1:24 a.m. I got up in the morning and checked on both my kids; they were fine. So what? Why did I hear this sound? And what, if anything, did it mean?
It felt like a warning.
Blood test
I had to go early this morning to get my thyroid tested at Northeastern Hospital, which is now part of Temple’s health system. The nurse who took my blood was listening to Miles Davis. I looked at her and said, “Oh, thank God, real jazz.” Because I really hate smooth jazz. It makes my skin crawl. (Sorry if I offend anyone, but to each her own.) She laughed, said it was a Miles Davis iTunes station.
We commiserated a bit about how fragmented radio is these days, and then she told me the best-kept secret in jazz was the summer jazz series at Camden’s Wiggins Park, across the river. “It’s really nice, not that many people so it’s very relaxing,” she said. “I take my elderly aunt.”
She mentioned that a friend recommended Ortleib’s Jazz House in Northern Liberties, and I told her I used to go there all the time, but hadn’t been there in years. I came home and looked it up. Now it’s a plain old music venue, and another piece of local history goes with it.
Road trip
One of the things I like best about where I live is that I’m right next to a street that runs parallel to I-95. So if I want to shoot downtown, it’s much easier — or was, until this week. The state has just begun the two-year reconstruction of a railroad bridge over that street, and this week was the first navigating the ensuing clusterfuck of detours.
It’s mostly not an issue for me (because I work from home) but this morning, I had a last-minute doctor’s appointment, and I had to drive at the height of rush hour. I have to say, although I do miss working in an office and being around people, I most emphatically do not miss rush hour traffic. Even my last office job was an easy 22-minute commute, so I’m spoiled.
This morning? Oy. But I did finally get to Delaware Avenue and drove through Society Hill (named after the 18th century Free Society of Traders, which had their offices there) over those goddamned frigging cobblestones*. Boy, do I hate cobblestones. Every time I complain about them, people say, “But they’re historic!” They’re not, not in the way they think. (They were installed in the late 1800s, and if you really want Colonial authenticity, the streets should be mud.)
But here’s the thing: The cobblestones, unlike the rest of the city, do not have potholes. So there’s that.
*Technically, they’re not cobblestones. They’re Belgian blocks, carved from granite. Cobblestones are actual round stones. But everyone calls them that, so…
Stiff
I threw my neck out — how? Yawning. Oy.
I’ll see the chiro later today.