Today’s blog entry soundtrack :

Another day, another battle with ennui and depression.

I scored one significant victory today : I now have an appointment for an eye exam. Though I am not sure I will go. I will explain.

See, first I called Robertson Optical, who are just a block and a half (maybe two thirds) from here. I had passed them many times and a search for the nearest optometrist’s office through Google confirmed that they were the closest to me.

So I called them up. but it turns out they are not optometrists, they are opticians. They make the glasses but they don’t do the testing. I am so accustomed to finding those in the same place that it never occurred to me that they could be separate. But of course they can.

The sexyily deep-voiced fellow was nice enough to give me the number of a Doctor Ho, who does most of the exam work for them. I called him up, and I gave him a bunch of my personal info, then he had to go call MRH (the people who handle the claims for disabled people like myself), then get back to me.

He said that MRH would only cover $46 of the exam and I would have to pay the remaining $73. I shrugged and agreed to that, because I do have the money. But now I am starting to wonder WTF is up with that. I have never had to pay before. I think perhaps the problem is that before, at places like Pacific Eye Doctors and Eye Station, the eye exam and the glasses were more of a package deal. Free eye exam with every pair of glasses type thing.

So now I am wondering if I should go back to them and save the $73, or just go to my appointment tomorrow with Doctor Ho and charge the extra money to the education fund (AKA my student loan money). If there is a chance that I will get better service and more personal care from an optometrist who is NOT trying to sell me a pair of glasses, it will be worth it.

I just don’t want to leave with a prescription that I will also have to pay for myself. I know for a fact that my plan via disability covers a new pair of glasses and an eye exam every two years and it has been WAY more than two years since my last one.

My Kwantlen extended insurance plan adds a little more money to the pot as well.

So I dunno. I might just go back to one of the big places, who might be rude but they seem to grasp how these things work, at least. This Doctor Ho dude seems to have no idea, but then again, he was answering his own phone. Maybe his secretary couldn’t make it in that day, and she’s the one who handles that kind of thing for him.

The sexy voice guy at Robertson Optical said they have been dealing with Doctor Ho for seventeen years. The guy I talked to on the phone sounded to me like seventeen years ago, he was like…. seven. But that is just a symptom of age, or so I am told.

I will probably just go to the appointment and pay up. Path of least resistance and all that. And it’s not like I have big plans for most of the money.

I wonder if I should have told them that he will need to do the full battery of tests on me, not just the standard eye test. Well, I told him I hadn’t been in for an exam in five years and that I am both diabetic and disabled. I am sure he can fill in the blanks.

And if not, he’s in Richmond Centre, so it’s not like I would have to haul my ass all over God’s Green Earth in order to go there more than once. It’s just two blocks away.

Other than eye stuff, not much going on today. I ordered in some Pizza Hut for supper. I needed it as a mood picker-upper. Something to make my days less bleak and repetitive and deadly. It’s an expensive form of medication, but I am fighting for my soul here.

What I am trying to avoid is a slump into depression and listless discontent. There are things I want to get done in my time off school (most of which are school things) and if I can get those done, it will be a huge victory in the battle against my own bullshit and show me I can stand up to that heavy wet gravity pulling me down instead of just letting it take me over because it’s easier.

Fuck easier. I want challenge. My life needs a lot more texture, more roughage. And something for me to push against.

The oxen need the plow, else what will they do with all that strength?

So I am doing what I can to keep busy with things which have some purpose. And the homework I have to get done will help…. once I figure out what it is.

I am pretty sure I have to do my short story for Creative Writing before the next class on March 1. That is, of course, not a problem. In theory, I could totally cheat and take an existing short story (I have 40), give it a brisk edit, and submit that. How would she know?

But I won’t, because I have too much pride and too deep a need to be original. Not to the point of being driven to write something unlike anything anyone has done before (I am no formalist), but everything I do has to be both fresh and most importantly, all me.

So I will likely whip up something fresh and charming and harmless for the prof, and be done with it.

There’s probably other stuff too. I guess I should look that up.

But not right now. Right now…. I need to go lay down.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.