Tomorrow, I have an appointment with Doctor Vaezi, my ophthalmologist, in preparation for my second cataract operation later this month.
That would be the one on my right eye. It does not have anywhere near as much cataract as the left one did, but it still needs fixing.
And honestly, I am looking forward to it because then my eyes will match. Having one crystal clear eye and one still kind of wonky eye hasn’t been a huge problem but it does making reading from a book a little harder.
I never know how far away to hold the book, I spent most of my life practically literally burying my nose in books in order to be able to see well enough to read and now that does not really work any more.
Plus I look forward to being calm and relaxed like the people for whom it was their second operation I met in the waiting room when I went in for my first.
Those people were telling us first timers that we would be fine and that it wasn’t that bad, which I now appreciate.
But at the time I kind of resented them. Smug bastards.
Sorry about that, folks. I look forward to joining your ranks.
Because now it’s no big deal to me. I know exactly what to expect. I know that I will bolstered by wonderful Ativan in order to keep my nerves calm. I know the experience will be pretty trippy but not particularly painful.
And I know I will be making with the eye drops for a while after. No big deal.
I like eye drops a lot more when I am the one putting them in. Way more predictable.
Then this Friday, my turn for the jab finally comes – I get my first Covid shot at 1 pm at good ol Kwantlen.
So not only will I be joining the Partially Vaccinated club, I will get to revisit the place I spent two semesters taking courses to give myself a recent education history so I could get into VFS.
I can’t say my time at VFS was blissful but it was okay. Looking back, I spent most of my time there having a low level panic attack, just like with VFS, so that kind of prevented me from forming a lot of warm fuzzy memories of academic enrichment and student camaraderie and so on.
I was just a robot who went to school there too, more’s the pity.
But I enjoyed my courses, one linguistics course of doom aside, and I liked my professors. There were some good peeps there.
And I am very eager to get my immunization started. It’s clear that now that the FDA said the fully vaccinated don’t have to wear masks or socially distance that we will rapidly have a two tiered society where the vaccinated have a lot more fun.
I just wish I was getting the Johnson and Johnson jab so it would be all done with the one vaccination instead of getting one shot, waiting 20 days, and getting the other.
I want to be immune NOW, god dammit.
Both because I hate the damn masks and because I want to be able to actually go to restaurants with my friends again instead of eating McD’s in a parking lot and only getting together over Zoom otherwise.
Breaking bread around the same table is a very important form of human bonding and I miss doing it with my friends.
And who knows, a month from now we may be doing it again!
Oh, and it’s my birthday Wednesday but I don’t give a shit.
More after the break.
Grinding it out
Really in the mood to grind out some catharsis tonight.
I’m at just the right levels of both numbness and rage to be willing to make myself suffer in order to make myself better.
Willing, hell, I am eager for it. Pain looks pretty good to me right now. Sometimes pain can be liberating. It can release the metaphysical pain inside you and thus be a total net gain – permanent relief from temporary suffering.
That’s a pretty good deal, if you ask me.
Right now, I wish I could just plop my Wound out on a table and push down on it like it’s a zit I’m trying to pop.
Just squeeze the toxic nastiness out of it in search of holy relief.
If only it were that simple. Instead, all I can do is keep grinding out the words instead, always seeking to put as much of my pain into every syllable as I can in search of the day when I am definitively releasing far more of the pain than I am accumulating.
Then I can get to work on this goddamned backlog.
Luckily I have been at this long enough that grinding out words twice a day does not seem like a super big deal.
I mean, this stop feeling like a choice a long time ago. I need to make with the words every day. I need it like I need food and oxygen.
And that’s what keeps me doing this even on days when I really really do not feel like it. Deep down, I know that if I tried to skip it, the need for it would drive me nuts, so I might as well just do the fucking thing.
Besides, this blog is my one slender claim on productivity. Without it I would not be contributing to the world at all.
Instead, I am writing a blog that almost three people read! Woohoo!
Oh well, perhaps one day I will migrate this thing onto Tumblr so that there is at least a theoretical possibility of it being discovered by others.
Have to wrestle that Wound of mine to the ground first, though. Right now, it is still in charge, more or less.
I can’t do anything that aggravates it or I just fold like a deck chair. It’s a reflex I developed a long time ago in order to be able to function.
But soon, I won’t need it any more. The Wound is shrinking every day and soon it will be small enough for me to ignore, or at least endure.
And then nothing is going to hold me back.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow,