Wednesday, August 15, 2012

HyaaaAAAARGH!

Hm.  Okay so it's a good thing you can't see me right now.

But let's tell the story properly, shall we?

Last time I properly updated it was just before my birthday.  I had promised myself (weakly) that I would have my book published on/for/before my birthday.  Well, by the gods I did it.  No really.  My mother has a copy that was printed on July 6...  one day before my birthday!  Everything has kindof been a blur ever since!

I mean, there has been no shortage of downtime, of course, and there have been numerous ups and downs and WTF moments that would make your head spin.  There have been magical encounters, new friends, desperate losses, horrible tragedies and some sincerely saddening deaths. 

The book is doing great though, and word is that I am now an actual real author with actual real authorpants that I can strut around in because not only do I have a NOVEL with a BARCODE and a COPYRIGHT and junk, as of yesterday I have made my first confirmed sale to a complete stranger who had no personal investment in purchasing a book "just to be nice". 

Moreover, my dad is in the process of reading the thing and he's "very impressed" and those words, my dear reader, are not easy to come by.  That level of genuine praise out of my pops is pretty rare and extremely heartfelt and it humbles me to my gritty little core to be the recipient of such a review from a man like my dad.  I figured that for him to be that impressed with me, I'd have to do nothing short of getting onto a Nobel list (or three)...  but it appears that failing that, this book did the trick and he's quite genuinely struck by my talent. 

And I cannot express how good that makes me feel.  Seriously.  Keep your million bucks.  I gots a proud daddy!  (but maybe still send the million bucks if you're still in a giving mood)

What else, what else?  Hmm.  Well I am working downtown DC - just like before and there are ups and downs and um, all of the natural, um, situations that, um, grow out of office life.  The commute is getting to be kindof a drag but the apartment we're living in is AWESOME and we just love it.

Kitty is doing great and supergal is just a handful of weeks away from bringing a whole brand new boy person into the world whom she will nurture and teach and roll her eyes at for the next....  oh...  fifty years or so.  Her baby shower shall be epic.  Let it be known.

So now - ha ha!  I'm dealing with the tail end of a nasty cold kindof situation.  Two weeks ago, you see, I had this "ooh", "ow" kindof pain just under my right ear.  "hmm." I said to myself.  "that feels like a cold coming on." and by the gods at 8.00 that very evening I was the proud owner of a fever of about 101 and I was rocking the chills and the body aches like an olympian.  Then I slept for a week and was really really gross and my husband deserves a goddam medal.  He should have a statue built for him.  and the townspeople should sing songs about him as they raise their leathery mugs to the sky and smile with wet eyes and hearts brimming with adulation.

But anyway, yeah, I didn't go to the doctor in a timely fashion and by the time I did my right eardrum was pretty close to kerploding all over the wall and I got put on some nasty antibiotics that only mostly helped the cold but downright killed the competition at upsetting my gastric system.

So yeah, the ear is now jumbly and stuffy and unresponsive.  Don't get me wrong, I'm an ace at that popping the ears thing with your nose that you're s'posed to do in airplanes and as a native of Colorado I have quite a talent for isolating and working the muscles needed to get just one or the other of the ol' eusta-shin tubes to pop at will.  And I can pop my ears.  Both of them.  Regularly.

but it doesn't help.  Not even after the medicine and three livers' worth of OTC medicine cabinet alchemy. 

So I go back to the doctor and now she's all "well, use these eardrops and now take this".
and the "this" is amoxi-stuff.  So I'm by the book when it comes to antibiotics, right?  but that also means that I'm kindof sadistic about it too because I KNOW (gods, I know) the unpleasantness that is on the way but I'm taking it anyway.  I gots to have my ear back, you know?  I can't hear worth a damn right now and I'm dizzy a lot and I'm bumping into things to the point where the doctor noticed my right shoulderpoint there is kinda green lookin'.

Did I mention how much gracefulness I haz?  Because I haz it.  In spadez.

So I'm on this amoxiwhatever which they should really call "napalm for your guts".  I won't be able to digest much beyond bananas and pre-chewed crackers for the next month or so.  BUT by tomorrow I should start getting my ear back.

Now we get to the AAAHCK!  I started with.

The eardrops are for my other ear, who likely out of pure sympathy for his brother on the other side of my head, has been hoarding up massive stores of cerumin like it's goin' out of style.  And now doc says "use this crap and you can at least sortof hear again".
Well, not verbatim but you get the 'gist.

So I just did that.  Five lil' drops in the ol hear-hole, the non-zombie one, and then allll is rainbows and butterflies.

Except it fuzzes as it goes in.
and it's cold.
and it feels like that scene in beastmaster where the bright green brain slug crawls into the dude's ear and he becomes a brainless killing machine and all I can do is claw at the air around my ear and hold my head sideways and make gnashy faces at the mirror and feel like a pretty solid all around competitor for "unstable human of the year".

GLACHK!

It's still fuzzing, you guys.
And I get to do this twice a day for the next five days.

In other news though, once my ears are cooperating again (and here's a little tip we can share with the townspeople)  just a few drops of olive oil in each ear, like once a month, can prevent cerumin hoarding.  Who knew? 

So thanks for listening.  That's pretty much what you've been missing from my end of the woods.
Excuse me now, though, 'cause I gotta go claw at my ear some more.

No comments: