Putting the TMI in absentminded
My room is small and is easily cluttered, so everything on the desk has to earn its place, and the underwear box had lost its novelty.
I was tossing it in the trash when I saw this on the back.
Underwear box has earned his keep and lives on another day.
Well, the remaining errors stared me in the face and I realized I had to correct them. The bottom left and right of the lampshade have always been wrong and the size and slant of the glow on the wall was wrong.
So this is the previous …
This is the progress …
And this is the goal.
It doesn’t look like I spent an hour on that wall glow. It looks just the same. And I tell myself that wall will dry darker. it So I am done, really.
Pink Ball pitcher of peonies is next, or maybe the floating buffalo.
Things have been quiet here at the house. I think I said two sentences to Gary today, both regarding imminent house maintenance work.
Neither sentence was hostile. This is what I call progress.
A few weeks ago he complained about his health, and I knew:
So I said, “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Met with “WHO SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO A SICK PERSON WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU,” plus accusations that I was being contolled by the counselor.
Of course, time has passed and now it’s our go-to phrase.
“Where did you put the scissors?”
”I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Today was another one of our required attendance days at the office. Again, I got to see fifty people in person whom I haven’t been with for ages. It’s usually very gratifying and I feel seen.
This time I felt far too seen.
All these things are true. Had it stopped there I might have been fine. But then on break, a well-meaning person said they watched my face exhibit the five stages of grief when when a presenter suggested there would be a change in how we construct user objectives.
I tipped past “I feel seen” to “I feel overexposed.” It seems hard to believe … but I think I hit maximum attention overload.
I have a limit! Good to know.
Well, directly after our physical two weeks ago Gary scoffed at the GP’s recommendation that Gary see the dermatologist again. Maddening.
Just a few days ago he said he’d go back to the dermatologist, then ten minutes later he revoked that, then ten minutes later reversed his revocation, then started to take it back again and then I put my hands over my mouth and screamed. So now he has a dermatologist appointment in August.
I’m going to sit in on that appointment. This doctor doesn’t use MyChart so I have to take Gary’s word on what was said. And sometimes Gary doesn’t use his words.
For example, he gave me a Post-it last night, and he peeled off an old Post-it which said “Rinvoq.”
”What’s Rinvoq?” I said.
”Oh, that’s the drug the dermatologist wanted me to take last year.”
Oh WAS IT? News to me. He certainly didn’t mention it.
Off to the Internet. It sounds like Rinvoq is what you get when they want to skip the diagnosis part. I swear, if he actually got a drug recommendation a year ago and didn’t act on it … I just … I don’t know what I’ll do.
But here’s my favorite partz. Look at all the things Rinvoq treats. What’s at the bottom of the list?
Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA). There are five references on this blog to Giant Cell Arteritis dating back fifteen years. It is the diagfauxsis of choice. I really don’t want it to be that.
Confabulation, per Wikipedia: a memory error consisting of the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world. It is generally associated with certain types of brain damage.
It’s called “honest lying” because the memory is there — it just shouldn’t be. It troubles me for two reasons.
Gary has been showing some possible evidence of this. He and I had a stupid argument in which he insisted our tea towels came from Williams Sonoma, he remembered details of the visit, things the salesperson said, and how we disagreed on the color. I then showed him where there is a Pottery Barn label stitched into the hem of the tea towel that we bought online, and just broke his mind. Then there were two other occasions when similar things happened.
But now I’ve shown some evidence of this during this past week. There are conversations that I remember, in detail, and it turns out those conversations absolutely could not have happened with those participants at that time. At all. Impossible. Yet there it is in my head as if it happened yesterday. (And, may I say, no boring tea towel nonsense. I really shone during these conversations. I win all the annual Confabulation Screenplay Awards.)
Happily, neither of us has the other six warning signs of early dementia. Still, I contacted the neurologist’s office, and they tossed me to a psychiatric counselor, and she’s going to ask the doctor.
I just have this sickening sensation encompassing my heart and gut that says, “This is step one of dementia, and the others will come next, and then both of us will die squabbling over our differing delusions.”
As always, I begin by referencing the first horse race I ever saw.
The first race I saw was the best horse race of all time. No other can surpass it. Secretariat goes from almost last to [SPOILER]winning by 25 lengths.
I still feel this is what a normal horse race looks like. It never ever is.
In related news, Bill Belichick was just spotlighted on the red carpet at the Kentucky Derby with his girlfriend. I wonder, when he feels the waves of hatred directed at him, is he able to distinguish between the “young girlfriend” hate and the “St. Louis Rams boondoggle” hate.
Jesus! On the way in to the gate a grey horse just reared up and fell down…. Now Great White is out for “Acting up.”
The Race!
Oh that was exciting! That was really exciting! I mean, better than Secretariat in that the winner came from dead last to first place. And in a burst, too.
On the other hand, it was no 25 lengths ahead.
I have assembled every bit of paperwork I need for this Manhattan project settlement. I just have to decide if I want to file via US registered mail or by the on-line portal.
I think most people are choosing the course that will get them the quickest cash turnaround, but I don’t think I need that. If I thought that way I’d feel like I was cashing in on my father’s death.
And of course that is what I’m doing though, isn’t it?
Nope, I wasn’t done, because the yellow-green neon came in the mail.
So this is the previous …
This is the progress …
And this is the goal.
I am done, really, now that I have that neon yellow green. It’s a big tube so my mica lampshade reflected on a blue-green wall needs are satisfied for life.
The highway interchange by the mall has been distorted into a diverging diamond interchange. I was not expecting this at all.
Like so many, I screamed my way through the journey when the lane I was in, the right lane, pictured in red below, aimed me toward the other side of the overpass bridge into the opposing lane instead of going straight forward as it had for decades.
The video below makes a strong case for the diverging diamond interchange. You get a nice view of drivers driving smoothly into the opposing lanes. No one in the video is screaming “what the fuck.” They are paid actors and I assume also heavily sedated.
I don’t know if this is apocryphal but I hear tell that people have moved house after they find they have to drive over this nonsense to get home.