Earregularities

Holy moley, two blog posts in less than a week's time. Could this be the start of a trend? It could.  I would like, if I may, to update this thing once a week.  I think that'd be good for traffic, get me to write more stuff, and keep me off the streets, where I'm bound to cause trouble.  So look for this space to be updated on Thursdays. Thursday seems to be a good day.  It also means I have an extra day in case I miss Thursday; there's rarely anything going on at our place on Friday night, apart from a baseball game, and (snif) the season's almost over (snif, snif).  Remember, kids, writers churn the stuff out on a regular basis.  Once a week is regular.  I'm a regular kind of gal.  Well, okay, I'm really not.  But I'd like to be.  See last blog post re: getting my shit together and things I'm supposed to be doing every day. 

Anyway:  About a week ago, I suddenly became aware that both of my ears were swollen shut.  This isn't exactly an uncommon occurrence, but it was a kind of odd time of year.  I get two ear and/or sinus infections every year, and I have them in April (right around the time of the big Dallas Book Festival, as it usually happens) and November (right around the time I have to get on an airplane to go someplace, as it usually happens).  Which is annoying, but I can live with it.  When I was a somewhat younger person I had so many colds and sinus infections I ended up having The Surgery, and while that was not fun, it did make things much, much better.  Two sinus infections a year are really No Big Deal.  You go see the doctor, the doctor reads your medical history, she skips the whole lecture about overprescribing antibiotics is going to cause the Apocalypse, and she prescribes you antibiotics. You take them for a week and you're fine.

So I called my doc, and she told me to come on in, like she always does. I went in, got weighed, had my blood pressure checked (112 over 70), had my o-sat and heart rate checked (70 at first, then I decided I could do better than that and dropped it to 63; yes, I can manipulate my heart rate, and yes, I do do it to scare medical assistants sometimes).  Then the doc came in, looked in both of my ears with the little scopey thing, and said, "You don't have an ear infection."

I looked at her like she was crazy.  Excuse me, but my ears were swollen shut.  There are only two things that cause that; an ear infection, or swimmer's ear (which is like an ear infection, but it's on the outside of your ear, so you don't always need to take antibiotics; sometimes all you need are ear drops).  So I said something stupid, like, "Are you sure?" and she said, "Yep.  No infection at all.  What you have is eczema."

Eczema, by the way, is a skin condition, usually caused by being exposed to something you're allergic to.  In short, I was having an allergic reaction in my ears.  Which is particularly weird, because not much goes there.  I mean, they're ears.  "So figure out what you've been putting in your ears lately," she said, "and in the meantime, put this lotion on a q-tip and stick it in your ears twice a day."  Oh boy. What if I'm allergic to q-tips?

I found this immensely puzzling. Again, not much goes in my ears.  I mean, I have ear buds, and I wear them sometimes, but I really didn't think it was the ear buds.  I pour a solution of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol into my ears after I swim, to prevent swimmer's ear, but I really didn't think I was allergic to rubbing alcohol or peroxide, either (though that might have dried out the skin, giving the eczema a place to take root).

And then, I remembered my SwimPod.

Okay, it's not really called a SwimPod. That's just what I like to call it, and that's what it is; it's an iPod that's been modified for underwater use.  My sister, who's awesome, gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago. It clips to the back of your swim cap, the ear buds are very short (and waterproof), and while the sound isn't quadrophonic stereo with JBL quality, it's still an iPod you can listen to while you're swimming.  I mean, how cool is that?  It gets lonely out there sometimes.  A SwimPod makes things a lot less lonely.  I've got everything from Seals and Crofts to Big Country to Lady Gaga on there.  30 years of pop music. Underwater. Not to mention some classical stuff, and even a little jazz, if you call Ray Lynch jazz, and I think some people would.

For a heart-stopping moment, I wondered if I was allergic to my SwimPod. The thought was horrifying.  I mean, yes, I can always try another pair of ear buds. There are actually several different kinds of waterproof ear buds (check them out at www.swimoutlet.com if you're curious), but the ones that come with it are the best. They have the short cord, for one thing, which means there isn't a long cord to get in the way.  Plus, they seem to last a reasonable amount of time.  Something about being underwater means that ear buds have a rather limited life span.  I've yet to have a pair last for more than six months, and some lasted less than three.  Always get the optional warranty when buying underwater ear buds, folks.  You'll use it more often than not.

Then I remembered that I actually hadn't been listening to my SwimPod for the last couple of weeks. I'd taken it out of commission to add some more music to it and take some off, and I'd left it on my desk, where it promptly disappeared into a haze of gel pens, random pieces of paper and stuff I'd brought home from work and didn't know what to do with. I fished it back out (luckily, it was still there and hadn't been carried off by a cat) and examined the ear buds. Silicone. I'm sure that some people somewhere are allergic to silicone, but I'm pretty sure I'm not one of them. And never mind how I know that.

So if not the SwimPod, then what?  Oh yes. The morning I first left my SwimPod on my desk, I'd arrived at the pool with no ear buds, so I bought a pair of ear plugs at the front desk.  I pulled those out of my swim bag. Latex.  People, I'm almost 50 and just found out I might be allergic to latex.  I'd appreciate it if somebody would fill me in on those things sooner.

(Though, I also woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago and discovered that I'd become lactose intolerant virtually overnight.  One day I could have milk, cream in my coffee, ice cream or frozen yogurt. The next day the same stuff made me sick as hell.  Bam.  Just like that. So I guess these things can happen.  And I'm in good company. Joan is lactose intolerant, too.)

I stayed out of the pool for a couple of days to give the weird ear lotion time to work. Then I tried out the SwimPod again.  No problems. I am definitely not allergic to silicone ear buds.  But I am allergic to latex ones.  I think if you're allergic to latex, you have to tell your doctor and you can't have some kinds of surgery or wear certain kinds of Band-Aids (come to think of it, the flexible fabric ones, which use a latex adhesive, always did make me itchy). 

So now I'm allergic to latex, milk products, codeine, sulfa drugs and their derivatives, cockroaches, five of the most common trees in the United States and every kind of grass there is.  Yes, including the kind you're probably thinking about.  I never understood why smoking that stuff is so much fun when all it ever did for me was cause projectile vomiting.  Peace out.

Rainout!

Every now and then I feel this mad urge to start another blog--call it the Secret Blog, maybe--and blog about all the stuff I don't blog about because people who actually know me read this blog.  You know, things people do that aggravate me, my latest struggle with something or other that we can't talk about on this blog because--yeah, and things that just happened where if I post them, everybody will know it's me because they were all there when it happened (or, worse, they were all there when it happened and Hey Jen, it didn't happen like that, it happened like this.)  Trouble is, if I started a secret blog I wouldn't be able to tell anyone where it is because--all together now--then it wouldn't be a secret.  And if it was a secret, nobody would read it unless I also had a secret Twitter account that I could Twitter from and tell people where it is, and that's getting pretty far into the realm of too many things to remember.  I know some people invent whole new identities on the Internet and call themselves clever names like Elvis Hitler that no one will ever guess are fake, but I'm not among them because I'd forget if my password was like EHitler88 or 88EHitler or some combination of the two and then my blog would never get updated.  It's hard enough to keep updating this one on something remotely resembling a regular schedule.

So for the record, here's something that irritates me that is innocuous to include on this blog.  People and elevators.  I may have mentioned this before, but why does every person who ever steps into any elevator just automatically assume that A. they know where that elevator is going and B. that elevator is going the direction they want to go?  This is particularly annoying at the Tom Landry center where I swim (Tom Landry also has a freeway named after him, in case a sports center isn't enough).  The elevator chimes once for up and twice for down, just like most other elevators on the planet.  What's more, there's a big ol' light outside the door that points up or down, and if that's not enough, a pleasant female voice comes on when you enter the elevator and says something cheerfully informational like, "First floor.  Going down."  So that's three (count them) 3 different clues which direction you're going before your elevator doors even close and still!  STILL people get on the elevator and look at you in astonishment when the elevator starts going down (or up) and say, "Oh, I thought it was going up (or down)."  Fer cryin' out loud, you normal human beings can pay attention to things like that without a half hour a day on the meditation cushion and certain pharmaceuticals, unlike Space Cadet Yours Truly who might have a bad day and end up on an airplane going the wrong direction and say "Oh, I thought we were going to Shanghai."  Why don't you do it? Really, is it that big a deal?  Please think about it.  Thank you. Pant. Pant. (wiping foam off face)

So it's Memorial Day weekend.  Every year we try to get out to see a couple of baseball games.  For the most part we don't go to Rangers games, though--too far and too expensive and the seats we can afford are worse than airplane seats (no, really).  We go to see the Frisco Roughriders

Alec Asher of the Frisco Roughriders

instead, the minor league team that the Rangers stripmine when they need a new player at basically no notice.  Minor league baseball is a whole nother thing entirely from the major leagues.  For one thing, you never know what's going to happen.  Sure, baseball is baseball and there are bound to be surprises, but minor league play has a lot more of them.  Minor league players are still learning, you see, and they'll do things like accidentally run into each other or both make a grab at the same ball or--well, stuff you don't often see in major league games.  Which sometimes turns the whole tide of the game in a direction you never expected.

(I'm guilty of my not-exactly-major-league sports fandom for a long while now.  When we lived in San Diego, we often went to see the San Diego Gulls for the same reason.  Minor league hockey is exactly like minor league baseball, except it's played on skates and you don't get called out for a bad swing.  Oh, and the zamboni is often the best player of the night.  You can always count on the zamboni.)

So yesterday we packed up and headed out to a Roughriders game.  The Roughriders play at Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, which is right across the street from IKEA.  In fact, if you leave early, you can stop at IKEA, buy a Stockholm sofa, put it together in the parking lot and watch the game in relative comfort from section 107.  Okay, I exaggerate a little, but the seats really are pretty nice compared to Rangers Stadium.  It's a low-rise stadium, which means you feel like you're practically on the field, and it's very family-oriented (you can be thrown out for excessive swearing, among other things).  There's between-inning entertainment, which gets silly because the mascots are these giant orange fuzzy things I've never figured out.  think Joan said they were prairie dogs, but if they are, they're mutant prairie dogs from the nuclear testing of the 1950s. I'm serious.

Have you ever seen a prairie dog that looks even remotely like this one?  No, the guy in the middle.  Honestly, don't make me smack you.

Things started going wrong at 2:05 P.M. with the first pitch.  I had completely forgotten that for a day game start time, there's no such thing as a "shady side of the park."  Usually the third-base side eclipses the sun early in the game, and if you're on that side, you don't have to worry about getting hot or how much sunscreen you put on.  Not so this particular day, in which we're out there at peak sun time and the sun shows no sign of going to hide behind the third base wall any time soon.  I started to get concerned about sunburn, coming as I do from a family of anti-sun fanatics, and finally I got up to walk all the way back to the stupid car to get the stupid sunscreen that I'd stupidly left there.  Which, for the record, was stupid.  I got out of the ballpark and into the parking lot and quickly became aware that sunburn was going to be the least of my problems.  Barrelling toward us from somewhere near Irving was a thunderhead the size of--well, it was big, anyway.

So I went back to the stands (with the sunscreen) to tell Joan that the rain cloud was on the way.  She said she didn't care; if it rained we'd be cooler.  She had a point there.  But when the rain cloud showed up ten minutes later, it let loose with apocalyptic sheets of rain, thunder and lightning that sent all the players scrambling for cover.  Well hey, it is Texas, you know.

Yep. Can't hardly see across the field.

As for us fans, we huddled in the back of the ballpark under awnings, concession stand panels and anything else that might make us less wet.  Too late to be dry.  I mean we were pretty soaked.  The field staff, good kids all, ran through the crowd wearing swim fins and snorkels, but for the most part the crowd started to evaporate after about 45 minutes.  Even Joan and I limped back to the car (Joan's having all kinds of trouble with her knee) and drove home, wringing out hair and clothing and we just happened to have a towel in the car, thanks to yours truly and her swimming habit.  Never know when you're going to need a towel.

And the Roughriders?  Well, two hours and thirty minutes later they came back and won the game, 3-2.  Still, I'm not sorry we left.  2 1/2 hours is a long time to sit around in wet clothes, even for baseball.  To say nothing of being menaced by mutant prairie dogs.

Talk Thursday (on Friday): Family Feud

Just wanted y'all to know that the mighty Law Dogs continue unvictorious in their spectacular inaugural season.  Last night we were 5 to 14 against the Desperados.  But don't I look fierce in my warrior pose?  Yeah, I think so too.  So what if all I'm doing is limpin' up to home plate with my leg in a stupid brace, whackin' the ball and making this weird loping run/walk toward first.  I get tagged out pretty fast.  It's the brace, people.  I feel like a cyborg.  And it's impossible to run in a leg brace.  Well, if it's not impossible it's still pretty darned unlikely.  But, while I was heading to first, my boss was heading home, and so we scored.  That was good.  I'm just afraid that one of these days I'm gonna show up at the field and find Charlie Brown on the mound and Snoopy in the far outfield with Woodstock on his head.  And if you don't get that pop-culture reference, my friend, I cannot help you.

Meanwhile, back at the pool, things continue swimmingly (ha ha ha).  I'm a little bit ahead of my daily count (thanks in no small part to that marathon 2500 meter session) and should hit 10 miles this morning, if I didn't hit it yesterday.  And I just signed up for the 2000-meter swim at the end of the month, which will no doubt help if I get behind.  So if you were worried about placing a bet on my getting to 24 miles, be soothed.  I'll get there.  And all funds raised go to Survivors of Torture, International. They're good folks doing a tough job.  They could use your happy thoughts, prayers, etc., as well as your cash.

On, then, with today's topic, from Don this time.  I think of the Hatfields and the McCoys when this subject comes up, and no, I didn't watch the recent miniseries; I tend to avoid anything that stars Kevin Costner.  I have, however, seen a few documentaries on that famous fight, and I think it got way overblown in the media (What? Our media?! Surely you jest!!).  As in, without all the national attention, it might have calmed down all by itself and before anyone got killed.  A lot of things are like that.  

Every family probably has something it fights about.  You know, the kind of thing that gets dragged out at holidays after too much eggnog, gets thrown around the room, bruises everybody with a sort of casual efficiency and, having sufficiently rattled tempers, crawls back into the ornament box to await the next holiday.  Uncle so-and-so did this.  No he didn't, that was Aunt Whoever.  You're both wrong, it was the tax collector.  If your grandmother had done something, none of this would have happened.  This is your side of the family, you realize.  And on and on.

For some reason I can't think of anything like that in my family, although there might have been a few things in previous generations.  But for my parents' generation, and those of us in our so-called childbearing years (and presumably for the children; I don't have any children, but most of my cousins do), there really doesn't seem to be any one thing.  I attribute that to the Lutheran Church. Not for spreading peace in our time and encouraging the quick resolution of disputes, but for instilling an absolute tyranny of Everything's Fine Here, Thank You and How Nice.  Hint for non-Lutherans: Memorize those two phrases and you can pass as a native, as long as you remember there's always coffee and bars in the church basement after Sunday services.  Old joke: Why don't Lutherans have confession?  Because God knows what you did and doesn't want to talk about it.  Or much of anything that isn't Fine and Nice. 

Every now and then we get a New Employee at the office, and sooner or later that New Employee figures out that I'm gay.  I don't run public service announcements.  No pics of my wife in my cube, no rainbow stickers on the bookshelves or anything like that.  Still, there's always a Moment when the New Guy (or Girl) has to look at me as a gay person for the first time, and there's that "Oh? Oh!" followed by rapid blinking as their entire cerebral cortex shifts around to make room for me in the Gay Box.  It's sad, in a way, because if I had to list the top five things that made me what I am today, being gay would probably be number five, if it even made the list.  Up top we have being Scandinavian, Lutheran, fat and female.  Then, maybe gay.  Or maybe a Democrat (in Texas, no less) and then maybe gay.  I go back and forth on that last one.

Yes, I'm a Buddhist now, but I was a Lutheran for close on 27 years.  That's a long time and a lot of coffee and bars.  I don't expect a significant background color in my life to ever just disappear, though if I could get the taste of lutefisk permanently removed from my memory, I'd do it. Hey, isn't there a movie coming out about something like that?  

But for this, I am happy: There ain't no room in the Lutheran church for much feudin'.  Or if there is, nobody talks about it.  We're all fine, here, thank you.  Would you like a lemon bar?

Talk Thursday: The Blog Post that Didn't Happen

I dunno if this blog post is going to happen.

It started out pretty well. I was talking about the Rangers. I mean, what else would I talk about? Tonight is Game Six of the World Series, the Rangers are ahead three games to two, and This Could Be The Night that makes it all worthwhile. Not that it isn't worthwhile, anyway. I mean, it's baseball. It's the only sport, apart from hockey, that I can convince myself to be interested in for more than five minutes. Mainly because it's like an outdoor carnival without any rides, and the people-watching is just as much fun as the actual game (as opposed to hockey, in which everything just happens too darn fast for me to get bored), but anyway, I was talking about the Rangers.

Then I started thinking about my boss's boss's daughter again, and all the fun went out of the Rangers.

You see, my boss's boss's daughter has been very sick. She went to the hospital about three weeks ago and they found a brain tumor. The adjectives they pinned to this thing weren't exactly encouraging. Words like fast-growing and inoperable and malignant. She was supposed to go to M.D. Anderson to be examined by a specialist, but she became too sick to travel and soon after lost consciousness. Sometime during the night last night, she died. She was nineteen years old. And so I just can't quite get up the usual enthusiasm that I normally would for Game Six of the World Series.

It's a big world and bad things happen in it. I get that. And sometimes very young people die of mysterious causes and it's monstrously unfair. I get that, too. And it's Quite Normal to find this sort of stuff depressing and be mopey and out of sorts about it. Yep, no problem there. But how do you write a blog post about this? I mean, how do you combine the Rangers with your boss's boss's daughter dying without looking kind of insane?

I might add, I didn't know my boss's boss's daughter. I've never met her. I know my boss's boss, though, and I've met his wife, and they're good people. I can't even remotely imagine what it must be like to lose a child (I don't have kids, myself). I've lost grandparents, good friends, one friend in particular that felt like getting an arm chopped off, but it can't even remotely compare to losing a child. That's losing a whole future. A whole rest-of-your-life. How do you write about that? I can't even think about it for more than a few seconds at a time.

So I don't think this blog post is going to happen. I think I've given it the old college try, though, and I can slouch off to my meeting having made a decent effort. If the Rangers win tonight, it'll be the weirdest mix of emotions I've dealt with since I stole my ex's vacuum cleaner to get back at her for stealing my cat. And I'm not even going to try to explain what that felt like.

We Interrupt This Blog For An Important Announcement:

We're goin' ta the Series!

We're goin' ta the Series!

We're goin' ta the Series!

Uh, yeah. AGAIN.

WHOO HOO!!

Talk Thursday: Masculinity and Testosterone

I love me a good Talk Thursday topic that I know nothing about. Gives me a great excuse to display my ignorance to my legion of screaming fans (both of you). But first, let me explain something. There's this popular notion that lesbians hate men. I don't know how that got started, but it's a pretty wacky idea and I'd like to put it to rest right here, right now, please. Lesbians do not hate men. Why should they? It's not like they have to live with them.

Having said that, I now must admit that except for my father, I've never lived with a man, or even shared close quarters with one for more than a day or two. I did have a boyfriend (!) in high school and early college, but I never lived with him. Which, in retrospect, was a good thing, as I'd rather munch pita bread at Afrah than serve 20 years to life.

So maybe if I'd hung around men more, I'd get some of this stuff, but I suspect you just gotta be a man to understand certain things. Such as why a guy works his way up into a lofty position of power, like governor or Presidential candidate or person-in-charge of some huge 20,000 member megachurch, and then throws it all away to chase seventeen-year-olds in skirts. Honestly, is there a thing about positions of power that makes this happen? And if it is, why are only men affected? You never see screaming headlines that say things like, HILLARY CLINTON CAUGHT IN LOVE NEST WITH 20-YEAR-OLD COMBAT PILOT. (Ooo, but you should. What a delicious scandal that would be.) I posed a similar question on this blog a while back and got what I think might be the only honest reply; a guy telling me that no red-blooded American male would bother becoming governor or a Presidential candidate or a person-in-charge of a huge 20,000-member megachurch if he didn't think, at least on some level, that it was going to get him laid.

Something else I don't understand about the whole masculinity/testosterone thing: What is it about being a guy that switches your brain off when you get angry? I don't mean everyday, garden-variety angry, but when you pass that level and head toward homicidal. Something about being a guy means once you've reached a certain level of being angry, you must kill something or the world will cease to spin on its axis. Again I look to the ex-boyfriend for inspiration. When we were in college, we were walking across the lawn one day when a bunch of kids (and they were kids; the oldest one was probably ten) started throwing oranges at us. I doubt they really meant any harm--maybe it was just a great day to throw oranges; I dunn0--but one of them glanced off his shoulder, and he went from zero to homicidal just like that. Did he listen to me when I told him to leave them alone, they were just kids? No, he did not. He was going to kill somebody and to hell with anything I had to say on the matter. I even tried getting physically in his way. He knocked me down and just kept going. Eventually I ran into a building and called campus security, but as it turned out, he couldn't catch the kids. He was still mad when security got there -- at me, for getting in his way. If I hadn't done that he'd have caught them for sure.

So, okay, I don't understand men. I'm sure I'm not alone among women there. The thing is, though, I don't have to understand men. I'm not trying to live with them. I live with a male cat, and he's strange enough, but he's also thirteen pounds. If there's an argument, I can win by picking him up. Women who have to understand men because they live with them are in a whole different ball game, and sometimes I think they're playing with weighted bats, as it were. (Yes, it's baseball metaphor time around here again. Is it my fault the Rangers made it to the postseason?)

I will tell you, though, that I seem to have a little testosterone reserve of my own. A couple of years ago, Joan was being harassed by a colleague. For various reasons, she wouldn't rat him out to Personnel. Every time she came home with another story about what he'd done lately, I started to feel this urge to drive down there, wait in the parking garage, and then beat the snot out of him when he showed up to go home. How did Joan talk me out of it? She kept saying, "Jen, that's something a man would do." Ouch. My inner cave man fell right into line.

We Interrupt This Blog For An Important Announcement...

THE RANGERS WIN THE PENNANT!!
THE RANGERS WIN THE PENNANT!!
THE RANGERS WIN THE PENNANT!!

I mean, in case you didn't hear the scream, or something.

WORLD SERIES, BABY!! HERE WE COME!! WHOO HOO!!!

Okay, enough of that. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.