Three Things of Beauty and a Man

I have not been my usual charming self lately, most likely because of The Surgery.

I have known for a months and months that the shoulder needed a biopsy to conclusively determine WTF is happening to my bones in that region.  I would have had it done over the summer, but the shoulder surgeons I saw in the spring were assholes, and I would not, therefore, let them touch me.  In fairness to the young surgeon who wanted to perform a shoulder replacement on me - he was well intentioned, and once I burst into tears over his approach, he mellowed out and became exactly the kind of doctor I would like to have.  I just want a doctor who acts like that before I get so agitated and overwhelmed that I bust into tears.

The doctor who performed the recent invasive procedure is exactly the right kind of doctor.  I finally got in to see her in September, and she said it was fine to do the biopsy at Thanksgiving.  My other doctors all concurred.  In my book, that's Thing of Beauty #36-101 since concurring doctors is a rare and wonderful thing.  I have never had an issue with having a biopsy, and when I heard that the doctor would be maneuvering tiny TV cameras down into the shoulder joint and taking samples with an itty bitty melon-baller, I had no problem with that either.

I started having a problem when I got the Pre-Surgery packet in the mail from her assistant since nobody had used the word, "surgery."  Invasive Procedures are simply a pain in the ass.  Surgery is scary.  Max the Psychic Life Coach talked me down off the ceiling about all that a couple of weeks ago, which is all good - and should probably be Thing of Beauty #37-101 because helping people calm the fuck down is also a rare and wonderful ability.  It's not so rare to find people like that in my happy little world, since I seem to choose friends who have that capacity - which is probably Thing of Beauty #38-101.

By the time the nurses were checking me in for the procedure last week, I had calmed down to the point where my blood pressure was normal.  Typically, my pressure runs high - especially when doctors are taking my blood pressure.  The reason my ass has been dragging is because the doctor prescribed percocet for the pain and it's made me so woozy that I didn't want to smoke weed.  That's bad medicine in my book especially since weed is my favorite remedy for nausea.  Something had to be done.  Fortunately a different doctor had recently prescribed a different pain medicine which isn't narcotic but is stronger than Advil, and I've been able to manage on that during the day.

Still, the whole thing is troublesome.  On Monday, I have the follow up appointment with the surgeon and will hopefully get some conclusive information regarding the status of my shoulder.  I'm reasonably certain that little Pac Men are not devouring my bones - even though that's pretty much how it feels.

In a way, I'm hoping it's rheumatoid arthritis because if it's a slow moving infection, I'm going to blame that arrogant bastard who performed the original surgery back in 2007 to shorten my floppy tendons and stabilize the shoulder.  If that is the case, then I'll have to get Buzz Kill to help me sue him.  Buzz Kill is wonderful when it comes to litigation, and I'm sure he'll be glad to help me for 20%.

Buzz Kill and I get along quite well these days.  We only need to speak with each other every couple of weeks and, more importantly, he doesn't owe me substantial amounts of money.  I'm pretty sure that I experienced a major attitude shift toward Buzz Kill after seeing him in that spandex bicycle outfit with shoes that looked exactly like the white Mary Janes I wore with my Easter dress when I was two years old.

 My personal attitudes may be shifting as a result of the global paradigm shift.  Most people point to the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street as evidence of this shift, and while I agree that these events are significant, the development which has been most persuasive for me is that I have been favorably impressed by a man even after going out with him twice.  That's the longest I've been favorably impressed with a man in years - not counting Woody, of course, but Woody lives over a thousand miles away and I've never met him in real life.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give Match dot com one last shot since I only had about 10 more days left on my membership.  I updated my profile so that I sounded nice:

The last time I got my hair done, my hairdresser said I looked, "Causal, sexy and HOT."  Hairdressers get paid to say things like that, but I liked the sound of it and decided to use it for my Match headline.  It's not like I'm getting anywhere with Match anyway.  Evidently, the dating scene is complicated when you're over fifty.
I'm on a list of subversives compiled by the Digg Patriots and a list of Bergdorf's customers who receive free Chanel cosmetics samples in the mail.  I must be an eclectic female.  Personally, I don't see anything inconsistent about subversives who frequent Chanel counters, or a Rebel Alliance that enjoys dark chocolate and pinot noir.  But then, I'm so comfortable with chaos that I've spent the last twenty years or so with two and three year-olds.  We spend our days making rainbows with prisms and bouncing ping pong balls across the room.
I'm looking for a man who can not only take the heat but kick it up a notch.  He's going to have to be a very strong character who is smart, quick, compassionate, creative, well informed, playful, and self-indulgent with a fine appreciation of life's little ironies.

A day or two later, an attractive fellow made me a Favorite.  I wrote a pleasant response.  Once he gave me his regular email address, I was able to google him and found out that he is an accomplished film maker with Emmy awards and everything - but truly, I was more impressed by the way he read my profile closely enough see that Cat's Cradle is one of my favorite books and used Bokonist terms to chat me up.

He took me out for Barbecue last night, and we wound up talking for hours.  He's a wonderful story teller who apparently thinks I'm amazing.   He is a bit older than me, narrowly escaped the draft and was on his way to becoming a privileged, prep school version of a Black Panther when his father sent him on a three month program doing construction in West Africa.  While there, he learned that real Africans didn't think he was their Brother at all and came back thoroughly chastised.

I am cautiously optimistic.