A Hot Date, Sparkling Rosé and Brer Rabbit

I'm in a bit of a quandary because of Jon-El Williams.  I'm not entirely satisfied with that name, but at the moment the trouble centers on discussing him at all.  I don't know how he feels about stuff like that, and I find that I care about how he feels about stuff like that.  With The Narcissist, I didn't give a flying fuck how he felt about anything I said or did, but that was only after I was pissed.  I was definitely respectful on the blog about The Preacher from the Mountains (Stonerdate 03.05.2010) and about The Artist from the South of France because they were both decent individuals.  I had plenty to say about The Preacher privately, but because he was a regular blogger himself - with the knowledge of his superiors in the church hierarchy - it would have been wrong of me to say anything online that was damaging to his reputation.

I didn't care if I damaged that damn Narcissist's reputation online because he was such a ___(insert perforative)___ that the public at large deserved a warning.  Kind of like when the Starship Enterprise runs across a contaminated planet and launches a warning beacon.  After I saw that the man had left an eight page google trail of posts by Bluestar727 on various adult websites in his quest to find a flaming red bush, I figured there was no reason to be discrete. However, I was always aware of legal ramifications if I got too close to his real life identity.

I'll admit it was bad of me to fuck with the keywords so that the post Ass-Wholes Great and Small (Stonerdate 01.30.2010) came up in the search results when his little books about investing were published - but that's what happens when I try to be reasonable and peaceable and somebody acts like a complete asshole, hence the term "Ass-Whole"(h/t Woody Konopeli).  And besides, Google didn't have an issue with anything I said even after he apparently reported me, so it couldn't have been as bad as all that.  Certainly that episode - even before I took down the post where I linked to the most extreme example of his asswholery on Attraction Forums - wasn't nearly as tacky as what Dan Savage did to Rick Santorum (Rick Santorum's Anal Sex Problem, Mother Jones), but then, those guys are professionals.  In any case, it's not like I didn't give that Ass-Whole fair warning and ample time to respond in private.

The reason I'm worried about all this today is that I have a steaming hot date with Jon-El Williams tonight.  Normally, I don't pay much attention to New Year's Eve and it's not like Jon-El and I have plans to go out. We have plans to stay in which is why this date is significant.  The fact that there are any plans in this direction at all is significant because typically, I'm a woman who considers the consequences of certain activities only after we've reached the point where all I can say is, "Too Late Now."

If I had been the boss of the trajectory with Jon-El, it would already be too late - but Jon-El has been doing the driving.  I'm not sure if he's been moving slowly on account of he's cautious about getting mixed up with a lunatic or if he's unusually perceptive so that he can tell when a woman is 100% ready for action.  I've never waited until I was 100% ready for anything except getting pregnant with Velvet.  Getting pregnant is not something anybody should enter into lightly.

Before Jon-El Williams became an Emmy Award winning producer/writer/director with a bunch of programs on his IMDb page, he was an entertainment lawyer.  I like it that he has emmy awards and stuff - but it's the lawyer part that concerns me.  By the time the Narcissist threatened to sue me, I was secure enough in my position - and drunk enough during that phone conversation - to say, "Let's go."  I believe I may have mentioned getting the court to subpoena his estranged wife.  The point is that I wasn't a bit afraid of or intimidated by The Narcissist.

I am, however, thoroughly aware of Mr. Williams' credentials as well as his generally astute character and level of practical experience which means I would think twice before pissing him off.

It may be that fretting is premature, as it were.  The outcome of tonight's date may be such that I'll be sending him on his way by midnight, in much the same way that I made that Preacher go sleep in Velvet's room for the duration of his visit.  

Considering the way my head hit the wall during that good-bye kiss the other night, though, it would be nice if Mr. Williams had a recurring role in the sitcom of life here at Menopausal Stoners Temporary Digs. And we all know that if has a recurring role, then there's no way I can help talking about the man on the internet.  It would be too bad if he felt it were necessary to squash me like a bug especially since he has that capability.  Consequently, I'm minding my Ps and Qs.  I'm also shaving my armpits, and I think I'll get a nice bottle of sparkling rosé.

I'm pretty sure that if Jon-El really does get a recurring role, I'll give him creative control of his character and, especially, his name.  Meanwhile, I'm not sure why, but this whole thing is reminding me of Brer Rabbit.

A Tuesday Night in Texas

After a couple of days with my family, I've noticed a subtle shift. Up until this year, I've always thought of my mother as The Mother with my sister and I being Daughters.  My brother and sister have always been siblings - and all of us and our spouses, as they were added to the family group, have been the Children.  When my sister and I started having children, it was pretty much as if we had just added more kids to the mix.  The table is big enough so that we can all sit together - without having to relegate kids to the children's table in the kitchen, although now that my brother's wife's parents have moved to Houston and we're becoming a Clan - we don't all fit anymore.  Five of us had to sit in the kitchen, and arranged the seating alphabetically.

I noticed that everyone - including me - was getting older a couple of years ago during another Christmas in Texas.  I had just turned 50, and Mortality was smacking me in the face for the first time. I spazzed.  Back then, Mother was fully convinced my dad had Alzeihmer's and I was noticing all my own friends still smoking or sucking down an ice cream float while fixing up an insulin shot.  Turned out that some of my dad's medicine was effecting his memory - so now that they changed his meds he's good to go for another decade.

So now that I've figured out that we're not all going to die any time soon - and that, in fact, life goes on, my sister and I seem to be the Mothers with my brother and his wife, JJP, as well as my sister's husband the physicist, occupying the same generational space.  Velvet and his cousins are now the Emerging Generation.  Certainly aging is part of this shift - but I think I've noticed it more this year since Cupcake is with us.   Everyone is getting along beautifully.  My mother made a point of thanking Velvet for bringing home such a pleasant, sensible girl instead of one of the high maintenance lunatics who attached themselves to my brother.

Cupcake has taken a tranquilizer or two, but nobody holds that against her.  The Physicist had to take to his bed the first few times he was around the whole crew.  If I'm remembering correctly, Buzz Kill managed the whole family thing well enough, but I was a nervous wreck in those days.  JJP always fit in pretty well because she had an advantage because her parents and my parents had been friends for years and years before she and my brother got together.  Also, as long as the cats were still alive, Buzz Kill and I typically stayed in a hotel because  Buzz Kill is highly allergic to cats.

Last year, I felt a little resentful at having to share my mother with my sister the whole time - but I was tense on account of Velvet getting suspended for his grades.  This year, even though the semester didn't turn out the way anyone had hoped, we're all proud as can be that Velvet is such a nice fellow, and I have to say that being able to maintain healthy relationships is a hell of lot more important than a college degree.

Hanging out in the kitchen together, or piling into the cars to go out for barbecue like we did this afternoon, there is genuine, warm comraderie in this family (Thing of Beauty #44-101).  Even though I've been a mother for nearly 21 years, and my sister's kids are both teenagers - this is the first time that my mother feels more like The Crone instead of The Mother.  She's called herself Crone whenever she comments on Citydata and other websites for some time now, but in my mind she's been The Mother.  Maybe I felt like an imposter or something since I hadn't come to terms with my own authority and power even as I was exercising it.

Plenty of people - friends and neighbors mostly - call up my mother regularly for instructions on how to fix stuff, or deal with contractors or community disputes.   My dad is also a respected elder in their little community, but I don't know what they call men.  Since the Goddess has always had three faces - Maiden, Mother, Crone - it's easy to see which stage of life we're in.  Mom may have called herself Crone for a few years now, but she is fully Crone now.

The other day, my buddy Gwendolyn Holden Barry and I were talking about archetypes and personality structure.  Gwen looks at that kind of stuff from a mythological, ancestoral perspective where I'm more Jungian about the whole thing - but there's a lot of overlap.  Anyway, it was back when Gwen was first blending up an essensce for me designed to facilitate the healing of my shoulder.  Gwen's business - Daughters of Isis- Ancestor Aromachologie is all about healing essenses.  Anyway Gwen was saying that the Mother is very strong in me - so that even when I'm officially a Crone, I'll still be Mother.  I'm thinking that my mother is such a Crone that she's been Crone even when she was technically still Mother.

That Maiden, Mother, Crone stuff has more to do with seven year cycles than the exact stage of a woman's fertility, but when you're a woman, your cycle is a fundamental part of who you are.  All of us, though, men and women alike, go through stages of life just like the phases of the moon or the seasons of the year.  My parents are going into their winter; my sibs and I are going into the Fall.  Velvet and Cupcake aren't quite ready for summer.  It will come, though   I still think those two may very well be one of those couples that gets together in high school and stays together for a lifetime.  Time will tell.

For now, I'm wondering what time will tell for me next year.  First things first, though.  The minute all the real estate agents get back to work in New York City, I'm buying an apartment and entering into a new phase of life in New York.  The whole time I was married to Buzz Kill, I was living near Central Park.  Since it's at the center of the city, it's like a metaphor for focusing inward on personal identity and stuff like that.  The defining characteristic of my new neighborhood is the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge which is all about connecting with others.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that even though I was very anxious about taking the medicine for my inflammatory arthritis - which is derrived from the chemicals they use for chemotherapy, so in a very real way I was home alone and taking poison on Christmas Eve - my shoulder really is improving.  Even if I am telling myself a lovely little story by looking at the potion Gwen made as an antidote to the poison, when you consider how much of our healing depends on our perception and attitude, I'm fucking-A delighted with this one.

I collected a bit of earth from the yard of the house where I lived when I was young and healthy, and Gwen blended it together with the same things our own Celtic ancestors used as medicines back before the Romans chased them into the woods and called them Witches.  It's like I have my Self returning to myself in a concrete, tangible way to help my body heal.  Maybe there will always be some pain, but I'm the one who decides whether or not there is suffering.

No matter what happens with my shoulder, my home and my potential romance, there's still a lot of suffering in the world.  I'm finally starting to feel well enough again to work toward Being the Change.  There's no denying we're looking at the collapse of the American Empire -and we seem to be taking the Environment down with us.  But the movement is still afloat - and January 20, we'll be Occupying the Courts.

For more information about events across the country, visit: Move to Amend.org

 I can't think of a better way to mark the anniversary of the Citizens United decission.

Buzz Kill's Birthday & Thing of Beauty #43-101

I can see why people hate the holidays.  So many people hate the holidays that, at the moment, I can't think of anyone who really loves the holidays.  I say "holidays" instead of Christmas since Thanksgiving and New Years are included.  Most likely, major holidays for every nationality, race and religion can be included since the trouble centers around being alone and feeling unloved.  If feeling alone and unloved is the issue, then we would also have to include Valentine's Day, for sure, and other marketing opportunities.

Certainly, stating tomorrow, I'll be with my family in Texas long enough to feel overwhelmed, misunderstood and, perhaps, even suicidal.  Family has a way of bringing out the suicidal tendencies in many of us.   In some ways, being surrounded by family and/or friends but feeling Isolated and Separate is kind of worse than feeling Alone and Unloved.  Either way, though, it sucks.

Physical pain seems to heighten the experience.  I hate to complain, especially since in the land of pain, my shoulder situation is nothing.  Bust even still, being alone and in pain has a way of kicking your emotional state up a notch.  My hormones do that too - but this morning I was forced to admit that the reason I was teary yesterday had more to do with Buzz Kill's birthday than my period.  Staying home alone while everyone else is out boozing it up in the nicest restaurant in the neighborhood is a drag.

Velvet called at 11:00 last night to say he was staying over at his dad's, which is totally fine and I'm glad he called.  But as I rattled around this big, empty apartment this morning, my shoulder stiff and kind of on fire with bones so deteriorated that I'm sometimes afraid they will crack right the fuck in two so that the only thing holding my arm to my body is the skin
Well,
I see why people hate the holidays.

Velvet 's staying over there again tonight since Buzz Kill, Vagina Dentata and Velvet are all going to a lovely Christmas Eve cocktail party that a family friend has had on Christmas Eve for years and years.  As lovely as the party is, in many ways it's torture for all concerned.  I'm not sorry that I'm not invited.  And I'm not sorry I divorced Buzz Kill, especially since the bankruptcy and sundry issues with the IRS proved I was right to take steps to protect the property.  Nevertheless, it's hard when Velvet is at events that I normally would have attended - like this party and Buzz Kill's Birthday Dinner - and I know that even though the guests are all people who used to consider me a friend won't even mention my name.   Bringing me up makes people feel awkward, especially since Buzz Kill will probably have his new girlfriend in tow.
So as far as they're all concerned, I've disappeared.  Almost as if I were never there at all.

I'm happy to say that my shoulder feels less stiff in the afternoons and evenings, especially when I spend the day resting as I have lately.  Maybe it's been so creaky the last couple of days because I've realigned since the surgery and all the gravel in the joint has finally worn itself into sand.   Who knows?  Maybe that one little dose of the chemo derivative is already working a miracle.  The good news is that I'm not afraid it's going to crack in two at the moment.  When it comes to my emotional state, however, as I'm ratting around this big, empty apartment alone except for the ghosts of Christmas parties past - I feel like I was broken in two by the divorce and all the heartache that led up to it.

I'm just sorry that Velvet has seen me crying over this - bitter, resentful tears because my husband chose to nurture his dysfunction instead of our marriage which essentially meant he chose to be with his mother instead of his wife.  On some twisted level, it just feels like the fundamental balance of The Force would have been disturbed is Buzz Kill hadn't moved back in with Vagina Dentata.  He's always taken care of her, even before his father died from Lou Gehrig's Disease.  He passed when Buzz Kill was 15.  As it happened, Velvet was 15 when Buzz Kill finally moved out, leaving Velvet alone with me just as he had been left alone with Vagina Dentata, giving a sense of symmetry to family dysfunction.

Let us all pause a moment and be grateful that I am not Vagina Dentata, although I can see some similarities.  And Buzz Kill, despite everything, has been a good provider for Velvet - I just had to get the law involved to protect the property and to make sure a portion of the cash was secured for Velvet's needs against the claims of creditors during the bankruptcy.  I am particularly grateful that Buzz Kill's sister might be a robber baron, but she did give Buzz Kill the money to pay the alimony and child support on time in the months leading up to bankruptcy court.  So life for Velvet turned out better than life for Buzz Kill, so far anyway - even if there are similarities in their experience.

Vagina Dentata did all right by her kids, though.  Her relatives helped them financially while Vagina Dentata developed a career on the soap operas which was a natural step for someone who had been a chanteuse in the Poconos.  Today Velvet said that at Buzz Kill's birthday party, he grandmother was, "Shit faced and feeble."

I have faith that Velvet gets the picture about his father, his grandmother and me.  And it's a good thing that Velvet is there to support his father now that Vagina Dentata is starting to fade more dramatically by the day.  I can't say I'm sorry to miss this time of life with Buzz Kill - so maybe I should stop feeling resentful about being alone and start thanking my lucky stars that I'm not facing the prospect of wiping the ass of Vagina Dentata.

In fact, I'm so glad I'll never, ever have to wipe that bitch's ass that I declare it Thing of Beauty #43-101.

Winter Solstice and the Number 42

On the subway yesterday I heard a man telling his neighbor that his girlfriend had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer when his dad had a stroke.  He was on the way to the hospital.  That puts my own situation in perspective - although I have to say that I think that poor man's family is a fairly accurate metaphor for the socio-political/economic situation in this county.  I still can't even pay attention to anything coming out of Washington because it's all so fucked up, and that includes the Bradley Manning thing.  I refuse to dignify those proceedings by using the word "trial."

Comparatively, things here at Menopausal Stoners Temporary HQ in Washington Heights are great.   But even though we have a warm, comfortable roof over our heads, good food to eat, decent health, supportive relationships with friends and family, a job that I love, seasonally appropriate clothes that fit and new boots - today, I feel like all that just proves how life pretty much sucks.  It's not that I am ungrateful.  Really.
This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and Be Glad.
Every day above ground is a good day.
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I'm pretty sure my attitude reflects my hormonal state since I got my period last night.  My period has been erratic ever since I followed my doctors' recommendation to discontinue The Pill on account of my blood pressure and my age.  It's only been a couple of months. but after one normal period, then a bonus period about 10 days later, I hadn't had a period in about six weeks.  I was kind of hoping that I had gone through menopause and didn't notice.  I thought maybe I was done having periods forever, but I must have conjured it yesterday.  I was talking about it with Gigi over lunch in the bar at Bergdorf's and later at Molly Equality Dykeman's Molly Jolly Christmas.  When I got home, there it was again.  Now I'm hoping that Jon-El Wisdom  has had a vasectomy.

Not that he's even called.
Not that it would matter if he did since Velvet will not be returning to Tree Hugger as planned in January.  He'll be taking on the role of the Cockblocker instead.

I shouldn't rag at Velvet since he really did do his best at school.  But when a kid is only taking two classes and still gets a D in one of them, it's time to conclude once and for all that the student cannot successfully function in a mainstream environment.  The good news is that Velvet finally understands exactly what his issues are.  All these years, miscellaneous adults have been listing Velvet's issues for him and telling him what he should do.  Now he finally gets it and has to figure it out for himself.  All in all, this development is exactly what needed to happen in order for him to successfully function throughout his entire life.  Nevertheless, we were all hoping for a different outcome.  Well, maybe not all of us.  I'm pretty sure that Cupcake has been hoping he'd move home and go to school in New York City.

We'll have to finally count up his credits and see if, after five semesters, Velvet can officially be considered a sophomore somewhere.  Anywhere Velvet applies for admission as a transfer student will have to be an alternative educational environment, so the grades aren't really such a big deal.  Personally, I don't see any reason for him to apply to school at all anywhere until he has a clear idea of why he's going to school in the first place.   He still likes the idea of Outdoor Education, and I think he'd be good at that, so maybe the best  option at the moment is another Semester in the Wilderness where he can sort all that out.

My trouble with that course of action is that, although a Semester in the Wilderness may very well be whats best for Velvet right now, I'm concerned that sending him to Patagonia, New Zealand or the Desert Southwest simply suits my personal agenda.  I love every molecule of that boy and wouldn't change a single thing about him - but I really hoped that a romantic relationship would develop between me and Jon-El Wisdom, the Emmy Award Winning Black Man.

And maybe it still will.  At the moment, though, Jon-El is up to his eyeballs in a personal shit storm.  It's his little family's first Christmas since The Separation.  They've lived apart a few months but it's only been about six weeks since their separation agreement was filed at Family Court.  Being as he's a lawyer, Jon-El Wisdom handled at those documents himself which, in my view, shows that his wife hasn't started thinking clearly yet.   I'd have my own lawyer working on getting every penny the man ever made for my children and me - but that's just me.  In any case,  I don't need to be participating in his marital dysfunction.  Ergo:  Velvet as the Cockblocker is probably all for the best.

Meanwhile, I'm focusing on my own health and, of course, buying that charming little apartment on Riverside Drive just north of the George Washington Bridge.  I'm not sure I'll wind up buying that particular apartment since the sellers will take a substantial loss even if somebody pays 100% of their asking price.  Based on the amount the public record shows they paid for the place in 2005 and what they apparently spent on improvements, they're already losing about sixty grand at current asking price.  They'll be losing even more than that if they accept what I intend to offer.

As it happens, I can totally afford an apartment for sale across the street from Little Cutie.  It needs a ton of work to make a nice little home for Velvet and me, but then I can create an environment tailored to our own needs.  And besides, I have my mother to advise me.  She may be stuck in her big house in Houston because things are tough all over - but she has flipped 21 houses in her time.  Could be that the apartment across the street from Little Cutie will be the 22nd.  It's filled with original architectural detail from the turn of the last century and has a view of the bridge from the front room.

No matter what happens with school and real estate, Velvet and I are going to be okay.  I'm calling that Thing Of Beauty #41-101 (Explore Beauty - a challenge from realia).  Number #42-101 is that my blogging buddy corticoWhat is hanging in there.  I like popping over to his blog, CBGD, to see how he's doing.  Sooner or later, that CBGD is going to take corticoWhat over to the other side.  Now, he writes when he can.  The Hitchhiker's Guide tells us that 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of the meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything - and here in the Triciasphere, Cortico is 42 for ever and always.

I'm almost certain that the Human Connection already has had a place on this list, but since that connection may very well be the most beautiful thing of all, it can have another one.  Call it Spirit, or Consciousness, Humanity or whatever you want, that connection is what makes life worth living.   This Winter Solstice, corticoWhat shows the light that shines within, drawing us toward one another.  Blessed Be.

Saturday Morning (in progress)

Christmas vacation, or holiday break as you prefer, started yesterday at about 2:30. The parents association arranged a luncheon for the staff. It was lovely, but I had to get out of there because I had a date with Jonelle. I wanted to get my hair done.

He was just coming over to my place for a glass of wine because he was the parent on duty last night. He wound up being able to stay out 11:00. It was all very appropriate and respectful, and I believe he's the type of man who would be glad to come over one evening when I need help getting the lid off a jar.

This morning, I was wondering what I would write if I were to update my Match profile. The membership expired but I think if you update the profile, it stays fairly high in the rotation. I was considering: Creaky old MILF, with arthritis, needs help with jar lids, light bulbs and boxes. Then for some reason this song popped into my head.



I didn't intentionally find an illustrated manifestation of this song, but as it happens, my arthritis may necessitate wearing similar lingerie because bra straps hurt my shoulder.

I'm happy to say that it looks like Jonelle and I will be able to coordinate well logistically.  I like it that he seems to be proceeding with caution when it comes to getting more involved.  We had a relaxing, comfortable chat over weed, red wine and guacamole.  We hadn't been talking long when New Orleans came up, and I realized that I like the idea of a relationship with a man that included a long weekend in New Orleans.  Since I was in brain to mouth mode, I said that's what I was looking for in a relationship.  I also told him that any man in my life will have to be able to maneuver in Austin.  He's been down there to teach film at UT or something.

New Orleans will have to wait until after I get my apartment issue settled.  I saw the practical one last week and it turned out to be a colossal piece of shit, which leaves the path clear for me and little cutie.  The mortgage broker said I could probably have it.  She said I could spend even more on an apartment, illustrating that the lending industry is still irresponsible.  But it's nice to have assurances that the financial picture with Little Cutie will develop in the way I envisioned.  I will be jettisoning lot of furniture because there's less square footage over there, but it's efficient like a boat.  I won't need a dining table anyway since the sellers' update of the kitchen combined counter and dining space.  Here's the picture from the internet:

Velvet and I will be looking at it together on Wednesday.  He gets home tomorrow, but he has jury duty on Monday and Tuesday.  He'll be home for a month, during which time I hope to secure Little Cutie. I don't know if it would be the first step or the next phase or the last step of the old one - but it would be a good place to spend the next few years.  Meanwhile, we'll be heading down to Mudgie's for the holiday, and my whole family will be in the same city at the same time for two full days.

My Room with a View

When I look out my window and the sun is coming up or going down, it hits those white marble gravestones and reminds me of a song:



from Enjoy Yourself, Guy Lombardo
You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

I like that song every day, but it seems especially appropriate today on account of the biopsy - which I'm happy to say says that my shoulder situation is the result of some unnamed inflammatory process. I'm cool with that since if there had been an infection, I would have certainly believed my former surgeon, the Ass-Whole (complete and total asshole) was responsible.  I'd be terminally pissed and unable to sue since it would have been highly unlikely that I could prove anything.  Now it's just another autoimmune mystery which could, conceivably, go away on it's own with no explanation at all whatsoever. My morphea scleroderma improved mysteriously years ago, and now it just looks like I've got an old motorcycle burn on my leg or something instead of an incurable disease.

Appearance is everything.

Today I went apartment hunting with my friend Jamie, an actress/real estate agent.  She's lovely and talented on stage, and she's the best kind of real estate agent since she's fun, realistic, energetic, practical and wants me to be happy.  We've seen several apartments in my price range but none, so far, can beat a little cutie she sent me to see at an open house last weekend.  It's a fully renovated two bedroom in a restored Arts & Crafts building just north of the George Washington Bridge overlooking the Hudson River.  The view of the river from the apartment itself is pretty lame, but that's why I can afford the place.

This little scenic overlook is across the street from the building.  This photo is from the NYTimes article "On the Fringe with Benefits."  I would be very grateful indeed if that all worked out, but there is another apartment closer to where I am now that might be more practical.  Or it could suck balls - you never know until you go look.  Something feels right about Little Cutie, though.  Even though the views themselves are unremarkable, the sun still streams in the windows since the apartment is on the top floor.  My room would get the morning sun, and I'm pretty sure I can arrange the furniture so that the afternoon sunbeam would directly hit Velvet's bed.  He'd have to get used to the idea of me napping in his room when he was gone, but I figure if he's too comfortable in the new place - no matter whether it's Little Cutie or The Practical Choice - he might live at home forever.  That would be unfortunate for everyone.

In any case, I'll know by Friday which direction the wind is blowing us.  I'll call that Thing of Beauty #39-101 (Explore Beauty Challenge, from realia).

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.