Merry Something or Other

Last week, I put up Christmas decorations in my apartment for the first time.

Now, to most of you, this may not seem like a big thing. For me, it's sometimes difficult to get into the holiday spirit. Between entirely too many years spent in retail and an uncanny history of really crappy things happening in my life in the winter months (yeah, still no news on the car thing...), I have a tendency to fall into the "Bah humbug" crowd. (I also tend to do most of my shopping either online or at stores that are open 24 hours in an effort to avoid people.)

Christmas decorations don't have a great track record in my household. Several years ago, my roommate decided it would be a fun idea to decorate her 6 foot tree entirely in purple decorations. Purple ornaments, purple icicles, purple garland and tinsel, and in place of an angel tree topper, a Barbie wearing a purple evening gown. It was hideous, it was tacky, but we had a blast decorating it. Unfortunately, my cat thought attacking the tree every morning was a blast as well. Since the only purple ornaments we could find were of the glass ball variety and we had hardwood floors, there was an ornament casualty nearly every day. (Yes, I know that glass ornaments, hardwood floors, and pets do not mix. We were young and foolish, OK?)

The morning ritual of attacking the tree culminated on the 27th, when I awoke to find the tree lying atop the coffee table. (Elvis, having completed his mission of killing the big purple thing, was nowhere to be found.) I sighed, went to make some coffee, and spent the rest of the morning taking the tree apart, sweeping up shards of glass, and untangling lights while watching Reservoir Dogs, chain smoking, and cursing very very loudly.

I tried again when I moved out on my own. Elvis knocked my tree over almost every day, as well as pulling down the stockings hung from the bookcase. Janis, the "default" kitty (I was supposed to watch her for a few days while a friend got settled after moving back in with his parents. He never came back to get her.), voiced her opinions on my holiday decorations by throwing up on the tree skirt. (But then again, Janis threw up on everything. I think I know why her owner never came to retrieve her.)

After that, I tossed all of my Christmas decorations into the back of my bedroom closet, where they proceeded to stay for the next five years. I had inclinations to put up the tree every year, but always decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I even went so far as to buy a slew of ornaments from the Warner Brothers Studio Store. They were still untouched in the shopping bag when I moved last year.

Since I had moved in right before Christmas last year, the last thing I wanted to do was unpack yet another box (and then repack it a week or so later), so the stockings and lights and ornaments went straight into storage. This year, I decided (with some hesitance) that I would give it a shot and try to put up the tree. I imagined that I would probably end up putting up the tree several times, given Ma Huang's lack of grace and Kismet's curious nature (and propensity to try to climb everything in the apartment).

I decided the best way to do it would be in stages. I put up the tree and adjusted the branches; after being in storage for six years, it was completely flat on one side. The cats watched with interest as I lugged the decoration boxes up from storage and placed the new green thing in front of the windows. Ma Huang tried to chew on one of the branches, but no one tried to knock over the strange new addition to the living room.

I added everything in stages. Add lights, wait for reaction. Add garland, wait for reaction. Tree topper. Ornaments. So far so good. (I was exceptionally nervous about the Warner Brothers ornaments, since the store has gone out of business and I doubt anyone is currently making a Pinky and the Brain ornament or a Marvin the Martian tree topper.)

The only casualty so far has been the tree skirt (now minus cat vomit, thank you very much). Apparently there's untold joy to be found sliding and pouncing on a green piece of fabric decorated with a candy cane pattern. Kismet is intrigued with one particular ornament (a red panda ornament from the Zoo's ADOPT program), but so far she's content to just bat at it. Both cats seem to enjoy sitting under the tree, which is very cute until one of them takes a swat at the other. I doubt the tree could sustain a round of Big Time Kitty Wrestling.

Putting up the tree has helped get me in the holiday spirit a little bit. I went to a cookie baking party with a few girls from work over the weekend. I strung up lights from my curtain rod in the living room. I wrapped all of my presents in one evening. I dyed my hair just in case I get what I really want for Christmas. I made snacks for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's annual Christmas Eve party. I watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and sang along. (I also picked up on the outdated sexist themes, but I chalked it up to the age of the show.) I bought a cats an early present - a Cat Scratcher. It's essentially a block of corrugated cardboard (with the honeycombed side up) and supposedly works much like a regular scratching post. My cats haven't quite got the hang of it yet. They essentially licked all of the catnip off the top of it, pulled the cardboard out of the box, chewed on the cardboard, and pushed the box around the floor. However, neither of them sharpened their claws on the furniture last night and they pretty much left me alone while I was working on things in the kitchen.

In the midst of decking the halls and making yummy treats, I managed to find a use for guilty pleasure of arts and crafts projects. Mind you, I have the artistic ability of a retarded squirrel, but that has never stopped me from browsing the aisles at Michael's, looking for a new project to go awry. Some have gone quite well: one year, Rosencrantz and I painted daisy-shaped whirligigs and gave them as gifts for Mother's Day. I've also managed to do two halfway decent fairy sculptures from Fimo. (Granted it took me several hours each time, and I've had more failures than successes with clay modelling, but I'm still quite pleased with the ones that actually turned out right.) There have also been spectacular failures: last year I attempted to make candles. It didn't go well. I still have wax in the kitchen carpet.

This year's projects included decorating candle votive holders (painting and beadwork) and making soap. I highly recommend soap making for the craft-challenged. It's pretty much idiot-proof, and clean up is amazingly easy (because it's soap), plus your kitchen takes on the scent of the cooling glycerine and whatever fragrance added. Last night it was vanilla and cucumber melon. Yummy.

So now I've got a ton of soap in various shapes and colors and flavors. I've got a boxful of votive candles that I'm not sure if I should give out since they look like they were decorated by a seven year old. I've got pretty lights and a tree in the living room, and presents wrapped and stashed in the closet. (Presents don't go under the tree in my house, unless the present is supposed to be covered in kitty drool and teethmarks.) I've got apple cider in the fridge, to be heated and mixed with cinnamon while the Great White Death envelops the city. I've got hair with a funny chemical smell from the new dye job (went with a new color - Cinnamon Stick; it sounded festive). I've got a bottle of cheap champange set aside for New Year's Eve (which will probably be spent watching Pirates of the Caribbean on DVD; after bartending for all of those years, I don't enjoy going out all that much on that night). I've got a letter to Santa, and milk and cookies to leave out. (Of course, since I'm the only person who plays Santa in my house, I might forego the milk for a cup of tea. Or maybe a beer.)

Yeah, this is what Christmas looks like at Chez Myo. Happy holidays, everyone.

Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am

Sometimes I wonder if the Universe wants me to forfeit my driver's license. It seems that every car I've ever had has had some sort of magnetic attraction to other cars. Last night, the Aspire was added to the list.

Rosencrantz had called me at work. It seems that Guildenstern had dropped her off in Clifton so she could take care of a few things, but due to unforeseen circumstances, she wasn't able to do so. (Guildenstern had a calendar full of appointments and couldn't pick her up, so essentially she was stranded.) I volunteered to pick her up once I finished up at the office.

Since it was rush hour, we decided to take the back roads home rather than the expressway. The traffic was pretty heavy, but it allowed us plenty of time to catch up while waiting for the cars in front of us to move.

We were about fifty feet away from the intersection where I needed to turn to get to her neighborhood. Traffic had stopped again, we were chatting about my recent release from Chris and Tammy's House of Torture, and...

WHAM!!!

A driver behind us, impatient to get into the left turn lane (that didn't start for another thirty feet or so), had whipped into the safety zone, misjudged the distance in between my car and hers and clipped the Aspire, denting the hell out of the back panel, scraping the back door, and taking out the driver-side mirror.

Rosencrantz and I immediately assumed crash positions: I flipped on my hazard lights and she reached for her cell phone and called the police. "You're not at fault," she reassured me as she waited for the dispatch officer to answer. "Their insurance will cover everything."

"If they have insurance," I replied. The last time I'd been in an accident, the other driver had no insurance, and I drove with the back bumper attached by bungee cords for the next seven years.

"The car's a late model Cadillac with vanity plates," she observed. "I think chances are good that the driver's insured."

The police arrived and instructed us to both move our cars to a side street (out of rush hour traffic), and asked me and the other driver to wait in the back of his cruiser to exchange information. I grabbed my purse and slid into the back of the police car.

There's something strange and offputting about sitting in the back of a police cruiser, with the hard plastic seats and bars in the windows and the clear plastic barrier between the front and back seats. I'd never done anything that had required a visit to the back of the police car before. And from the look of things, neither had the other driver. She was an affluent older woman, wearing a fur coat. (I decided not to get on my soapbox and proselytize about how fur only looks good on its original owner. But I think I did visibly cringe.)

The woman admitted fault in the accident, although she also proved she wasn't very bright. (She told the officer that she'd been going about 30 miles per hour when she struck me, because she knew she was in a school zone. The last time I checked, the speed limit for a school zone in the state of Ohio was 20 mph during school hours. I doubt school was in session at 5:45 in the evening.) She also proved that she was a complete suck-up. As I was getting out of the cruiser, the police officer was writing up a citation for her and she was name-dropping. (She was telling him that she was on her way home from a party at so-and-so's house, insinuating that he would recognize the name. Apparently her deceased husband was a lawyer, so their social circle probably contained several people in the legal/governmental field. Being a poor-as-hell Zoo employee, I didn't recognize the name and wasn't all that impressed. The officer didn't seem to be impressed either.)

I've been on the phone all day with my claims adjuster. I should be hearing from the other driver's insurance company this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to get the car fixed next week, since I'm on vacation and won't have to bug anyone for rides to work. While the car is drivable, I don't feel comfortable driving without the side mirror or left taillight, especially at night. This threatened to mess up my weekend plans; the NaNoWriMo Thank God It's Over party is coming up Saturday night. Thankfully one of the other writers got in touch with me and offered to pick me up. (Turns out she lives in my part of town. Small world.)

It could've been much worse. The car could've been totalled. There could have been injuries. I could be paying for the damages (or not paying for them, as I'm still paying off my hospital bill). I suppose that should make me feel better.

I'm still ticked off, though. This is not what I wanted for Christmas.

The News According to Myo

Sometimes current events in Queen City make me shake my head....

Once again, Cincinnati is a lead story on CNN. Once again, it's regarding a death of an African-American man while being apprehended by the police. This time, though, the public has been provided with surveillance tapes from the police cruiser as well as the White Castle where the incident took place. Videotape should clear up the details, right?

Wrong. On the one hand, watching the police subdue the man is horrifying. As far as I can tell, less violent means of getting the situation under control like pepper spray were completely skipped over in favor of nightsticks. The fire department and ambulance (who had reported to the scene before the police were even called in) seem to have left and had to be called back after it became apparent that the man was not breathing.

But on the other hand, the guy was coked up and was smoking PCP-laced cigarettes. He verbally provoked and physically attacked the police. He continued to resist arrest and refused to comply with orders to stop. And this was a large man. If I had been in the shoes of one of the officers on the scene, trying to restrain a violent flailing narcoleptic guy hopped up on coke and angel dust, I'd probably feel more than a bit fearful for my well-being. I can't say what I would do in a situation like that; thankfully, I'm not in a position where I have to consider things like that.

The coroner has ruled that Jones died as a direct result of the struggle with the police, taking into account his obesity, heart problems, and the drugs in his system. The report also emphasizes that while his death is ruled as a homicide, "This word should not be implied as inappropriate behavior or the use of excessive force by police. The word does not imply hostile intent."

My head hurts. I'm worried about how this will affect the already-too-strained racial tensions in Cincinnati. I don't judge people by the color of their skin, but I'm not so naive to believe that it doesn't happen. While I no longer live in the city itself, I work in the middle of a predominately African-American neighborhood. I drive through a pretty seedy couple of blocks. If weirdness breaks out again, there is no alternate route to the Zoo. (I'm thinking - hoping - that things won't get as bad as the whole 2001 riot scene. There's been a lot of outrage, but so far everyone's just talking, trying to find answers to incredibly muddy questions.)

But enough about that trainwreck. There's so much more.

In regional news, there's a sniper targeting I-270. I'm quite glad that I won't be traveling anywhere near the Columbus area in the near future. For those of you who live there, or may just be passing through, be careful up there.

In the news that no one has bothered to report, the city of Cincinnati has proposed cutting curbside recycling to reduce the city's budget deficit. Apparently having a landfill (affectionately named Mount Rumpke) that is widely believed to be the highest point above sea level in Hamilton County wasn't big enough? How can you pat yourself on the back about having one of the largest curbside recycling programs in the nation while trying to underhandedly get rid of it at the same time? Bright move, guys. What happened to that whole "Don't Trash the 'Nati" campaign?

But then again, this is a city where Cinco de Mayo means drunken riots near the UC campus. This is the city where the city charter bars council from passing anti-discrimination laws based on sexual orientation. (And I shouldn't be so hasty to do my high and mighty "I don't really live there anymore" dance. I now live in a city where council is threatening eminent domain on a block of houses and businesses so they can clear the path for office buildings and retail space.)

In sad anniversary news, yesterday was the 24th anniversary of the Who concert tragedy. I remember my father picking me up that night from a dress rehearsal of the school musical (Oliver!, for anyone who might be interested), and hearing the news come across the radio. Yesterday, WEBN played "Behind Blue Eyes" while I was driving to work, and the whole scene came rushing back, down to the nasty smell of stage makeup and Pond's cold cream. Not a great way to start the day.

But just when I start to think about Cincinnati being a sad or scary place to live, I think about the strange stuff that goes on here. Apparently the nearby city of Fairfield is being overrun with coyotes. (In the immortal words of Rosencrantz, after I told her about the initial sightings a few years ago, "Yay Nature! Go Nature!") First a rogue cow, now this?

And then there's the surreal news... after years of being a Jay Leno punchline, the Bengals are winning. THE BENGALS ARE WINNING! They're tied for first in the AFC Central division. The last time the Bengals had a winning season was 1990. Who dey, indeed.

I also discovered today that Cincinnati has the highest rated CBS affiliate in the nation. Huh. I knew we had an inordinately high percentage of Survivor watchers here, but I had no idea it spilled over to encompass all of the CBS lineup. It was probably my newfound obsession with CSI that pushed us over the edge.

But it's entirely too late at night to be thinking about the news. I need to get some sleep to prepare for the most frightening news of the week: the first winter storm of the season is on its way. (I think Jim Borgman summed up the typical Cincinnati reaction to winter weather advisories pretty well... scroll down on that link to the December 17, 1995 cartoon towards the bottom.) Yeah, I can hardly wait to navigate that new employee entrance at work going downhill on an iced-over busy street. Fun stuff.

The Return to Nebraska

First off, I'd like to extend a huge thanks to those of you in Hamilton County who supported the Zoo by voting for Issue 17. We really couldn't continue to have a world class zoo without your support. (And while I'm on the subject, the Zoo's website has finally been given a complete overhaul. Go check it out!)

The first week of NaNoWriMo has passed, and I figured it was time to let you all know how I'm doing.

First off, I have a confession to make. I'm cheating. After thinking through my plot idea this year, I realized that there was no way I'd be able to pull it off. I had planned on writing a metafiction novel about not having any idea what to write about for NaNoWriMo, and was going to pick a genre, write a storyline until it fell apart and then start with another completely unrelated genre until something worked. The name of this mess was to be The Spaghetti Method (as in throwing it against the wall until something sticks). It was going to be brilliant; it would just be a bunch of writing exercises loosely strung together.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'd want to give each mini-plot a valid try, which would require research. Lots of research. If I was going to set a story in the Middle Ages, I'd need to brush up on my European history. If I was going to write a storyline from the point of view of an elephant, I would have to research elephant behavior and matriarchal societies. If I was going to write an action sequence, I'd have to learn something about guns... and so on. While it would've been a fun idea, I would've spent entirely too much time reading and not enough time writing.

Meanwhile, Alison and Devin, the characters that I'd stranded in Nebraska last year's attempt, were frantically waving their arms in an effort to get my attention. "What about us? Are you going to leave us here forever? We've probably still got another 50,000 words of story to tell!"

So, to make a long story short (or rather, a short story longer), I'm picking up where I left off with last years' story and attempting to finish it. (I figure if Miramax could split Kill Bill into two movies simply by sticking a Volume One and Volume Two to the titles, then why can't I?) I'm not counting the twenty chapters I wrote last year in my totals, so hopefully by the end I'll have a 77,000 word novel that will actually be finished and won't entirely suck.

(And for those of you who had the website address of last year's novel-in-progress, don't bother looking for it. I've taken it down and, as of this point, will not be posting chapters online as I go. This may change as time goes on, but I doubt it. Trying to code what I'd written took up valuable writing time, and I felt guilty whenever I'd fall behind on my word count. My posting here is infrequent enough. Adding another website into the mix would be asking for trouble.)

According to the "official" rules of NaNoWriMo, participants are not allowed to use any previously written work or stories in progress, so I am technically cheating. But then again, there were people who turned in a ten word sentence repeated 5000 times last year and were awarded the "winner" banner. (What's even more ridiculous about this is that these people were stupid enough to post their "novel excerpts" on the NaNoWriMo website. Were they attempting to show how brazen and clever they thought they were? Were they that desperate for attention?) So if these people can cheat that flagrantly and wave it in the faces of those of us who were struggling to meet our word counts, then why can I not write 50,000 new words - the second part of my story - and get credit for it?

I hear the purists griping about my argument. I'm not listening. I'm on my way back to Nebraska, and this time I'm coming back with an ending.

So I wrote 1700 words at the first Write In on Saturday, fueled by the massively addictive Indian Malabar coffee at Sitwell's. All of it was dialogue, it had little or no bearing on the plot, and I didn't care. I'll edit later, right?

I took Sunday afternoon off to go see Urinetown with my mother and sister, then returned home, made a pot of coffee, and started to type furiously. As of Sunday night, I was chugging along and had written almost 5000 words. (For those of you who know the plot, yes, the karaoke scene is finally written.) And then I hit a brick wall. I managed to add a chapter between the meaningless dialogue and the karaoke scene, bringing my total to a little over 6000 words, but I wasn't sure where to go next.

Most of the problem was that I had afraid that I wouldn't be able to stretch out the rest of the story for another 44,000 words. The aforementioned karaoke scene was pretty much the midpoint of the story, and my outline after that point consisted of "stuff happens." There was no conflict whatsoever, just my characters sitting around smoking and drinking and saying the same things over and over again. It was rapidly becoming an poorly written uninspired drunken pop-culture version of Waiting for Godot. I was almost ready to drop out.

The only thing I could think of to extend the plot was to have a character break an ankle. Hey, I write from experience. (Although I've never been stuck in an alternate dimension in Nebraska... I've never been any further west than Chicago. But that's the good thing about alternate dimensions - no experience necessary!)

I decided to take a break, walk away from the story for a day or two, and give my brain a rest. I went to see a few movies. (Word to the wise. Avoid The Matrix Revolutions. It's mindbogglingly bad. On the other hand, Elf is sweet and charming. And I don't even like Will Ferrell that much.)

After clearing my mind with an example of Good Movie/Bad Movie, I had an epiphany in the 11th hour. It may not be enough to carry the story to the 50,000 word finish line, but it will certainly help. And it's better than the idea of describing an upcoming pivotal Scrabble game in excruciating detail, one tile at a time. I guess I'll see if it works or not tonight, after I work my way through another pot of coffee. It's going to be a long night.

Tomorrow's Write In is at the Blind Lemon. Hopefully I'll be caught up enough to show up. Hopefully I'll be awake enough to show up. Hopefully I'll be able to find a decent parking spot in Mt. Adams. (Walking more than short distances is still a challenge. Adding a hilly terrain and a heavier-than-it-looks laptop increases the level of difficulty.)

I'm going to work through this. I'm determined this year.

Confessions

I'm really ashamed to admit this.

After watching "Late Night with David Letterman" this evening, I've just come to the realization that I've got a horrible crush on Keanu Reeves. Embarrassing, huh?

Now, I'll be the first to admit that his name will never follow the phrase "And the Oscar goes to...." I'm still cringing over the fact that, at one point, he played Hamlet on stage. "Shakespeare" and "Keanu Reeves" should be mutally exclusive topics. (Don't believe me? Watch Much Ado About Nothing. He's the EEEEEEVIL little wooden boy. His first line is "I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you." The preview audience I saw it with applauded at this point. Half of us were adding "dude" to every single line he uttered. And at the end, when he gets his comeuppance, Kenneth Branaugh whispers to Denzel Washington, "Think not on him till to-morrow. I'll devise thee brave punishments for him." My roommate leaned over and added, "Make him watch his scenes in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was punishment for me.")

Actually, I have a theory about the acting ability of Mr. Reeves. You see, there are movies he's not bad in. My theory is thus: Keanu Reeves is only good in movies where he can be described as a dude. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Dude. Good. Dangerous Liasons? Not a dude. Not very good. Parenthood? Dude. Good. (He actually has one of the best lines in the movie, about fatherhood.) My Own Private Idaho? Not really a dude. Not really that good. (Yeah, I know that lots of people liked that movie, but after watching Keanu do his faux-Prince Hal thing, I was just as narcoleptic as River Phoenix. See above rule about Keanu and the Bard.) Speed? A cop, but still kind of a dude. Only a dude would answer with "Shoot the hostage." And while that movie will never be celebrated in the history of film, it was an fun two hours at the theater. (At least in the opinion of the group I saw the movie with.)

And even though he really wasn't much of a dude, I didn't totally hate him in The Devil's Advocate. Awful accent, cheesy goodness.

I can't offer up my opinions on Point Break, as I've never gotten around to seeing it, but I've heard it was a goofy fun little action movie. And he was an F. B. I. Agent. (Dude.)

And come on, admit it. You liked him in The Matrix. His most memorable lines were "Whoa" and "I know kung fu." He did most of his own stunts. He didn't have to be smart. (Hell, even the Oracle pegged him - "Not too bright.") He just had to stand there and look pretty and confused, and kick Agent Smith's ass.

Which brings me to the main problem. Keanu, while not being the best actor of his generation, is damn pretty. While I'll never be adding A Walk in the Clouds to my Netflix cue, I'll sigh dreamily at Keanu in romantic soft focus. He has aged quite gracefully (does he look 39 to you?) from Ted "Theodore" Logan to a very attractive man who can rock a suit like nobody's business. (Or that cassock thing he wore in The Matrix Reloaded.)

To make matters more confusing in the crush department, he comes off as a genuinely sweet guy. He gives good interview on late night talk shows. He seems to lead as private a life as possible, given his career. (And in the age of Bennifer, that's a really good thing in my book.) He seems to enjoy what he's doing, whether it be making critcally lambasted movies or playing bass in a band that probably never would've been signed if he hadn't been in it.

And according to the highly unreliable IMDB, he loves ballroom dancing. (Swoon.) He may not be a rocket scientist (he's admitted it himself - "I'm a meathead man. You've got smart people, and you've got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb."), but he's charming.

I guess it's the charming part that gets me. I tend to fall for personalities rather than looks. I've known and dated beautiful men that had the personality of a bowl of Grape Nuts. I've known and dated not-so-beautiful men that were fascinating. The fascinating ones always lasted longer than the cereal boys.

(And yes, I've known and dated beautiful men that were fascinating. I've been lucky like that. )

So go ahead, ridicule me. I'll be watching the charming pretty boy kick multiple Hugo Weaving butt in the latest installment of the stupid tecnobabble philosophy movie.

Making a List, Checking It Twice

It's that time of the year again.

No, I'm not planning early for Christmas. I don't do my holiday shopping until sometime in December, and it's usually a whirlwind "must get everything for everyone NOW!" kind of affair. (Unfortunately, it looks like this year's shopping extravaganza may be at the 99 Center. Stupid ankle.)

No, it's NaNoWriMo time again, and like the fool that I am, I'm giving it another shot. (This is all Rosencratz's fault, by the way. She's been excited about this since September and talked me into participating again. Of course she excited; she finished her novel last year, while I sputtered out at a paltry 24,000 words or so for the second year running.)

I'm trying to keep my confidence high, though. The first year I got a little too attached to my plot, and when my character's life went down the tubes, I followed suit. Last year, I decided to make arrangements to move while I was hashing out plot details. This year, I have no intention of going crazy or moving. My ankle mishap has pretty much destroyed what little social life I had, so my distractions should be minimal.

So now, with less than two weeks to go, I'm making up a little "to do" list...

- Come up with a plot. Well, sort of. I'm fully embracing the "No plot? No problem!" motto this year. My plot this year is that I don't have a plot. I'm going to write from the point of view of a NaNoWriMo participant who has no idea what to write about, and tries out ideas until they crash and burn, then selects another one and starts again. (Why yes, I have seen Adaptation one too many times. Why do you ask?) Can I make it work as a cohesive story? Probably not. Can I get 50,000 words out of it? Probably so. Hey, no one ever said NaNo novels had to be good. I'm just more concerned this year with actually finishing something and breaking my losing streak, in hopes that it will motivate me to finish at least one of the other two previous attempts.

Rosencrantz likes my idea, as long as I don't write a chapter where I describe myself as "fat, balding, and pathetic" (a la Donald Kaufman in Adaptation). I'm considering adding it in just to be a smart ass.

- Oh, that reminds me. Watch Adaptation again. I haven't seen it in the last month or so, and there won't be any time to watch it come November.

- Make up a "plot jar." Since I'm going with the whole random plot idea, I've decided to write down any ideas I might have and stick then in a jar. Then when I'm stuck for ideas, I can just pick one from the jar and see how far I can get with it until the wheels fall off.

- Clear calendar of social obligations. Well, most social obligations. Roger Mexico thinks he will be visiting during the Thanksgiving holidays, and seeing as how it's been a year since I last saw him... well, we've got a lot of catching up to do and the book will just get back-burnered during that time. A girl's gotta have her priorities, right? (Of course, if all goes well, the book will be done by then, and I'll actually have something for him to read. I always feel guilty that he usually has a CD of songs he's recently finished for me whenever he visits, and all I have to show for my time are my ramblings on this page, which he could have read online at any given time.)

I'll also be seeing Hamell on Trial at the Southgate House on November 16th. It's a Sunday, and I figure I can get my word quota in before 8:00 pm. Besides, I haven't been to see a concert since going to see Ben Folds at Jammin' on Main back in May. (I haven't really been in the condition to go to any shows lately, which is why I skipped the eight bajillion concerts at Tall Stacks this past weekend.)

I don't really have any other social obligations, except for physical therapy and sweeps month on TV. And I can always tape CSI.

(Of course, I did just find out that David Sedaris is going to be at the Taft tonight. It's not November yet, right? I guess I'll see how exhausted I am from back to back doctor appointments, and then decide.)

- Buy more coffee. I get the feeling that Mr. Coffee will once again become my boyfriend for the month. Well, he and Captain Morgan will have to share me, I suppose. (Lesson learned from previous years: a small amount of alcohol does loosen up the brain, but red wine makes me sleepy when I write.)

- Prepare the writing soundtrack. Of course, since I'm not sure where my plot will lead me this year, I have no idea what type of music will be best. Fortunately, I now have the added option of the mass of streaming radio stations on iTunes (now available for Windows). At this point, I'm limiting myself and staying away from the Music Store. I get the feeling that would wind up being too much of a money and time suckage from my life for the moment. At the moment, I'm too busy exploring all of the Ambient radio stations and looking at the pretty pretty swirling lights on the visual feature. Hopefully that will come in handy to clear my mind when it gets too tied up in knots, but I also fear that I will find myself staring at the screen for hours on end. That wouldn't be good - I have no time for virtual acid trips.

Besides sampling radio stations, I'm also going to experiment with making a few mix CDs. I have a perfectly good CD burner in my laptop that I've never bothered to learn to use (it was an open box product, and I have no instruction manuals), but after browsing through the Help section of iTunes, it seems much easier to understand than the factory installed system. I'll give it a shot. I've got lots of blank CD-Rs, so I can afford to mess up a few while I test things out.

- Attend the Meet and Greet this weekend at Claddagh Irish Pub at Newport on the Levee. There's actually more than a handful of writers in Cincinnati this year, and we're making plans to meet up for socializing and moral support. Sounds like fun, plus the pub has really good fish and chips.

The idea of doing a CD exchange at the Meet and Greet this weekend has been kicked around, so that's providing extra motivation to learn how to use the burner. Although I'm not sure if anyone's going to want to listen to a mix CD of Myo's writing music. I don't want to scare these folks off before NaNoWriMo gets started!

- Schedule some days off in November. I still have a ton of vacation time to use up before the end of the year, and it would probably be for the best if I put it to good use rather than selecting random days in December to sit at home and watch Jerry Springer.

Huh. For someone who doesn't have a social life, I sure do have a lot of things to do.

House of Pain

So, first the good news.

I am 100% weight bearing on my ankle. Crutches? Long gone. The bionic ski boot? Bid it adieu this past Sunday. My car is back in my garage. The bath bench no longer resides in the bathtub; it's currently being used as a shelf for my bath gel and shampoo and conditioner.

And now for the bad news.

I really hate to be a complete wimp about this, but walking without the boot hurts. It hurts a lot. There are a lot of muscles in my ankle and leg that I haven't used in over two months, and apparently they've atrophied away to nothingness. I'm now walking with a slow shuffling kind of limp, which I'm sure is probably pretty amusing to watch. Children who have just learned to walk are currently more graceful than I am. And stairs... I have decided that stairs are a tool of evil.

Oh, and the swelling hasn't gone down. As a matter of fact, it's worse now that I've taken off the bionic ski boot. Last night my ankle was the size of a softball, with bruising under both incisions. I was wearing an elastic ankle brace, and I had to take it off because it was constricting my foot too badly. I currently have one pair of shoes that will actually fit around my mutant ankle, so don't look at me funny if I show up to a formal occasion wearing my black Grinch sneakers.

Of course, the freakish size of my ankle might have a little bit to do with the fact that MyoMom and I completely went overboard on the interior decorating thing on Sunday afternoon, and the original plan of assembling two CD racks led to shopping at WalMart for window treatments and curtain rods, framing prints, and redecorating half of the kitchen. What should have been 90 minutes of work turned into an all afternoon affair, and we still have the bathroom to finish. But after that I'm DONE. (It's only taken 10 months, but I think that I'm almost completely moved in.)

And I'm sure that setting up tables and chairs for three classrooms at work on Monday morning didn't help matters either. Oh well.

In an effort to make me walk like a normal human being again, my orthopedist has referred me for a month or so of physical therapy. Or, as I like to call it, Chris and Tammy's House of Torture, Inc.

Yes, that's right. While the local courts are busy attempting to prosecute Larry Flynt for the millionth time, they've apparently deemed it perfectly OK to physically abuse patients recovering from injuries. Medieval torture devices like the rack and the iron maiden have given way to the cross trainer, the BAPS (Biomechanical Ankle Platform System) board, and the diabolical slant board. (Who would have thought that so much pain could be extracted from a simple wooden plank slanted at a 20-degree angle?)

The pain dealers (or therapists, as they prefer to be called) are cheerful folks, smiling while they mete out their punishments. Upon seeing me wincing with pain while doing rapid plantar flexion exercises, my "therapist" grinned with satisfaction. "Good," she said encouragingly. "Now do two more reps of twenty seconds."

Twenty seconds? Seemed more like twenty minutes. Twenty excruciating minutes.

Finally, when they've run out of humiliating ways to inflict pain upon my ankle, I am given a reprieve. For the last fifteen minutes, electrodes are strapped to my ankle, which is then wrapped in an ice pack. (The electrodes are attached to a TENS unit - that's Transcutaneous Electrical Neural Stimulation for those of you playing at home. I just call it the Tingly Machine.) I get to read my book while my ankle gets electrocuted and becomes frostbitten. As intimidating as the machines look (and yesterday I got to use the big one - they had to wheel it over to my table), it's actually pretty relaxing. Well, it is until you hop off the table and realize that you can't feel your ankle. Walking back out to the car is always an interesting experience.

But even sadder than this whole torturous tale is the fact that I do this twice a week, and I pay for it. And I faithfully do what exercises and stretches I can at home every night, in preparation for my next session of pain. I know that all of this is supposed to help, but it certainly doesn't feel that way when I'm there.

There's a word for people like me, and that word is masochist.

Someday this will all be over. Someday my ankle will stop hurting. Someday I'll be able to walk at a normal speed and not look incredibly stupid. Someday I'll be able to wear another pair of shoes besides my sneakers.

I'm really ready for someday to be now.

Brrr! It's Cold in Here!

It's been said if you don't like the weather in Cincinnati, wait ten minutes and it will change. I suppose that explains the sudden drop in the temperature over the last few days. I swear it was just a week or two ago that I was running my air conditioner, and now I'm pulling out the extra blankets and listening for the familiar sound of the furnace kicking on.

Unfortunately, last night I was listening in vain. Guess whose furnace wouldn't light?

Not that it's a huge deal. After seeing the size of my Cinergy bills last winter, I had already planned on waiting until the last possible moment to turn on the heat. (Especially since I'm still being bombarded with doctors' bills that I have no idea how I'm going to pay.) I have sweaters. I have blankets. I have the Ugliest Comforter in the World. My downstairs neighbor also likes to keep the temperature in her apartment at sauna level, so that helps as well.

I wasn't aware of the problem until I got home last night. I'd returned from my first physical therapy session and was opening the latest bill-I-can't-pay when there was a knock at my door. My landlady was standing in the hallway, wearing flannel pajama pants with a thermal shirt and a flannel men's shirt over the top of it. (And yes, everything she was wearing clashed horribly. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who goes for comfort over fashion; some of my "loungewear" ensembles look like they were assembled by a colorblind schizophrenic living in a dark, dark cave.)

"Is your heat on?"

I explained that I hadn't even tried to turn it on yet. She fiddled with the thermostat. Nothing. "I'm trying to light the furnaces," she continued. "The first floor seems to be OK, but the second floor's not cooperating. I'll go try again."

She disappeared down the stairs. The next half hour consisted of her running upstairs to my apartment, turning the thermostat up to 80 degrees, cursing under her breath, and heading back to the basement to try again. Lather, rinse, repeat. On her last trip up the stairs, she brought a space heater.

"I don't know what's wrong. Yours is the only one that won't work. I'll try again tomorrow. And if it gets too cold, you can sleep in my living room."

I thanked her for her efforts and the space heater, which remained unused. I have an weird phobia about space heaters. I'm certain that as soon as I fall asleep, it will short circuit, catch the entire apartment on fire, burning me and the kitties to a crisp. (I think we've already established that I have irrational fears, right?) I settled for an extra blanket and a big mug of chai and fell asleep on the couch during the second quarter of the Packers game.

When I left for work this morning, it was 61 degrees in the apartment. The temperature is supposed to dip into the 30s on Wednesday night. Hopefully things will be fixed by then. I'm not looking forward to icing my ankle when I'm already shivering.

Speaking of the ankle, things are progressing slowly. I finally got the OK from my orthopedist to put weight on my right foot (with the boot and crutches), starting at 50% and eventually moving up to 100% without crutches. I'm at 100% with crutches at the moment, which means that I am allowed to attempt to drive my car this weekend. The emphasis is on the word "attempt" because I'm not too optimistic about my reaction times. My physical therapy session was pretty disheartening. The range of motion in my foot is pretty much shot.

Therapist: OK, now point your toes

Myopic: Um, I am pointing my toes.

Guess I won't be running off to join the ballet anytime soon. I don't think they'd want me anyway, given the fact that my legs are currently different sizes and my ankle is still considerably swollen. (Five centimeters larger than my left ankle, as a matter of fact. The therapist did some baseline comparison measurements yesterday.)

My physical therapy office is located in a Fitworks. I'm quite amused by the fact that they gave me a free 30 day membership to be used during my therapy. Yeah, like I'm going to be joining a Tae Bo class right now.

(Roger Mexico suggested that I should take up jogging or tennis. After I stopped laughing - me! jogging! - I explained to him that right now the thought of any high impact exercise terrifies me beyond belief. Even more than space heaters.)

I'm sure that I'll eventually make progress, but right now I feel even worse off than I did last week. At least then I knew what I could do and what I could not do. I'd come to terms with my limitations. Now all of the rules have changed, and I'm finding all kinds of new things that I should be able to do, but simply am not capable of doing. It's depressing as hell. (Add in a stack of bills equal to two month's salary that are due right now and other personal issues, and you get a full-blown panic attack. What a fun way to pass the time!)

So if you need me, I'll be hiding under a pile of blankets, feeling sorry for myself. At least I'll be warm.

The Coffee Filter War

"What mighty contests arise from such trivial things."
- Alexander Pope

As a rule, I don't like to talk about work here. Well, OK. I take that back. Weird animal questions that I have to field? Sure. The idiocy of teachers who don't know the school's address when booking a field trip? You bet. Wacky tales of animals running loose in the office? No problem there. But office politics? The less time spent dealing with it, the better.

This incident, however, was just so ridiculous that I had to laugh about it.

Apparently before I started here, someone in another department (we'll call them Department A) did something that irritated someone in my department. I have no idea what the offending action was; that detail has been lost to the ages. From that point on, though, it has been the policy of some of my co-workers to talk trash about Department A and avoid working with them as much as possible.

I personally have no problem with Department A. I really like the folks who work over there a lot. There are a lot of similarities in our daily job details and at times we get a lot of each other's misdirected phone calls, so we spend a lot of time transferring confused callers back and forth. (Well, and snickering about some of the more clueless ones.) The people who work there have been nothing short of professional and dependable; I can count on them to follow through when I request something. I've always thought we were all supposed to be working for the same organization, we should all have the same goals, and should put whatever petty differences we have aside and work together.

I guess that the warmongers in my department, though, consider my feelings about Department A to be naïve. I have been chided in the past for dealing with them firsthand in placing orders for college student ticket orders. Forget the fact that Department A has the ticket printer, and the Operations Manager said that I should fax all requests directly to them. The Chief Warmonger in my department decided it would be easier to email the orders to the Operations Manager, so he can print out the order, then run it upstairs to Department A. That makes perfect sense, right?

At a recent staff meeting, the Chief Warmonger also made a derogatory comment about the friendliness and organizational abilities of the head person in Department A. I would say it was an example of the pot calling the kettle black, except that the kettle in question is a happy shiny stainless steel model whose efficiency is something to be admired. (However, I have learned that trying to discuss anything where Chief Warmonger might have to admit misjudgment is a losing battle, so I just frowned at his comments and held my tongue.)

Which brings us to the latest brouhaha... on Friday, our department ran out of coffee filters. We have one of those industrial sized coffee makers (with the extra burners) which requires larger coffee filters. Running over to the nearest Kroger isn't an option; I've seen them available in office supply catalogs or in places like Staples or Office Max. Only problem is ordering office supplies around here can, at times, be like pulling teeth. (And trying to get reimbursed after buying something out of pocket is an exercise in futility most of the time.)

On Monday, the building housekeeper came downstairs to let me know about the filters. (She's been getting coffee for me in the mornings to save me from having to crutch upstairs.) I told her not to worry about it, but she went across the parking lot to see if anyone would be willing to donate to the caffeination cause. She returned a few minutes later with about 50 filters from Department A. I immediately sent a thank you email to them for making it possible for me to be awake enough to function.

This morning I was told that this small but generous gesture had fallen prey to the latest round of Office Politics. Our receptionist had sent the coffee filters back to Department A, choosing instead to raid the supplies of the overnight program's supply. When I asked her what happened to the filters we got yesterday, she gave me the following explanation (with editorial comments added by me):

"Oh, see I told the housekeeper that I had the matter under control. (What, putting off ordering filters and stealing them from another person's budget is considered 'under control?') But she went over and got some from Department A, and well, you know how much they hate us. (Yes, they hate us so much that they sent over a month's worth of coffee filters. That's what I always do for people that I don't like: help them out in times of need.) So I just sent them back and ordered some from the office supply place. The filters should be here tomorrow. (So, you just sent them back, indicating that we don't need their damn charity and further muddying the waters between our two departments. Nice work.) That just how the politics are around here. (Ah, so it's a politics thing, and I wouldn't understand. Whatever.)"

She was right in that aspect. I don't understand how people can act like this over something so petty. It was a handful of coffee filters, folks. I doubt that Department A had ulterior motives in sending them over. The refusal of them, however, makes our department look like a bunch of spoiled children. ("I don't want your stupid coffee filters. They probably have cooties.") And if Department A didn't previously have any animosity towards us, acting in this manner is a good way to create it, isn't it?

I suppose this is Life's way of reminding me to stop taking things so personally and so seriously. A lot of the challenges we face on a day-to-day basis are as inconsequential as coffee filters, but it's easy to blow things out of proportion.

There are bigger things in the world to worry about than whether we should accept a gift of coffee filters from a person we dislike. Right now, my plate's kind of full with much bigger things to be stressed about. Who supplied the paper strainer that keeps the coffee grounds out of my morning cuppa is way down at the bottom of my list.

But yet, I still feel compelled to write about it here....

Hail to the Thief, Indeed...

What I need is a good defense/'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal

- Fiona Apple, "Criminal

Way back when, when Roger Mexico still lived a few blocks from my apartment, we used to spend a lot of time playing on the Internet. I had no computer at home, so looking up weird websites was a novelty to me. But every night pretty much ended up in the same way: he would set the computer to download a few songs he'd sought out on Napster, and we'd go do something else. (I later entitled a CD of songs that he burned from these late night pursuits 3 a.m. Napster Whore and decorated the cover with quotes related to his late night piracies.)

Given the fact that my computer and my dialup connection were too slow for effectively joining the peer-to-peer filesharing fun, I kind of missed the Napster revolution. In fact, the only downloading that I've done has been perfectly legal. After listening to a friend's streaming DJ gig in the chat room he frequented and bitching about the fact that he played the same songs every single week, I set out to prove that I could find two hours of new and interesting music, download it and burn it to CD in one evening. (I was using Zappagirl's Mac, so the dialup situation wasn't a issue.) A little more than two hours later, I had two brand new mix CDs full of bands that I'd never heard of, bands that I new very little about, and band that I liked that had made live versions of songs available to the public.

Flash forward to the present day. I now have a nifty somewhat-new laptop (complete with a CD burner), a DSL connection, and a spindle of blank recordable CDs. And rather than seeking out new music via Kazaa or some other fileswap service, I'm busy following the ensuing battles between the RIAA and the downloading public. Well, that and getting angrier by the second about what I see.

Yes, I realize that there are people out there that are abusing the system. There are probably people out there that are downloading everything they can get their virtual hands on, gloating about the fact that they haven't purchased a CD in the last three years and have thousands and thousands of songs stored on their hard drive. But for every one of those people, there are scores of Regular Joe Downloaders. Regular Joe Downloader isn't interested in intentionally screwing the RIAA. He just doesn't see the point in paying $17.99 for a CD that contains one song that he wants. He was on a message board last week, and he heard about a band that doesn't get any airplay on ClearChannel-owned radio stations. He'd like to find out if he likes this band without playing Russian Roulette at his local record store. He knows the name of a song that he heard in a club last weekend, but there are five different bands with a song by that title, and he doesn't know which song is the one he likes. He'd like to replace that CD that he lost when his car got totaled last month, but can't because Athens, GA Inside/Out has been out of print for some time now.

Regular Joe Downloader is using the system for all the right reasons. But because of Smug Bastard Downloader, Joe can't use the system without being considered a criminal and facing a lawsuit.

The RIAA has loudly proclaimed for some time now that they are fighting the filesharing system on behalf of the recording artists. Free sharing of music means that while the music is being traded and listened to around the world, the person who made the music doesn't see a dime of royalty fees beyond the amount made from the initial purchase from which the first mp3 was ripped. Because the RIAA is just standing up for those poor, poor artists.
Well, with the notable exceptions of artists that sell millions and millions of albums, the royalties don't add up to instant money in the bank. And frankly, the labels aren't all that concerned with artists that don't sell millions and millions of albums. Consider the fact that Karin and Linford from Over the Rhine live in my neighborhood. The band was signed to I.R.S. Records in the early 90s, and is currently recording under the Sony/Back Porch label. They're a critically acclaimed band with a small following. And they're living in a not-so-posh city outside of Cincinnati. Somehow I doubt they're living the high life.

Additionally, the albums that were released on the I.R.S. label were unavailable for quite a long time, since I.R.S. retained the rights to the recordings after dropping them (and folding shortly thereafter). But Regular Joe Downloader would still get slapped with a lawsuit if he had made anything on Eve available on a peer-to-peer network. Go figure.(Apparently, they did manage to get the rights to the albums back and are now offering them for sale on their website. Good for them!)

The RIAA is also quick to point out that downloaders are killing the music business, and point to the drastic drop in CD sales to support their claim. They seem to be unaware that the country has been in an economic downturn for several years now, and most people are more concerned with putting food on the table than buying new music. I know that I used to buy lots of music, but I've become more frugal in my purchases. I don't have as much pocket money as I used to, and I've gotten burned more than once on albums that had one song that I liked. $17.99 is an awful lot to blow on an impulse buy, especially when it's common knowledge that the production cost is considerably less than that. (We all remember that settlement that everyone was jumping on board for, right?)

Universal has taken a step in the right direction recently by lowering the price point across the board on their products, but will the other labels follow suit? Will this gesture be embraced by the buying public and result in increased sales? Time will tell.

And then there's the quality of music available today. Yes, I know I'm old, but the majority of the music that I hear on the radio these days doesn't appeal to me. (Which explains why I seldom listen to the radio, unless it's NPR. Now get off my lawn, ya damn kids.) I know that there's music beyond the Britneys and Justins and Linkin Parks and Creeds, but it's become increasingly hard to find. If Sony doesn't promote the artist and ClearChannel doesn't play it, chances are good that you won't know it exists unless you hear about it through word of mouth.

I recall when I worked for Best Buy a few years back, they had a tendency to promote the living daylights out of one artist and leave the others to their own devices. When the new Pearl Jam album came out, Sony shipped 600 copies of the new album, plus at least a hundred copies of each album and single in the back catalogue. I know this for a fact, because I single-handedly placed every price tag, sale tag, and security tag on every single CD that was shipped. (The album tanked horribly, we shipped back several hundred Pearl Jam CDs a few months later, and I've had nightmares about Eddie Vedder ever since.) They also dropped the price point on a few debut albums (Fiona Apple, eels, Primitive Radio Gods) in hopes of building a listening audience for these new artists. The results were mixed. Fiona Apple managed to do OK (but got more recognition from her anorexic underwear video), eels garnered a small following (but will probably never play sold-out stadium shows), and... Primitive Radio Gods? I only remember the name of that one song ("Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand") because of the long unwieldy title. The melody has long since slipped my mind.

But let's stop for a moment and consider eels. I didn't pick up Beautiful Freak without a listen, mainly because the album art creeped me out. I'd seen the video for "Novocaine for the Soul" and thought the song was catchy, but still wasn't ready to plunk down the money for the album. A year later, a co-worker recommended the album to me and let me borrow his copy of the CD. I bought it the next day, and it still gets heavy rotation at Chez Myo. How much sooner would I have purchased the album if I could've gone online and taken a few more songs out for a test drive? (In the same vein, where would the money that I spent on Bob Mould's Modulate have gone if I'd known ahead of time that the album - sorry, Bob! - didn't really appeal to me?)

After my little downloading experiment at Zappagirl's that night, I discovered that I like bands I'd never considered like The Sea and Cake, Air, and The Reindeer Section. My likelihood of purchasing music by these artists or buying concert tickets has now greatly increased. I look upon this as a promotional tool, but apparently the RIAA doesn't want me to discover new artists and possibly buy their music. They want me to listen to their artist du jour, and they want me to pay ridiculous prices for it. I never was one for force feeding. But if I don't follow the rules they set for me, I'm a criminal.

(Incidentally, my sister is a criminal by these standards. Hope Sydney doesn't get dragged off to jail because she downloaded that Human League song.)

In an effort to combat the free filesharing, the labels came up with their own models. Most downloaders (based on opinions voiced on various message boards that I frequent) wouldn't be adverse to paying a reasonable fee for the music that they download. However, paying a monthly fee for the service, setting unreasonable limits on how many songs one may download, and then further limiting how that download may be used by the person (inability to burn to CD or transfer to another computer or mp3 player, time limits on the song before it disappears from your computer) are deterrents to going the legal route.

I've heard tell that there are plans to make CDs unplayable on computers. How does this affect people like Roger Mexico, who uses his computer as his stereo? There was a story on the news today about "unrippable CDs." Does this mean that I cannot use my CD burner to make mix CDs for my own personal use? Have the laws of fair use been thrown out the window, like the proverbial baby with the bathwater? There are also murmurings that the recording industry will eventually release CDs that will only play on one media player, which will mean that the buyer would have to purchase a copy for the stereo, a copy for the computer room, a copy for the car stereo... look, no matter how much I like Radiohead, I am not buying four copies of Kid A.

I wish there was an easy solution to this problem. Apple seems to have hit upon a workable pay model, but I won't really be able to try it on for size until they unveil the Windows store. Some artists have music available for download to the public on their websites, some have made their songs available on sites like Amazon (although the songs there often are available in formats that are incompatible with each other... thanks, but I don't need a billion different players taking up valuable space on my hard drive). But I think that the RIAA needs to stop looking at internet music as a way to make a quick buck off the latest pop music remix available at the local Media Play, and think about ways that it could be used as a promotional tool, or ways to make out-of-print music available again. (Janis Ian thinks so, too, and is a lot more qualified than me to make statements about the way the music business works.)

Until then, I'm a lot less likely to purchase an album on a whim that will further line the RIAA's pockets. And I'll be damned if I'll ever sign the Filesharing Morality Pledge. Most likely, I'll just sit back and watch and wait for the eventual outcome, whatever it may be.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to 3 a.m. Napster Whore and reminisce, because Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues" rocks my world.

It Could Always Be Worse...

I haven't posted in a week or so. There really hasn't been much to tell. I'm still on the mend from the ankle fracture, and I've reached the hurry up and wait stage of my convalesence. I go to the orthopedist, they take more x rays, the doctor looks at my ankle, says everything looks like it's progressing normally, and sends me out to the receptionist to make another apointment.

One of the incisions became infected a week ago. Thankfully I caught it early enough before it became a serious problem, but for a few days it was red and swollen and hurt like hell. The antibiotics seem to have taken care of that problem.

I'm pretty much off the Percocet (finally!), but still have some left in the event that anything flares up again. So how better to celebrate the liberation from the narcotics than a drink or two?

That was the plan for the evening. I'd had to work on Labor Day, which was actually a good thing. My phone doesn't ring much on holidays, so it allows me the opportunity to get a lot of clerical work off my desk. I wrapped up most of my end of the month duties, answered a few animal calls (raccoons on decks, bat with a broken wing, box turtle with a broken shell) and headed home a little bit before five.

Ahhh. It's Miller Time. Or Captain Morgan and Diet Coke time, as the case may be.

I'd settled in with a rerun of The Simpsons (while reading a message board or two) when Roger Mexico called. We'd been playing telephone tag all weekend, and we were comparing notes on good but disturbing films (Happiness, Apocalypse Now) and the weather (he was watching a huge rainstorm, and I wondered if it was the same one I'd watched when I got home from work) when...

WHOOOMP!

"Huh."

"What's that?"

"My power just went out. There is darkness at Chez Myo."

"Oh. Huh." He was silent for a moment. "Do you need to go change a fuse or something?"

"Roger, I'm on crutches and the fuse box is in the basement." The table lamp next to the laptop was trying to flicker on, reaching half power and fading back into darkness. "Besides, I don't think it's just my building." I glanced out the window. "The streetlight's out. So are all of the lights at the funeral home. I think it's my whole damn street."

"Shit, that sucks. What're you going to do?"

"I'll be fine. I've got my cel phone, and that has an alarm clock on it. I have a glass of water and my Captain and Coke. I've got smokes. My phone works, and I have excellent company on the other end at the moment. And I've got almost three hours of power on the laptop battery, which is good since it's the only light working in the place. Ugh. But I lost my wireless connection. Looks like I'll be playing solitaire until I fall asleep."

"Uh huh. And where is the bathroom?"

"Ummm... somewhere beyond the black hole that used to be the dining room. Guess I'll be finding out if I can balance a flashlight while I'm tipsy and on crutches." Luckily, there was a flashlight on the coffee table. Between the lightning strikes on the 4th of July and the Great Blackout last month, I'd gotten paranoid and tended to keep a few flashlights in easy to reach places around the house. It's that Girl Scout thing.

"It could be worse. You could've been in the shower." (Did I mention that I can finally shower? Mom and I bought one of those little plastic stools that go inside the bathtub. After a month of sponge bathing for fear of slipping and falling and cracking my head open, the simplicity of an actual shower - even one with mediocre water pressure - was pure ectascy.)

After some technical difficulties (the rainstorm was wreaking havoc with Roger Mexico's cel phone reception, and he had to call me back twice), we chatted for a while longer until he had to retire for the evening (he teaches class on Tuesdays, so he tries to be somewhat responsible on Monday nights). I hung up the phone and listened to the silence of my apartment. My laptop had gone to sleep, leaving me almost completely in the dark. My neighbors seemed to have taken the power outage as a sign to go to bed. Of course, I couldn't sleep.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Great. I was thirty minutes into a blackout, and I was already going mad. Since there is usually some sort of electronic device on at my apartment, the void of no radio no television no internet was kind of unnerving. I switched my laptop back on and lost a game or two of solitaire.

And then, of course, I did have to go to the bathroom.

Managing the flashlight wasn't as difficult as I'd worried it would be. Dodging cats was another story. I made it to the bathroom just as the flashlight started to flicker. Oh no.

I crutched into the bedroom to get the little green flashlight I'd tucked into the armoire, and then realized I had no free hand to carry it back to the living room. And of course, I was wearing my black spandex non-exercise pants with no pockets. Oh well, desparate times called for desparate measures. I tucked the flashlight under the waistband and headed back for home base on the couch. It's not like anyone could see me. (Because it was a blackout, you see. And I was the only one there besides the cats.)

The power came back on while I was typing this, at 12:12 am. The problem was resolved in less than an hour. The worst thing that happened was I missed most of David Letterman. Pretty insignificant compared to all of you that were without power last month for days. I have a new appreciation for all of you and your resolve in a crisis, because I wouldn't have been able to handle it.

So now that power has been restored, I'm retiring for the evening. Hopefully the Captain and Coke will override the insomnia and I'll be able to drift off watching Conan O'Brien on the bedroom TV.

But I'm taking the flashlights with me, just in case. Both of them.

What Have We Learned?

Up until my accident last month, I'd been quite proud of my independence. I'd relished my freedom, the fact that I relied upon very few people in my life. I was able to do things by myself and do them well, thank you very much.

Life has a funny way of reminding you that you're never too old to ask for help. Too bad I'm still dealing with the aftereffects of the punchline.

While I've managed to figure out ways to get most of my day-to-day duties done, there are still things that are incredibly difficult or nigh impossible. I can run the mail upstairs at work, but it usually means I will spend the next twenty minutes sitting at my desk gritting my teeth and blinking back tears, cursing myself under my breath for not just asking someone to get the address labels from the printer upstairs. I have figured out how to get my coffee and dinner from the kitchen to the living room in my apartment, but it takes me five or ten minutes to get forty feet so I don't slosh coffee out of the cap on the travel mug. And everything I eat has to fit in my Elmo lunchbox.

(Yeah, that's right. I'm thirty five and I carry an Elmo lunchbox. Lately, I've been carrying it nearly everywhere. What of it?)

There are still things that are ridiculously simple, things that I previously had taken for granted, that I simply cannot do. I cannot do my laundry. The washer and dryer are in the basement, and I haven't figured out a way to lug my dirty clothes, detergent, and fabric softener down two flights of stairs while I'm hobbling about on my crutches. Thankfully my mother has stepped in to help me out there, as well as going to Krogers and Staples and Complete Petmart; after my ill-fated trip to Walgreens where my leg started to give out by aisle 3, I'm pretty happy to send her into the store with a list while I sit in the car and fiddle with the radio.

After downloading the recommended updates the other day, my computer has decided that the factory-installed sound drivers are no longer compatible with Windows and promptly shut them down. So now, after finally getting around to getting DSL so I could be a music pirate like all the cools kids, I have no sound whatsoever on my computer at all. Unfortunately, I'm not currently able to take my computer anywhere to be serviced, so I will probably end up spending a small fortune calling in a technician who makes house calls. Or I'll just have to surf in silence for another month or two. Since I'm not especially techno-savvy, I don't have much of a choice in the matter.

I cannot drive, which has curtailed my independence quite a bit. No more going to Blockbuster on a whim to pick up the entire first season of Six Feet Under or running to UDF to get a midnight malt. I can't even drive myself to work. For crying out loud, I just put a new clutch in the car and finally replaced the stereo, and it's sitting in front of my parent's house. My dad has taken it out for a spin once a week or so. Hopefully he's figured out how to turn down the stereo, as I was listening to some pretty obnoxious trip hop at a louder than usual volume before all of this happened, and he couldn't figure out how to eject the CD when he went to pick up my car. (Picturing my not-so-tiny father driving my tiny little car listening to Moloko never ceases to crack me up.)

I've been catching rides with co-workers who live near me, but that doesn't help when it's late at night and I've run out of sour cream or when new movies are finally released on DVD and I don't have transportation to the nearest multimedia shop. For instance, I've been patiently waiting all summer for Chicago and Bowling for Columbine to be released. I'd carefully budgeted my money to cover the purchases (very carefully, since The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers comes out next week). Unfortunately, I didn't manage to drag myself to the local Media Play and I am not at this moment singing along happily to "Cell Block Tango," nor am I watching Michael Moore interview Marilyn Manson on the culture of fear. Why does Amazon not offer instantaneous shipping?

The litter box has proved to be a problem as well. There was no one available last week to change it, and my apartment was quite pungent, to say the least. Add to this problem the fact that Kismet will often show her displeasure over a soiled box by intentionally missing. So if I were to attempt to fix the problem myself, I would either have to sit on the floor and hope to avoid soggy smelly carpet, or I would have to balance on one leg, lean over the litter box, and try to juggle the scoop, the trash bag, and my crutches. Folks, I know my limits. The latter situation would have ended up with me tumbling headfirst into a giant tub of sand and cat doots. And this wasn't even taking into account that I would have to run the bag of cat poo downstairs to the trash cans, or that I was out of Nature's Miracle to treat the carpet. (Interestingly enough, Amazon also sells Nature's Miracle. I could've solved the DVD problem and the pet-odored carpet with one door-to-door delivery. Good to know!)

Thankfully, Mom picked up the Nature's Miracle last night while we ran errands, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern came over to change the cat box and hang out for a while. I was not overcome by ammonia fumes in the hallway this morning, and for this I am incredibly grateful. The kitties are happy, too.

I also have not figured out how to safely take a bath or shower, which is driving me particularly insane. Something as simple as taking a long hot bubble bath sounds particularly intoxicating, but I haven't got a clue how I would manage to get in or out of the tub without managing to injure myself further. And showering while balancing on one leg? I don't think so.

All of this will come with time, I suppose. I get to go to the orthopedist next week, and hopefully he'll be pleased with my progress. Hopefully I'll be upgraded to partial weight-bearing on the bad ankle. Hopefully soon I will be able to tool around in my little car, listening to weird music with the windows rolled down, on my way to some frivolous shopping. At this point, I'm probably about halfway there.

I've been trying to look for the lessons that Life is trying to teach me from this situation. So far, it looks like this:

Don't take the little things in life for granted.

When times get tough, a lot of people will offer to help you. Some are sincere, and some (though they may have the best of intentions) lack on the follow through. Learn who you can depend upon, and accept their offers of assistance gracefully. It doesn't make you any less of a grownup.

Patience, grasshopper. Patience.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: Amazon sells just about freakin' everything, and will deliver it to your door in a matter of days. Amazing.

Energy Crisis

I know it's incredibly lame of me to keep using the same excuses for not posting, but recuperating is sucking the energy out of my body. Doing simple tasks take forever and are exhausting. The narcotics aren't helping the situation much either; while the relief from pain is welcome, the constant haze it leaves me in makes it really difficult to get much of anything done without numerous naps.

My parents brought me home last Sunday, and made sure that I was settled in with a well stocked kitchen of food I could actually prepare while I was convalescing. The cats seemed to be happy to have me home, although they weren't thrilled about the fact that I had taken their footstool so I can keep my leg elevated. (They can no longer watch birds and passing traffic from the front window, and have to gaze out of one of the other eight million windows in the apartment.) They also seem to be a bit freaked out about the crutches, and have learned to give me a wide berth when I'm hobbling to the bathroom.

The kitties have also realized that I cannot discipline them as quickly as I used to, since it now takes me a few minutes to pop up from the couch and shoo them away from whatever it is that they shouldn't be doing. Needless to say, the gaping hole that Ma Huang has clawed into the back of the sectional has grown, and Kismet managed to knock the antenna off the television the other night. Apparently the sound of me hissing at them from the couch as I struggle to get up isn't all that threatening.

Oh, and one of them managed to chew through my phone cord while I was gone. Thanks, kids.

I went to the orthopedist last week to have the splint removed and get a boot cast. I was more than a bit curious to see exactly how much damage I'd done to my ankle; the sight of my swollen toes and the bright purple bruising that had extended above the knee had me fearing the worst. It actually wasn't that bad. The ankle was still pretty swollen, there were a few blisters that had dried and scabbed over (as well as one that had apparently been filled with blood and had dried black), and there were bruises on the back of my leg and the bottom of my foot that looked pretty nasty due to the constant elevation of my leg. There was a 2 inch incision on the left side of my ankle and a 3 - 4 inch one on the right side, both held together with surgical staples (20 in all, which the medical assistant removed). The doctor was pretty pleased with my progress, fitted me for the boot cast (which I am able to remove when I ice my ankle and when I bathe), gave me another prescription for Percocet, told me to work on flexing my ankle in a 90 degree angle (I have a slight case of foot drop), and sent me on my way.

I spent most of last week laying on the couch watching bad TV and reading various entertainment message boards. I had a few visitors (Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and JohnnyB stopped by last Monday and made lunch, and Zappagirl stopped in Thursday with a copy of Smokey and the Bandit from Netflix), but for the most part I was on my own. (Roger Mexico called a few times, since 500 miles is a bit far to drive to drop in for a visit. He's been busy as hell with classes and work and moving across town, so his phone calls were much appreciated and cheered me up immensely.) Admittedly, I got a little stir crazy last week. I'm really missing the freedom of running to the local Blockbuster on a whim.

I've had to become extremely resourceful and plan out every venture from the couch. It's not like I can make twenty seven trips to the kitchen whenever I want something. No more staring blanking into the open refrigerator, trying to decide if I'm hungry or not. (Lately, the answer has been no. I suppose that's a silver lining in all of this, right?) Every trip is mapped out - "OK, I need to refill my water. I need to go to the bathroom. And I suppose I should make some lunch while I'm up. A sandwich or something. Oh, and I forgot to take my vitamins this morning and I left my cel phone in the bedroom. And I need to ice my ankle for a bit, so I'll need to grab the ice pack and fill it. I think that's it. Here goes." Balancing all of this is a bit challenging since I have no free hands. I've been relying heavily on large pockets and my softsider lunchbox.

I went back to work this week. Ugh. You wouldn't think that a desk job would be that physically draining, but for the past few days I've come home completely exhausted. (Today was exceptionally bad, since I had to attend a staff meeting this afternoon on the second floor of my building. Stairs are still a major challenge.) I'm managing to muddle through, busying myself with cleaning up the messes that were made in my absence. I need to get things organized, since all hell will be breaking loose next week when most schools start back and we start scheduling tours and demos for the year. And it is good to be back, with something to keep my mind occupied that doesn't involve the reported awfulness of Gigli. I missed the people from work and the weirdness of trying to hold a conversation while various animals are running around the office and making noise in the background.

So things are progressing, albeit slowly. I successfully managed to hop up the stairs to my apartment last night rather than butt-scooting. (I felt like my heart was going to explode afterwards, but I still managed to do it.) I managed to wash my own hair tonight. Still haven't been brave enough to attempt the bath or shower yet. Hopefully I'll manage to do that soon; sponge bathing sucks. All I want to do is take a long hot bubble bath. And take out my trash. And get my mail. And go to Kings Island. And drive my car anywhere. And wear something besides shorts. And, oh yeah, I'd really like to be able to walk.

I suppose that will all happen soon enough. Baby steps....

I Love/Hate Percocet

I've been meaning to update my posts for the past few days, to let everyone know that I survived surgery and all, but I've had a hard time pulling together enough energy. And for once, that's not just a lame excuse.

My surgery was on Monday at 9:05 am, which meant I had to be at the hospital at 7:00 am. I was allowed nothing to eat or drink after midnight the previous evening. I know seven hours isn't a long time to fast, but anyone who knows me is more than quite aware of the fact that I am not a morning person. Myo at 5:45 am in lots of pain with very little sleep and no caffeine? Not a pretty picture. (Especially when I'm nervous on top of of that.)

After being shown to a small pre-op room and changing out of my street clothes and into a hospital gown, I was visited by a non-stop parade of hospital personnel who inserted IVs (on the first try!), explained the upcoming precedure, gave me more Versed to calm me down, and finally wheeled me down to the operating room. The last thing I remember was seeing a bottle of Diet Coke in the window above the scrub sinks as the anesthesiologist adjusted the oxygen mask over my face and injected whatever it was that it would make me sleep into my IV. Two thoughts crossed my mind: huh, the sleepy drugs kind of burn and I would do practically anything for that Diet Coke right now.

The next thing I knew I was in recovery with a nasal cannula stuck in my nose. Apparently, I was having a hard time waking up from the anesthesia, because they kept reminding me to take deep breaths through my nose. I glanced over at the screen recording my vitals. My respirations were 8? My oxygen saturation was 86%? Not good. I was too tired to panic, though.

Of course, not being able to wake up just made me panic more.

I finally was sent up to my room, where they kept me heavily dosed with more Percocet and informed me that they had placed 8 screws in my ankle. (And I even got an X ray of it. You can't see the little Craftsman logo on my ankle, though.) Everything had apparently gone smoothly and I would be allowed to have a dinner tray that evening (hooray!) of chicken broth and jello (boo!). The hot tea was nice, though. My throat was incredibly sore from the anesthesia. The nurse also managed to scrounge up a Diet Coke for me. I immediately proclaimed it the best Diet Coke I've ever had.

I was kept overnight for observation, as expected. The overnight stay sucked. I was in extreme pain, which was kept in control by the steady stream of Percocet brought to me by my nurses. Unfortunately they were giving me so much that speaking without slurring or getting up to go to the bathroom was a challenge. (They were giving me two pills every three hours in the hospital; at home I'm allowed one every four to six hours. You do the math.)

I had a semi-private room, which meant I had a roommate. I can only assume she was there for the insertion of a personality, since all I know about her was that she had her TV on twice as loud as mine and went outside every chance she got to smoke. (Actually she must have been in a lot of pain, since she was on morphine, but I doubt that running outside to suck down a few full-flavor cigarettes was doing her body any favors.)

My mother brought me back to her house Tuesday afternoon. Since then I've been alternating between short bouts of drug induced sleep, watching entirely too much TV, eating, and hopping from room to room on my crutches (and collapsing in sheer exhaustion once I reach my destination). My computer time has been severely curtailed, since the computer is in the basement and I have to butt-scoot down the steps to get there. (As my niece put it the other night, "Can Aunt Myo come downstairs with her butt?")

I'm supposed to be going home tomorrow afternoon. I'm a little apprehensive, since it means I will be completely on my own and at this point I can't carry a drink into another room. I will be glad to get home though. I miss my cats terribly; I got to see them briefly last Friday night when my parents and I stopped by to pick up clothes and other necessities. (Zappagirl's been checking in on them, and says they're fine.)

I hate being so helpless. I can't even wash my own hair or get my own coffee at this point. I almost dropped from exhaustion after going down three aisles at Walgreens yesterday. Thankfully I have an incredibly supportive group of family and friends who have kept me sane and sent cards, flowers, good thoughts, chocolate and ice cream. Mucho thanks to Mom, Dad, Sydney (and Allison and Amanda), Roger Mexico, Rosencrantz, Zappagirl, Jooles, Mary and Lee, Doris and Jerry, and everyone from work. I appreciate everything you've done for me.

Ugh. My ankle is throbbing now, telling me I need to drag myself back up the steps. My life is no longer measured in coffee spoons; it's now measured in icepacks and class 2 narcotic dosages. How unpoetic.

Needles and Pins

I swear this whole situation feels like some surreal dream.

I went to the orthopedist yesterday. I suppose that I was a bit naïve going in. I figured that he'd come in, remove the splint from my ankle, put on a cast in the fashion color of my choice, and send me on my merry way.

Dream on, Myo. Actually it went a little more like this...

Mom and I drove out to the office that morning. I was more than slightly amused by the fact that I was going to a sport medicine clinic, since I am the most un-sporty person on the planet. When I think sports medicine, I think of high school quarterbacks who got sacked a little too hard, not an out-of-shape thirty-something woman who managed to blow her ankle out doing nothing more strenuous than walking to her car.

I was the only person in the lobby on crutches. This only added to my lack of self-confidence. All of the other patients were walking around like normal coordinated people, and I was teetering unsteadily to the receptionist's desk like a complete klutz. Which, I will admit, I am.

After hobbling into an exam room and waiting for what seemed like forever, the orthopedist finally came in. Rather than examining my ankle, he began to hang the x-rays from the emergency room on the light board. Apparently, he explained, I had managed to break my ankle in three places (a trimalleolar fracture), and the closed reduction wasn't sufficient to insure that my ankle would heal properly. Surgery was necessary. The insertion of pins were necessary. There was a possibility of nerve damage and rehabilitation time of up to a year.

I listened to the doctor, trying to remain calm despite the fact that my brain was imploding with this new information. Surgery? Pins? Overnight stay at hospital? Rehab? This was not supposed to be happening. He was supposed to wrap my ankle in plaster and tell me to take it easy for a few days before I return to work. I was supposed to be spending Monday having my nieces draw on my cast, not having doctors reassemble my ankle with metal that will be a permanent part of my body.

I've never had any type of surgery, except for the time I had my wisdom teeth removed 13 years ago. I've never been admitted to a hospital. Up until Wednesday afternoon, I'd never had an IV. Now my next few days are filled with the dread of going under the knife, incision scars on my ankle, more bruises from IV needles, the possibility of a catheter, and the knowledge that I will forever set off metal detectors when I go to the airport.

As soon as the doctor left the exam room, I burst into tears. The idea of surgery and hospital stays and recovery time had led to overwhelming thoughts that scared the hell out of me. What if I didn't have enough sick time at work? Why didn't I sign up for AFLAC when it was offered to me? Why did this have to happen right before the busiest time of the year at my job? (There are three special events coming up in the next three months, plus the beginning of school rush.) How was I going to get to work, since the doctor had said I wouldn't be able to drive for several months? How was I supposed to get up and down the stairs at my apartment building? Who would take care of my cats while I was recuperating? How was I going to pay for all of this?

My mother reassured me that everything would be fine, that we would find a way to work things out. And while I'm sure that she's right (like she always is), there's still a lot of lingering doubts in my head wreaking havoc upon my nerves. I want this all to stop. I can't handle this. I can't do this.

Unfortunately, I really don't have much choice in the matter, do I? All I can do is rest up, take my Percocet like a good little girl, and try not to think too much about Monday morning.

A Guest Spot on ER

I've been gone too long. I've been meaning to come back for quite a while now, but there never seems to be enough time or motivation to go around. As a matter of fact, I was mentally planning my brilliant comeback while I sat at my desk yesterday.

Well, as it turns out, time is no longer a problem.

I'd left the office early yesterday for a doctor's appointment. It was nothing of any import, just a brief visit to the girly-bits doctor to get my quarterly shot in the butt. I got into the office a bit early, dropped trou, and headed downstairs to the cashier debating whether I should head back to the office and wrap a few things up or go home and change clothes before meeting my parents for dinner.

As I left the cashier's desk and started walking out to the car, my well-worn sandals hit the freshly waxed floor of the lobby. I felt my right foot start to slip out from under me, and ankle gave, trying to compensate so I wouldn't end up flat on my back.

***CRACK***

Pain, pain, immense pain. I started screaming like a howler monkey, and glanced down at my ankle. Oh my, I thought to myself, my foot shouldn't be pointed in that direction. From where I was sitting, it looked as if my foot had completely detatched from my now very swollen ankle, and the only thing holding them together was my skin.

By now, three or four people had rushed over to where I was sitting, holding my knee so my ankle and foot wouldn't touch the ground. I looked like I was posing for a particularly sadistic version of Glamour Shots. (Picture the pose that the woman with the short white hair in the second row is in. Only my left leg was out straight, and I certainly didn't look that chipper.) Someone called 911, someone tried to call my mother, someone brought me a glass of water. I'd stopped howling at this point, but I was still crying. I'd also realized that I'd dropped my credit card in the process of all this, and I couldn't find it. I tried to shift a bit to see if I was sitting on it.

"DON'T MOVE!!!"

Yes, I knew I wasn't supposed to move, but I also knew it would be just my luck that someone would grab my MasterCard in the midst of this chaos and crash my checking account while I was being whisked away to Good Samaritan Hospital. (Yes, I was sitting on it; it was discovered when the paramedics lifted me onto the stretcher.)

Those of you who know me know that I'm a relatively healthy person. The only times I've been to the doctor (non-gyno, that is) in the last ten years was five years ago for a double whammy of bronchitis and sinusitis, and last week for a badly stubbed toe. (Yes, I was wearing the same shoes. I'll be burning them later tonight.) I'd suffered through my first broken bone last year with no medical treatment. Suddenly I was being put into the back of an ambulance, wheeled through the Emergency Room into a curtained area. After explaining what happened to practically every person working in the hospital and assuring them that I had no drug allergies that I knew of, a very nice nurse set herself to the task of trying to find a vein suitable for an IV. Unfortunately, I inherited my mother's circulatory system, and it took two people, three tries, and a heparin lock to get an IV going.

A portable X ray machine was wheeled in. A doctor came in to let me know that I had definitely fractured my ankle. (Previously, they had thought it might only be dislocated. Yeah, only dislocated. How reassuring.) Someone had finally reached my mother, and they informed me that she was on her way. That was comforting. Not as comforting as the Demerol that was injected into my IV, but I was very glad to know my mommy was on her way. (Daddy too, since Mom called him immediately after getting off the phone from the hospital.

My parents arrived, and this is where I started to lose track of things. The nurse gave me more Demerol, as well as some Versed to prepare me for a closed reduction. I don't remember a thing. I was convinced that I was still having the same conversation with my parents, but a splint had magically appeared on my leg.

My mother drove me back to my apartment so I could pick up a few things. (It had been decided it would be best if I stayed with them for a few days - at least until I got an actual cast on my ankle.) Well, actually she protested as I hobbled out of the car, overconfidantly attempting to make it up the steps with my crutches. She patiently helped me up when I crashed into the pavement and skinned my knee. She went upstairs to feed the cats and grab a pair of shorts and a few pairs of underwear to replace the black stretch jeans that the ER staff had cut off my injured leg. I sat on the front steps crying, angry at myself for being both too stubborn and completely helpless. After a brief and fruitless stop at the Norwood Walgreens (they didn't have the stock to fill my Percocet prescription), we headed north to my parents' neighborhood (and their local Walgreens, which filled my prescription while we went through the Wendy's drive-thru).

So here I am, 24 hours later, camped out in my parents' basement. Things could be worse. I have access to cable, the DVD player (spent the afternoon watching Pulp Fiction with the trivia commentary on), the computer, enough food and drink for three people. There's a bathroom less than twenty feet away. I'm getting a little bit better on the crutches. I have drugs that make me a bit loopy and take a little of the pain away. (I'm a little anxious about the drugs. I'm unsteady enough without them, but the pain creeping out from beneath the ACE bandages is making them an evil necessity.) Mom and Dad should be home shortly, and I believe my sister is bringing the nieces out for the evening. (My original plans last night consisted of meeting up with my parents for dinner, then following them out to my sister's place for a visit. Same plans, different place, different time.) Tomorrow I get to go to the orthopedic specialist, who will hopefully give me the lowdown on how much damage I've gone. (After all of this, I don't really know specifically what I broke. Mom's stopping at the hospital on her way home to pick up the X rays, so we can take them with us to my appointment tomorrow.)

But there's still a lot of stuff that scares me. How am I going to get up the very steep stairwell in my apartment building? How am I going to get to work? (Driving a car is a frightening thought at the moment. Driving a stick shift? Out of the question.) What if I get to like my Percocet a little too much, and end up a prescription painkiller junkie? Will this injury put an end to my dreams of being a showgirl in Vegas? (No, not really. Just checking to see if you were on your toes.)

Guess it's a good thing that I've still got vacation and sick days saved up. Looks like I'll be away from my desk for a little while. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for my drugs.