Catching Up (aka The Story So Far)

I know it's been a really long time since I last posted here. Here's a synopsis of what I've been up to since then:

• I did so well at the assignment I was on then (test-piloting/creating a new position), that they decided early this year that they needed a full-time, permanent person to do it. I applied for it, but the position went to an inside candidate, naturally.
• I got another assignment in the same office park, so I have a whole new set of puzzles to play with in the same great place. It also means that I can keep in touch easily with my cohorts from the previous assignment. Recently, I asked them how my replacement was doing at keeping up with the pace (she's pretty sharp); they told me that she's managing it, but she's having to work extra hours to do it (I rarely stayed past 5). Hmmm...maybe by the time I finish the current project (in about 12 to 24 months), the powers in that department will want me back. We'll see.
• Meanwhile, Honey's health has been bad. Starting this past May, I've had to take her for an average of three medical visits a month. Each has not only had the direct cost of the copay, transportation to and from, and associated prescriptions (among other things); it has also had the indirect cost of my taking a day off from work, sans pay, to take her there. Part of this increased frequency is because she started having severe chest pains this summer, which means we've added a cardiologist to the mix. He ordered several tests, which showed "a slight narrowing" in one of her arteries. When I told the cardio about her visit to the ER in the last week of September, he booked her for an angiogram the first week of October. Well, the angiogram showed three major blockages in one of her coronary arteries, so they went ahead and performed an angioplasty while they had her on the table. So instead of sending her home that afternoon, they admitted her overnight. But we had planned for that possibility, so she had jammies and such with her. She also had me, because I told the staff from the outset that if they wanted me to leave her alone there, they'd have to drag me bodily from her side. So Honey is now the proud owner of three brand-new stents, and is feeling better than she has in quite some time.
• The downside of all this medical activity has taken its toll on our ever-precarious finiancial situation. So, even though we had kept the apartment management apprised of the situation, the owners served us with eviction papers last week. But this time, instead of rolling over and crying for more time, we filed an answer with the court, claiming (a) medical hardship and (b) they didn't hold up their end of the deal in terms of habitability. So we'll see how that goes when we get to court. Wish us luck, because if we lose, we have nowhere to go.

So, how have you been?

Musical Mayhem

The guys I work with now are quite goofy much of the time, with a fair amount of banter going back and forth, including song scraps and lines from movies. So when one of them said (in a conversation I only heard part of) "cabana boy", I immediately came up with the following:

Cabana boy, the towels, the towels are soggy

Look at this mess of wet things on the floor

Bring me a fresh one so that I can dry myself

Don't make me stand here, dripping by the door

Cabana boy, I really need a towel now

My hair's all wet and dripping in my eyes

Bring me a great big cotton terry one

So I can be all snug and warm and dry.

That got me started on the the thought that "Danny Boy" is set to the tune of "Londonderry Air", which of course led to puns:

The girls in France act like they are too good for me

But English girls at least pretend to care

I'm going to go across the Channel now

And try to get some London derriere

and:

There was a farm outside of London town

The sweetest milk came from the cattle there

When people passed, they'd hold their breath and cry:

"My god, it's London dairy air"

See what I mean?

And just in case that's not bad enough, think about this: "Amazing Grace" scans to the tune of the theme from "Gilligan's Island". Try it; it works, but it's really quite disturbing. :-)

Sorry to keep you waiting so long

It's been quite awhile since I last posted here. I've been quite busy in the interim. Among other things, I'm now working on a new assignment. It's a better fit for me than the last one, making great use of my particular skillset. It's also a beautiful location; I don't know who designed it, but they really put the "park" in "office park".

On the artistic side, I've finished the last of the blocks I was making for the star sampler swap, and everyone loved them. Now I'm working on another swap; this one's mini Christmas blocks.

My partner's doing a little better than she had been lately. Her bad leg has been getting worse; the fused bones have been bowed for as long as I've known her, but in the last couple of months it seems the bowing has gotten worse. So she was in a lot of pain (more than usual, that is) while her body adapted to the new position.

Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print right now.

Here I go a-surfing again

Staunch Moderate

Once Again, Trolling the Blogosphere

And finding some very cool stuff:

Trust me, you have no idea how much I hate Bush -- and Dick isn't that great, either

I like this woman's perspective: The Catharine Chronicles

Planet Revolution

I Shocked You Last Night

Don't deny it; I know I did. I could tell by the silence that descended when I had finished my brief speech. I sat there, feeling like a bug, silent tears sliding down my face, unable to look up as I waited for your response. So glad that the antidepressants had built up enough in my system to spare me the humiliation of the full-on weeping that would have ensued only a week ago.

Still I felt ashamed to be in that position: needing the help, and having to ask you for it. Some would say that there's no shame in it, but that's not how I was raised. I was raised to believe that to need help is shameful, and to ask for that help is even more so.

But then, I was raised to expect that I would by now have all the things you seem to take for granted: houses, cars, trips all over the world, not to have to worry about having enough to get by. Instead, here I am, working full-time but still living hand to mouth, lurching from one crisis to the next, never knowing if the current crisis (or the next one) is the one that finally costs me everything. And though I have occasionally made reference to being broke, I've never really come right out and told you before just how broke I am.

You think being broke means that you can't go to Europe this year; for me it means counting all my change to make sure I have enough for the transit fare to work and back till payday. For you, it's a question of whether you can put a new deck on your vacation home; for me, it's whether I can pay this month's rent on time. For you, it means paying a slightly higher co-pay so you can have the brand-name medication; for me, it's meant going without my medication so that I can get honey the most critical of hers - not even all of them.

Do you see a pattern here? You represent the affluent gays that the media assumes we all are. I, ostensibly in the same class, have none of that comfort. You tell me about your latest trip, or how you're remodeling your house, or buying another car. I smile and say "how nice", and you never see how every word grinds like glass in my heart.

Please understand: I'm not jealous of what you have; I don't begrudge you a bit of it. When I say that I'm happy for you, I am, really. It's just that you speak of it all so casually, as if everyone you know lives this way. It never occurs to you that I have to treat a trip to the coffee shop as an indulgence. What hurts is that I was raised to expect that I would have all these things that you have, that I would be so affluent. What hurts is realizing that no matter how hard I work, I will probably never have the life you have; that my life will never be so easy, so comfortable. I will never own one home, much less two. I will never have a new car; in order to buy a used car so that my honey isn't completely housebound, I'll have to decide what other essentials to shortchange.

And what really hurts is that last night I had to let you see that, because I had no other choice.

Surfing the Blogosphere (or, Cool Stuff You Can Find If You Hit "Next Blog" Enough Times)

This young woman is intelligent and articulate. Besides the fact that I agree with a lot of what she says, I really like the way she thinks and writes.
Third Wave Agenda

An American woman with a global perspective: Culture of Life News II

In the "hoisting the religious right on their own petard" category: PowersOnPolitics

Political Discussion: The Citizens

Fellow Fiber Fondler: Woolarina

And from NYC: Jon-Marc's Manhattan

It's Recess-time Somewhere

And I really like Waiter Rant