the wrong side of the bed

okay, but i saw my neurologist this morning. he referred me to a neuropsychologist who will (likely) do a "battery of tests" on me. IQ, spatial and verbal memory, little recall tests, and stuff like that. could be fun. my doctor kept saying that the neuropsychologist would be very interested in my cognitive abilities. i don't think i mind feeling like a rat or a toy.

my doctor told me, which he hadn't mentioned before, that the temporal lobe is involved in memory. i'm sure i could have looked it up myself, and maybe i did. who knows! he also seemed to stop down-playing the size of the damaged area.

we also discussed what would be benefitial about donating my brain. i asked, he didn't suggest it. he told me that, yes, my brain would be a valuable resource. at my urging, he explained what they would do and what they would probably find. i'm excited at the prospect of people examining me postmortem. one of the saddest things about being alive is that i cannot look at my guts and see how i am made. i know i can see how other people are put together, but i want to see my skeleton, my muscles, my organs...

anyway, back to my brain: i guess i hope there is a problem. it would certainly help in the reduction of negativity i feel about my overall failure at life. at least at the life i planned on having. i will let you know how it goes. i don't have the appointment yet. i have to wait on the request to go through my primary care physician.

Labels: epilepsy

my roommate is spending a lot of time with her girlfriend.* i am unhappy about this for a few reasons. i like to think that the most upsetting is how annoying i find the girlfriend. she is very superficial. in middle school, i think superficial was an insult of choice, but i think it applies in this situation. there is just no depth. today she and maria came in to find me sewing a hook onto one of my shirts. she told maria and me that her mother sews well and she is going to start sewing. she recently bought some really sweet patterns. a pattern for some really sweet pants and a pattern for a really sweet shirt. and she got the fabric at the vogue fabric store in chicago.** the fabric is, i hear, sweet. i dunno. i just can't handle that level of inanity. i'm not saying i'm super smart or anything; anyone who knows me knows that i am on a quick trip to stupidville. i would just ask that there was one interesting thing she could say that would make me give a shit. i find it disheartening that maria likes her because, though i don't know maria well, i like to think she should be with and would want to be with someone with a little more to her.

i am also, unfortunately, jealous. in two ways. i am jealous because i wish maria were around to hang out with more. it was more fun to sit around with her in the apartment when she wasn't just rushing around to go out, talking to her girlfriend, or talking about her girlfriend. so, even though she has only been dating this woman for a week, i am jealous of the time she takes up, which is also weird because i barely know maria. i just really like having people around to talk to. it is a wonder i didn't die living alone. seriously, i hate being by myself.

i am, of course, also jealous that maria is in a relationship that she seems to be enjoying. i can't remember ever being in a relationship were you meet someone and they really like you and you really like them. i only date people i have been friends with and usually only because i have worn them down with my relentless insistence that they hang around me. it is no one's fault that i am unpalatable and am like a thing you might eat because it is in front of you.*** it certainly has nothing to do with maria and there is no reason i should even think of her life and compare it to my own and wonder why she gets to have an exciting new person who wants to date her. so i am jealous and it is because i am a bad person. secret is out. i am a bad person. i even sort of want the relationship to end disastorously. maria was also much more fun when she was unhappy. happiness makes people boring. so, i am jealous of her happiness and made bored by it.

presumably i would also be boring if i were happy, so maybe i shouldn't wish that on myself.

* i guess they are girlfriends.

** i think it was chicago. she may have said that it was a suburb of chicago and my brain just turned it into chicago.

*** i dislike popcorn immensely but will still eat it if there is a bowl placed in front of me.

what the fuck are scones doing? i thought they were small and dry and less sweet. now they seem to be gigantic, very sweet, soft, jumbley messes. when i looked on wikipedia just now, the entry said that british scones are like our biscuits (not not their own biscuits, of course). but i have been to england, and i thought i remembered scones as dry and less sweet little lumps. my memory is not so good, but i can usually recall stuff from my childhood better than things from the reccent past.

i live next to lazy jane's. last week i had scones for breakfast three times because i didn't have time to go grocery shopping. i had a pumpkin scone, an almond scone, and a cherry scone. i don't like cherries, but i was in a hurry and the situation was awkward. i just shouted out the first variety i saw.

i have been making a lot of culinary disasters lately. i think i need to specialize on one kind of thing to be good at. maybe scones. i also need to learn to keep things simple until i master them. no beet, or chik'n nugget, or almond roca scones until i master plain ones.

please, if you are bored, consider looking around for a new job for me. i am beyond ready to leave this job. send me anything you think i would be qualified for as i tend to think i am bad at everything. just something in madison for now.

i am incompetent, though, when it comes to my job. if a job post says that strong organizational skills are required, it is probably not a position i will be able to fill. send it anyway. maybe i can change.

i will be your best friend for ever.

Labels: work

i haven't had a roommate in a long time. it has been, so far, fun and games. i am picking up new mannerisms that, when i realize i have picked them up, annoy me, even though it seems quite normal and innocuous when maria does them. that's fine. she says she has picked up some of mine, and i believe her, even if i haven't observed this. it is a nice thing, i think, to have someone with whom a mutual adjustment has gone smoothly. we both like the word "underpants."

there is one thing that has suddenly emerged that makes me a bit skittish. she brought someone home last night. a new someone that did not exist in our little world at the beginning. if maria had been with this person from the get go i think i would barely even notice, but now i need to make an adjustment. i don't remember what you do in a situation like this. maria had given me a bit of a warning yesterday that there was someone she was interested in, and when i walked into our apartment at 11:00 yesterday, i knew who the extra person in the living room must be. i said hello, stood around for a minute, and then dashed up to my bedroom. i think i did well. i acknowledged her, but didn't stay around long enough to get in the way.

what about now, this morning? do i need to change into real clothes, or are pajamas okay? what do i say when they wander out bleary eyed and i am sitting on the couch eating snicker doodles? i just need to be reminded.

presumably (hopefully?) there is a chance, however small, that i could start seeing someone and will have to repeat the process with a reversal of roles. do you think i could pull it off without making every party uncomfortable? like i said, it has been a long, very long time since i have had a roommate. 7 years? i can forget many things in 7 years.

Labels: roommate

lately i have been writing blog posts and then not posting them. they aren't working exactly right. for example, reccently jj and jon and i went to see jane wiedlen from the Go-Go's. it was tragic and horrible. she was drunk and/or fucked up on something else (glue?). it was horrible to watch. she kept telling priest child molestation jokes which i never find funny, but certainly not when delivered poorly by someone who keeps shouting to the audience that we should listen to her and that she was in a famous band. before she performed a band, whose name i have forgotten but have no desire to remember, played. they were noteworthy only in that one member played all of the percussion instruments that are given to the kid in junior high band who didn't actually get to play the drums. except the xylophone. he played those things you shake like a martini, but sound full of sand. he played a tambourine. he played the triangle. and he was damned happy about that.

and i didn't tell you that story, which actually had more to it than all that. a couple who were groping each other in especially skanky ways right in front of us. screaming cyn-cyn and the pons. jj's funny comparison about jane wiedlin and an episode of 90210...

i don't feel like telling you about my roommate, about whom i have written a post that i have not published. i don't feel like complaining about work or telling my DMV story. what i want to tell you is this:

i do not want to hold your baby. if i am forced to hold your baby, i would prefer that you not make fun of me for being awkward. i am sorry that i do not like babies. they are extremely boring. if they could talk, walk, or do anything i would be much more impressed. because i am so uninterested in your child, and you know this fact, i think it would be to both of our advantages to avoid having me hold your son. you will be afraid i will drop him and i will not really give a shit if i do.

for the record, i did not drop him nor did i even come close.

Labels: children

i know i complain about my job a lot, but part of the reason is not just that it is boring and my co-workers think i am weird and don't get my jokes. the other problem with my job is that i am not good at it. my job requires skills that i do not have: organization and attention to detail. my job description probably puts that as the very last skill needed, but it should be the first above all else. it doesn't hurt that my memory is bad, but i don't think this can explain everything. last fall is a blur, sure, and i can't remember names or faces of people i've met, but this is probably pretty normal. i've decided that i have got to get out of this job. there are tricky things involved with this. for example, i have no idea where i am going to live in a year. i'm not in love with madison and see little reason to stay here, especially as my friends will all be leaving soon. is it worth it to change jobs only to move? besides, given my grouchiness, i could easily hate the next thing just as much.

here is my plan: i will expend effort trying to figure out what i actually want to do.* if i happen to also be good at what i what to do, then i figure out whether or not i might be able to pull it off. until then, i am going to lie. i am going to tell everyone i interact with at work, including all of the volunteers i supervise, that i can't remember anything, ever. not just stuff that happened in the past few years, which is truly lost, but things that happened yesterday.** how can i file if i forget that i even need to? sure, there are piles of paper on my desk, but are they mine? yes, i guess i did approve that ridiculous request, my name is on it after all, but i have no recollection why i would do this! i'm hoping this strategy is effective.

* i like teaching, but don't really know how to go about this. still, i do think about it as a possibility. i'm not sure who i would want to teach or what i would want to teach them. this morning driving to work, i was thinking about my kid brother who works at a private school in new orleans. i sometimes ask him for his advice on this subject. one thing i know i would want to borrow from him is a great method for keeping his kids on task. he sings to them, which is pretty funny because he, like me, has a horrible singing voice. he makes up little songs indicating when they should turn in tests, what chapters to read, reminders to tidy things, and, my favorite, when to go to the next class. his students like him a great deal and tend to dawdle. chuck treats them to a little number that goes, "get out of my face, get out of my face, i don't ever want to see you again." the kids love it and sing along at the end of every class. and they leave on time.

** yeah, so i don't remember many things that happened for at least two years. yesterday i was looking at the staff recommendations in the young adult section at a bookstore. one book was marked with a card that said something to the effect of "what would you do if you lost all memory of the past two years of your life?" what would you do? i need to know! the story, it turns out, is about a boy who ineffectually shoots himself in the head only to suffer brain damage that erases his memory. in his case some of the problems he encounters are a best friend who doesn't like him anymore, family members who are mistrustful, and the like, all for no reason obvious to him! i did not buy the book, but am happy to use the excuse it offers. if i have offended you, if we are on the outs, if i owe you large sums of money, then i should let you know that i am off the hook because i do not remember any of this happening. cut me some slack. it is like i have taken a bullet to the brain.

what percentage of these prescriptions do you think will be improperly disposed of on october 13th? i'm not really sure that i have the social skills necessary to sell drugs, but if i did, this seems like it would be a good day to be a city of madison streets and recycling employee.