THE MAMMO WHAMMO
I had my follow-up mammogram yesterday. I asked the technician whether she could tell me why I was having a follow up. "Your doctor should be discussing that with you."

"My doctor hasn't said anything to me. I got a call from you guys last week telling me my mammogram was abnormal. Can you tell me anything about why it was abnormal?"

She answered something that I can't remember and tacked on sarcastically, "Fair enough?"

Then I got to sit in a semi-public waiting room with a couple of guys (all of us in our gowns) while I waited for the ultrasound. Once I got in there I asked the technician if she could tell me anything about what she was looking for. "I wasn't told to look for anything. I was just told to look at specific areas."

I explained to her that I had been told to come in for a follow-up but had been given no information as to why I had to follow up. She said that she would speak to the doctor when she was done.

After it was over she came back and found me. Apparently there was nothing wrong, just that my skin had gotten bunched up somehow while my breast was being smashed for the last mammo and they needed to do another one just to make sure it was accurate.

I'd love to make a sarcastic comment here, but I just don't have the energy. Hopefully the account I've described here speaks for itself.

I've been thinking a lot about Red lately, God only knows why. Remember him? I met him at a concert over a year ago. We exchanged emails & he seemed very interested in meeting up with me after he discovered I'd recorded the show. 6 months later he had barely made any effort to re-connect with me, so I mailed him the CD of the concert just so it wouldn't be sitting around my apartment reminding me of him.

I'm going to see a concert in October that he might be interested in. I'm wondering if I'll see him there.

I've also had an epiphany. I have heard that in order to love and be loved, you have to make yourself vulnerable to the other person. I have no fucking clue how to do that. I've never had the luxury of being vulnerable. Thanks to my passive-aggressive bitch of a mother, my father who alternated between silent and angry, and the crap I had to put up with at school for the better part of 9 years, I've always had my guard up. I don't know how to let it down.

I wish I could meet a guy and say to him: I want to fall in love. I want to trust in you, but I don't know how to do that. Can you help me learn how to do that so that I can do my very best to make this relationship work?" But it doesn't work like that. You have to be all cagey and coy and subtle. Like I've often said, love is this big fucking chess match and nobody bothered to give me the rule book.

My boss is taking all of next week off. This means another week of not having much to do before the hurricane hits. I swear, I spend more time updating my FB page than doing any real work, and the powers-that-be act like I'm some kind of miracle worker. I'm wondering why they keep bullshitting me like this. Mind you, when there is work to be done I do it. But it seems like I have way many more days when I'm not doing anything than when I'm doing something.
- posted by Pat @ 10:32 PM