My Bodies, My Selves

I've had quite an interesting week so far, and it's only Wednesday. And when I say interesting, that doesn't even include having my blog eaten last night.

I went today for what has come to be known as my Quarterly Bloodletting. I don't know, I've never been one that minded needles, or seeing my own blood spurt into vial after vial, but I'm beginning to think I'm having it done way too much. It made me woozy today.

This all began with a trip Monday to see, yes, Smokin' Dr Javier. He wasn't smokin' Monday, but then again I didn't get called into his Inner Sanctum, where he sits and smokes and reads the paper and pours his heart out to me.

Instead, I got called yet again into the Not-As-Nice Office, the one with the kind of rickety examining table and the lack of morning sunlight. And the photo I think is fog rolling over a town, and not Niagra Falls wiping out a small settlement, as I'd originally taken it to be.

And of course, it's the office that houses "The Doctor," that turn-of-the-century masterpiece that always grabs and holds my attention, and the masterpiece I blogged about mere months ago (May 28, to be exact). "The Doctor" is that magnificent work of art depicting a doctor who looks way too much like U.S. Grant holding vigil over a little girl laid out on two chairs pushed together while her dad who looks way too much like John Cusack looks on. Her mom, if you'll remember, doesn't look like anyone because her face is buried in her arms as she weeps.

With this visit, as I waited for the arrival of Dr J, I walked over to "The Doctor" yet again. I looked at the little girl and realized she bears a striking resemblance to an "ET"-era Drew Barrymore. I also decided that she probably didn't survive the painting of the picture, seeing as how her mother is so distraught and hiding her face so we couldn't see who she looked like.

I also noticed something else. There's Dr U.S. Grant sitting watching over Drew Barrymore. And he's beside the kitchen table, which holds some medicine, water, various knicks and knacks - and an upturned top hat! And you know, Dr Grant is awfully spiffily dressed. I'll bet you anything that he's going to go out for some fine dining and dancing with some harlot right after Drew Barrymore breathes her last. The bastard.

Anyway, soon Dr J arrived, and I made the remark to him that I certainly hope he'd come to sit by me all laid out on two chairs when I was sick, and he just gave me that "Jesus Christ, you're weird" look he's so good at giving me. Then he told me a little story about "The Doctor."

It was given to him by a close friend as a sort of commemoration. See, Dr J's father was also a Dr J back in the Philippines. And Dr J (Sr) had a print of "The Doctor" on the wall of his Not-As-Nice Office, presumably with a kind of rickety examining table, etc, etc. But at one point Dr J's (Sr) office burned to the ground and he lost everything. Now, I can only hope that this was due to some sort of electrical fire or something and not caused by a then pre-teen Dr J lighting up a smoke in the alley behind the office. But I guess we'll never know that. So I think I may now officially know more about "The Doctor" than I ever cared to know.

And then we got down to the meat of the appointment, which consisted of us arguing at each other (you know, I do that now that I've turned mean) about blood pressure, medicine, cholesterol, drug companies, and whether or not I wanted to have my blood tested (I lost that last one).

And so I left Dr J's office on that morning with my bloodletting orders for this morning.

Now, in a not completely unrelated story. I need to get my eyes checked. I'm somewhere around 8 months past due for my yearly checkup, if not more. I've been holding out on going because I've been spending so much money on hospital bills, medicines, podmobile repairs, not to mention my fabulous $334.83 phone bill (note to self - never call someone in Ireland "just to talk," unless you're ready to pay $295 for one call), and various other expenses.

But I realized I really need to go when I started seeing concrete evidence. First of all, I'm down to one spare pair of contact lenses. I noticed this when I was packing to go to Clarinetfest, and, frankly, a gal should never go on a trip with only one pair of spare lenses. When you're running that low, it's time for a refill.

I'm also coming to the realization that as much as I fear it, bifocals are in my immediate future. This was sealed when I bought yet another new mineral to add to the handfuls of vitamins and minerals I take daily (I'm up to six now, and am considering going for a seventh). I brought it home and sat down to read the dosage instructions. I adjusted my arms, I changed positions. I switched the light on, I opened the blinds more, and finally, after holding the bottle and going through the seven basic ballet positions, I decided that it, like everything else, must be of the "one-a-day" variety dosage, so that's how I've been taking it.

I actually first really started thinking about this when I was recuperating at the folks' house and was lying on the couch, and my mom came in and showed me a new lipstick she'd bought. She turned the tube over and said, "It's called.... It's called.... Shit, what is it called?" and she handed it to me and I looked at it, bringing it closer to my face, then pulling it farther and farther away. Finally I said, "Bright Pink Frenzy?" even though I have no idea what the fuck it was called, but all of the lipsticks my mom wears look like they should be called Bright Pink Frenzy, so I figured I at least had a shot at it with that.

Then Monday morning, yep, the self-same morning of my doctor's appointment, I got up and my right eye was bloodshot. Now this was upsetting because a symptom of my dad's macular degeneration (and let's make no bones about this right now, I'm scared shitless of inheriting this, every single day of my life) is that he has leakages behind his eyes, evidenced by a terrible bloodshotedness. And although what I experienced Monday wasn't really like that, it was there, and therefore fucking with my brain, which of course we all know is quite fuckable anyway.

Get thee to an optometrist - and I will, I promise. If for no other reason than finding out the name of that damned lipstick.

And so finally (keep the cheers down to a minimum, please), that brings me to this morning's bloodletting. Kind of. The bloodletting itself was very routine except for the fact that I did indeed get woozy, which normally doesn't happen. What wasn't routine was something that happened while I was walking into the hospital. I know many people talk about their Moment Of Clarity. This may well have been mine.

A couple of months ago a coworker, while commenting on my weight loss, said to me, "You even walk different!" And I took that to mean, wow, I must have some kind of ultra-sexy mantrap kind of a gait these days.

Today, as I was walking down the corridors of the hospital, I realized she may not have meant it quite that way. And maybe it was because I was wearing white tennies instead of the blue or brown or more muted tone of shoe I also wear. But - and I don't know, maybe this is because of weight redistribution, or because my leg circumference is now different - hell, I don't know why it is - I noticed I was walking just like Eugene Levy's character in "Best In Show." Yeah, the guy who literally had two left feet. As I was booking it down the hall, watching my white-shoed feet loop around with each step, all I could hear was Fred Willard saying, "Look at him go!"

You know, this has been a really interesting year.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Fred Whipple died at age 97. What does he have to do with the Olympics? Not a damn thing. He was a scientist and knew a lot about comets, though.
* The women's gymnastics team was on Leno last night, and the women's soccer team was on Dave. They've come home from Athens too. Cause, you know, it's over and all.