Its not midnight yet

I made it. I thought about just posting like one word. But I couldn't think of that word. It would be something random...like me.

"Rosebud"...too pretentious.
"Phlebitus"...too...phlegmy.
"Rice Krispies"...two words but mmmmm, so good.
"Disappointment"...to close to home.

No, instead, I'll just say that today, like any other day, was a decent day. Not memorable for much. In fact, it will most likely go down in the annals (ew) of my history as "one of those Mondays I don't remember". Which, is sad because its Wednesday.

7 posts in 7 days

Yeah, I said it. I said it. I stole your momma's credit... Well, actually, I stole her identity when she was shopping at the TJ Maxx for some of those knock-off UGG boots she saw on an episode of "Newlyweds" but didn't realize that that was from like 2003 and those were so far outa style they were almost back in...whew.

So, as I was saying. 7 posts in 7 days. I've been told I should post more. I'm sure I should but mostly I can't think of anything interesting. Here's something. My civil separation is turning into a nightmare. I'm not surprised at all by what my soon-to-be-ex has been doing. Its always been in her nature to be spiteful and somewhat self-centered. of course, I'm somewhat self-centered (but never spiteful)...(ok, almost never spiteful).

I expected that, as adults, we could be intelligent about the situation. I was also wrong. At least, I was wrong about her. I don't think she's doing these things out of conscious spite, but more out of lashing out in any way she can. It seems she thinks she can either hurt me or bring me back by making me miss my son and by being broke.

Its sad, really, because it shows the complete lack of understanding of what makes me tick that ultimately drove us apart. If she really knew me, she'd know that I only worked to make sure we never wanted for anything and to accomplish career goals. None of which were to make more money.

I obviously share some burden here. I left. I left quickly. This was all apparently a shock to her and she's still reeling from it. Maybe she'll realize how she's treating me and my son some day. Maybe she never will. Many of my friends have told me that I should play the same games. That I could take my son and just not return him one day. That I could empty a bank account and not pay her alimony to 'show her' what it was really like to be alone.

I'm not that guy. I can't be that guy. Every morning I have to look at myself in the mirror and think "damn, you are fine!". And then, once I flex both my biceps and kiss them, a la Randy Savage, I have to look into my own eyes and decide if I'm a positive or negative force in the world. I want to be positive.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) 'Prejudices: Fourth Series,' 1924

The Amazing Dave

My "friend" and I seem to have a hard time understanding each other sometimes. Nothing major. Most of it I think is based on what we believe the other person is thinking or feeling, not what's actually being said.
For most of my marriage I spent all my time trying to stay out of trouble. I tried to bend over backwards to keep the peace so that I wouldn't have to catch any crap. This was based more on what I 'knew' she was thinking than what she said outwardly.

Eventually, this got tiresome. I no longer have the ability to deal with that sort of thing. I've found myself, on occasion, getting very frustrated with this 'friend' because it seems like I'm always having to defend my emotions. She's constantly asking if I'm OK, or if something's wrong, or if she's offended me in some way. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing. I think she's genuinely concerned about my well-being. That's nice.

But at some point I think we all want to be understood. To have someone just 'know' how you're feeling without having to ask. Its obvious that we've only been together a very short time so we'd have no way of reading each other's mind. In fact, I spent the last 15 years reading a mind and, today, I understand it less than I did when we started.

This time around I'm trying to be direct. I'm trying to make my feelings obvious. I'm tired of waiting for someone to read my mind. Even worse, I'm tired of someone reading my mind and being wrong.

Speaking of mind reading, I know you're all thinking "where the hell is this going". Unfortunately, the answer is "nowhere".

P.S. If you write to me and send a self-addressed stamped envelope, I will send you back the 2 minutes of your life it took to read the above post.

Empa...Impa...I know what you're feeling.

I've had a somewhat interesting development today. I have this 'friend' (and no, its not me) who seems to have a litany of problems when she exercises. Her heart rate goes way up or sometimes she gets a headache. Today she felt light-headed and like "her blood sugar was low" and at some point had a nose-bleed.

I am freaking out.

I say this is 'interesting' because usually I'm OK with other people being sick. I feel bad for them but I'm not overly concerned. Her, though, I started 'diagnosing' and doing symptom-searches on Google. All the things I thought I had kicked for myself. I finally talked her into going to see her doctor.

Part of me was a little upset that she took her obviously impending doom so lightly. Why can't I be like that? Do I even want to be like that? I don't think so. Maybe it was just general concern for her well-being. We are 'friends' after all. We'll see how I do if it comes back that she 'has something'.

My new career

I had something to post but I forgot what it was... Must be my Alzheimer's flaring up. In between my 'bouts' of cancer, my 'episodes' of aneurysms, and my 'run ins' with strokes, its hard to find time for such a long-term disease like Alzheimer's. I mean, its so slowly progressive that I almost forget that I 'have it'.

I need to write some sort of tracking program for Hypochondriacs. SickMaster? Hyp-o-matic? DiseaseTracker 2.0? That way we could document our various ailments, set reminders to make sure we check our pulse to see if we're alive, collect bookmarks for the best medical sites, create photo albums of the 'spots' we swear are cancer but are really just chocolate, etc.

I think I know a website I could market it on...

Nothing to see here

I looked. Its all good. Crisis averted. As you were.

Hooooot

One of my co-workers just walked by my desk and said "Why is your neck so red?". I'm not itching like crazy and fighting the urge to go look in the mirror...if only I could see the back of my neck. Man, owls are so lucky. They don't have to ask anyone to check that mole on their back or tell them if their butt looks big...

I've had a cold lately, nothing life-threatening but, when you're a hypochondriac, everything is really life-threatening. I was staying with a friend last night and decided that in order to sleep I should take some drugs.

My friend, having two children, had quite an array of medicines. There were many different kinds of non-drowsy this, and cold&flu that and all manners of flavored drugs. The problem is that almost all of them had some sort of warning about 'consulting a doctor before use' if you had any one of a number of maladies. A short list being:

- Hypertension
- Heart Disease
- Glaucoma
- Malabsorbtion
- Halitosis
- A case of the willies
- "The Vapors"

Somehow in my mind these meant "If you take this drug you may or may not die. Good Luck!". I'm sure that wasn't what the writer intended but, that's what I got. After about 20 minutes of staring at them I got so tired I decided I could fall asleep and didn't need to take anything. I slept well all night...go figure.

Well duuuuuuh huuuuuuh!

A. Nonymous (I assume that's not your real name) left this comment:

I just found a good article on hypochondria (well there are several articles on
this page, scroll down): http://www.anxietyandstress.com/healthanxiety.html Made me think and I wanted to share...

I've read this article a few times over the years. I'm not a fan of it. No Offense to A. (Al Nonymous? Arthur Nonymous? Ooo, maybe you're Latino; Arturo Nonymous?) but I think the author of this document has some misconecptions.

patients seen by primary-care physicians suffer from hypochondria, the
irrational fear of illness.

Irrational? Really? Studies have shown that hypochondriacs actually underestimate their risk of disease. We just do so to a lesser extent than the 'normal' population. Then, there's this gem:

Doctors often dislike their hypochondriac patients; they consume inordinate
amounts of time, and strain hospital resources with their interminable
complaints. In the United States, it is estimated, twenty billion dollars a year
is spent on patients whose psychological distress requires repeated tests and
procedures. Many doctors and nurses make fun of hypochondriacs, calling them
"crocks" and "turkeys." The favored epithet among interns and residents is
gomer, which stands for Get Out of My Emergency Room. Many doctors are relieved when a hypochondriac leaves them for another physician.

Anyone of us have dealt with this sort of reception in the doctor's office. I won't go into how it makes us feel or what we think about doing to them with a 12 volt battery, some jumper cables, K-Y Jelly, and that stethascope...ahem...but it hurts.

There are, however, some decent points to this article. There's this one:

It wasn't until the nineteenth century that hypochondria came to be
narrowly defined as an excessive fear of illness. Not coincidentally, the
disorder flowered at the same time that modern medicine began identifying one
rare disease after another. In his novel ''In Search of Lost Time,'' Proust
wrote, ''For each illness that doctors cure with medicine, they provoke ten in
healthy people by inoculating them with the virus that is a thousand times more
powerful than any microbe: the idea that one is ill.''

I've never been a Proust fan, I don't even have any of his singles, but this is profound. Many, if not most, of my 'episodes' have either preceded or....after-ceded....a regularly scheduled doctor's visit. The fear that I might be sick makes me sick...go medical science!

The article does go on to talk about cognitive-behavioral therapy and, especially interesting, the link between OCD and hypochondria. Just the definition of hypochondria should lead one to make the connection between an obsessive-compulsive disorder and a obsessive worry over one's health. But what do I know....I'm just a gomer.