In denial

Weird story, but it’s on my mind, so here goes.

A little over a year ago — on September 24th, to be specific — I had knee surgery. It was my third. I had my ACL reconstructed from an old college quasi-sports injury.

As an aside, I sincerely wish that I originally hurt my knee doing something meaningful, fun, highly athletic, or even kind of kinky. Nope. For the record, it was powder puff flag football that did me in. But I digress . . .

So . . . two nights before my surgery, I had drinks with an old friend at the Four Seasons bar on North Michigan avenue. When I left, I decided to walk down Michigan for a while, anticipating that being one of my last long walks for the foreseeable future until my knee began to heal.

I didn’t get far. I was busy thinking about how glad I was to have reconnected with him, stepped off the curb at a weird angle, and felt the tiniest snap in my left foot. I screamed loud enough so that people next to me asked if I was okay. Embarrassed, I claimed to be okay, as I limped over to lean against the closest building to assess the damages.

I couldn’t see anything (as though I expected a bone to pop out of my foot), but I was clearly in pain. Nearly unwalkable pain. I hobbled into a cab and went home. I limped in and made an ice pack for my foot, convinced that ice would be the remedy for whatever I had done. I prevented any real swelling, did a little self-diagnosing on WebMD, and determined that I didn’t have a broken foot. If I had to guess, I would say that I had damaged a ligament attached to one of the lesser metatarsals (toward the instep on the top of my left foot).

The pain persisted, and I thought of making an appointment with my doctor for the following day. But here was the dilemma . . . I had hurt my left foot, and was due to have surgery on my right knee. A bum left foot would be a recipe for major incapacitation. Aside from that, I was afraid my doctor would think I was crazy. Well . . . crazier.

So, I had a little conversation with myself. It went something like this: “Woman up, you clumsy bitch!” (It was a short conversation. I mean, what would have been my retort??) I decided that whatever issue I was having with my foot would soon pale in comparison to what my knee was about to endure. I iced and practiced walking until I was limp-free, and put it out of my head like the denial expert that I am. I kept telling myself that if I didn’t address the problem, it didn’t exist.

And once the scalpel hit my knee a day later, I barely remember having hurt myself.
Over the next six months, if I had foot pain, I didn’t realize it. I was too busy healing and rehabbing on the right side.

Fast forward to now. My knee is fine, and now my foot is KILLING me. It doesn’t hurt so much when I walk or wear heels, but the dull pain is always there.

The new dilemma is what to do about it. Here are the possibilities:

1) I go to the doctor and get hundreds of dollars of tests done, only to find out that I had fractured something last year and it healed incorrectly. The only way to fix it is to re-break the bone and re-set it.
Let me tell you right now that THIS option? Ain’t happenin’!

2) I go to the doctor and get hundreds of dollars of tests done, and the findings are inconclusive. He recommends physical therapy.
Not a tragedy, but I’m not looking forward to any more physical therapy. Ever again.

3) I go to the doctor and get hundreds of dollars of tests done, which makes him think that I should have an MRI, which proves that I strained a muscle/ligament in my foot. Not much recourse here. Physical therapy, maybe? Surgery?
He lost me at MRI

4) Leave it alone and suck it up. I admit that, although I’m whining about the pain, this is the most appealing option. And the only one devoid of major medical expenditures!

Okay . . . I think I’ve sufficiently answered my own question. On to the next dilemma . . .

late in life and annoying bathroom habits

So, I was listening to DREX in the morning on KISS FM, as I often do whenever I drive to work — which I now try to minimize since my monthly gas expenditure is threatening to exceed my mortgage. The topic was about meeting the family of a significant other. A man called in and said “I got married later in life — when I was 29.” I nearly busted a gut. 29!?! Since when is 29 considered to be later in life?? I think I might know one person who was married by 29 — and not only that but I maintain that you don’t really know yourself until you hit 30.

That was a good laugh for the morning. I sent a “LMAO” text message to DREX co-host Mel T. I occasionally text her when there’s a particularly interesting (or skanky) caller. She didn’t respond this morning, so she must have been really engrossed. She’s a champion texter, and can work that Sidekick like no other.

Now for the coworker traits. I consider myself to be pretty fortunate in that I like most of my colleagues. This hasn’t always been the case. I’ve worked in places where I swore that I was immersed in a coven.

There are few things worse than bad woman dynamics at work. The difference between disagreements between men versus women is that men prefer aboveground combat. With women, it’s submarine warfare. The surface is still, but it’s a very different story 20 feet below. The last “real” job before this one — not including my many years as a freelancer — was a hellhole. My department was 99% comprised of women, and it was a nightmare. I made a few really good lifelong friends there, but there were a few people who brought out the absolute worst of my borderline anger management issues. At least once, I had to keep myself from jumping across the desk and throttling someone (thus avoiding both jail, and the “angry black woman” label).

Again, I’m very fortunate in my current position. There’s a nice blend of men and women, and the women are very nice and supportive. However . . . their niceness doesn’t preclude them from doing strange things. Some of the women have bad bathroom habits (and because I don’t use the men’s room, I have no knowledge of what the men are doing. Thank God!!!).

- There are a few hand-washer offenders — they run their hands briefly under a short stream of water without the benefit of soap.

- Another one that I find perplexing and downright disgusting is a woman who brings food into the bathroom. That’s right, she’ll take a bagel INTO THE STALL WITH HER, and rest it ON THE FLOOR on a flimsy napkin. How about grabbing that bagel on the way back into the kitchen? Or perhaps leaving in on the counter in the vanity area, if you simply must bring it into the bathroom with you. Eww.

- The most annoying of all are those who can’t be bothered to put their toilet seat cover IN the toilet and flush it when they’re done. I don’t get it — it takes a few minutes to put the thing on the toilet, why in the world would anyone LEAVE it there?? I guess the next person is supposed to come along and handle your butt paper?? Double ewww. I don’t know who’s doing it, although it’s entertaining to figure out who it might be. I’ve been trying to narrow it down by who’s in the office on the day that it happens. It’s like my own little murder mystery — except nobody dies, and theoretically nobody could go to jail.

Potholes et al

The thing to love about this time of year is the formation of craters in the ground, otherwise known as potholes. Seriously, I hit one today that was SO big that I was convinced that another car was already down in there. I looked in my rear view mirror, expecting to see a hand emerging from the ground, hoping for assistance.

What scares me is that I recently invested nearly $2,000 in my car — specifically the brakes, tie rods, and other things that are effected when one hits a pothole at 80 mph. (Granted, 80 mph is a wee bit fast to be travelling down a residential street. That’s hardly the point.)

The city will fix these hazardous caverns, and then it seems like they will come back with a major vengeance and have to be fixed not 6 months later. WTF?

On another note, there’s a question that I’ve been meaning to ask . . . why is that it took about a year to determine that Anna Nicole Smith’s son died of some crazy drug overdose, yet it took exactly 5 minutes to determine that Ike Turner OD’d??

Just a point of curiosity.

Lethal injection?

Why is Paris Hilton out of jail already? It seems like she’s only been in there for, like, three days. WTF? Did anyone else besides myself and Jay Leno think that lethal injection might have been a more appropriate solution?

I must stop now. The fact that I’ve allocated blog space to that skank is embarassing.

New column!

The new column this Friday is all about making sure that we’re not letting the opinions of others effect our choices in boyfriends — and I suppose the same can be applied to girlfriends. Check it out!

On another note, does everyone but me take an annual vacation? My colleagues take phenomenal vacations. One was talking about how he and his girlfriend are spending 3 days in Miami, and then going on a 7 day cruise. Another of my friends just spent a few days sunning in Arizona.

Do you know where I’ve been in the last 12 months (or even 24 months) — a big fat nowhere! It’s my own fault. I’m one of those people who wonders what everyone does with all of their vacation time.
I have no concept of relaxation. My friend Lorrie goes to Mexico every year around Labor Day with her mother and a group of her mother’s friends. Every year, she says “I would invite you, but I know you can’t sit still for very long.”

She’s so right. I like to have an agenda. Laying on a beach for hours isn’t fun for me. First, because I don’t really need a tan, and second because I would become antsy after about 1/2 hour.

I like to build vacations into business trips. I actually had to go to South Africa for a few weeks on a press tour, and believe me — that was about as close to a vacation as I normally get. It was a memorable trip, and as fun as any vacation. And the best thing? I paid for nothing, and I had a lot to write about upon my return.

My last true go-away-for-longer-than-two-days-to-a-planned-destination trip was to Puerto Rico with an ex. Given our relationship, that could have gone very wrong, but it turned out that we traveled together far better than we co-existed at home.

I always threatened to run off to an island alone, but I never planned it.

Maybe this year, I’ll finally plan a real vacation. Just maybe.

MySpace friends

Does anyone know what happens when you deny someone your friendship on MySpace? Do they receive a notification?

I have a few people that I’d like to decline. There’s one school of thought that says “who cares if someone wants to be your friend? The more the merrier.” And then there’s the other side – the part of me that wants to decline the requests of teenagers – particularly underage boys and men who I suspect have one hand on the keyboard the other firmly planted down their pants.

I don’t mind the teenage girls so much. Some of them read the column and write really cute letters. It’s those hormonal boys that concern me.

Not that there’s anything proprietary or suggestive on my MySpace page. My pictures aren’t interesting. I have no videos. It’s little more than a way to have presence for the column.

But still. The exclusionary, somewhat elitist part of me wants to quickly hit the deny button every time I see the picture of a pizza-faced child or a total perv.

On another note, if anyone would like to visit my myspace space, I can be reached at www.myspace.com/columnista. I may or may not be your friend.

Things I don’t understand . . .

1. WHY are people still picketing outside of the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue??? It’s literally been years! Haven’t they figured out that the hotel runs successfully without them?? You’re not getting a settlement, people! Now get a job!

2. What is the deal with the mother of the 5-year-old that rides my bus every morning? When will she learn that pacifiers should have been long since eliminated?? Granted, she seems to be a loud kid, but her teeth are probably going to be severely fucked up.

3. Why is there Braille on the keys of drive-through ATMs?

4. Why do I get excited at the thought of buying office supplies? What’s that about?? I’m going to get colored masking tape today, and you would think that I was getting a new pair of Jimmy Choo’s. I’m a weird girl.

5. WTF is going on with Yahoo mail’s new format? As of this very morning, there is a sidebar on the right that forces one to look at a great big ad while reviewing the mail. What if I don’t WANT to look at an ad? What if I don’t CARE about Target’s sale on bedding (the ad du jour)? WTF??? Do we have to be inundated with advertising EVERYWHERE we go? Jeez!

The things you think about on a cold night . . . …

The things you think about on a cold night . . .

Because it’s below zero, and I made the executive decision to stay in tonight. While scrolling through the contents of TiVo, I stumbled across a few episodes of CSI — a show that I love.

As I watched, I had a thought that I often have while watching CSI — why, when investigating a crime scene, do CSIs always have to use flashlights? Why don’t they just turn on the freakin’ lights??? Shouldn’t at least ONE of the crime scenes have electricity? Or do they prefer to analyze evidence in the dark with the dim light created by a D battery?

Just wonderin’!