Fuckstripe and other fun things

Office Bullshit
It sure has been A Week so far. Some crazy shit going down at work – a tender young employee in my office fired, and a major crackdown on computer security procedures and professionalism in interoffice communications. Are these events related? If I were to know anything about it, would I even say so?

You know, even though I’m pretty sure no one at work knows of the existence of my blog, apart from my two close co-worker-friends, I still hesitate to write in any detail about things that happen at the office. What If, right?

Sometimes I hate that I have a “the office” to talk about. I guess part of me always thought I was going to grow up to be a painter or a chef or an author. Instead I sit in a cubicle 8 hours a day like zillions of other worker bees around the world. I shouldn’t complain, I guess; I have it pretty good for a Cubicle Drone. I do get paid to be creative and use my artistic skills, which is more freedom than most people have, even if I do have to do it within the confines of a drab tan six-by-eight foot box.

At The Doctor
Some of the residual effects of my crazy whacked-out hormone problems last fall included “skin tags,” which are little benign tumors that are raised off the surface of the skin, harmless but annoying. I had one on the back of my neck that gets rubbed and irritated by my necklaces and clothing. Last month at my appointment, my OB-GYN told me to come back and he’d take it off for me. So I went in today to have the one on my neck and another one on my arm removed.

The removal was fairly painless, as the only thing I felt was the pinprick of the lidocaine injection and then a burning sensation as it took effect. However, as I sat there on the exam table, feeling weird tugging sensations as he worked, I suddenly started seeing a large number of black spots. I knew from the fingernail experience in 2005 that I would probably lose consciousness in the next 4 or 5 seconds.

This time I was smart and didn’t ignore the feeling, thinking it would go away. I told him I was about to pass out and it was almost comical how fast he and the nurse were at my side, laying me back on the exam table. They got me settled and dug out the gauze and scissors and things from underneath me, and had me roll over on my side to finish up.

It was pretty embarrassing, even though Dr. Burt was very cool about it. I guess fainting is pretty common. He even brought me a Dr. Pepper from his personal stash and told me to wait around until I was sure I could drive home.

I really like him as a doctor, and I’d like to make him my primary physician, but the problem is that his office is in far West Plano, while I live in East Dallas. It’s a looooooong drive. Of course, my current primary physician is at the same location, so really I guess the question is, do I try to find a doctor I like that’s closer to home?

Which is important, because the idea of having a baby is not so foreign to me anymore. I don’t relate well to children, have no clue how to talk to them or anything of that nature, but I’m reconsidering my once-fairly-solid no-children position. I didn’t think I had a biological clock, but now I’m beginning to wonder. Don’t worry (or get excited), we haven’t decided ANYTHING yet. This is a very early stage, and we’re simply reconsidering a decision we made a long time ago. It could go either way. We’ll just have to wait and see how we feel as time goes on.

By the way, Mike and Bob, this does NOT get you off the hook as far as passing on the family genes. 🙂

Fuckstripe
Doc and I made up a new word as we were taking a walk the other day: Fuckstripe. I was explaining how, as a designer, sometimes I feel inadequate because I’m not as fascinated by man-made patterns as other “cool” designers seem to be. Like stripes for instance… I don’t see the big deal with stripes, but real designers sure seem to love shit like that. So I told Doc “Fuck stripes!” And thus “fuckstripe” was born.