Wake Up Dead (wo)Man

I know what I said last post (and I'm still going to do it), but other topics seem more important at the moment.

These include: how damn cold it is, Schrodinger's earring, and fucking meetings, man.

How Damn Cold It Is: It's edging on Fairbanks-level cold. Just edging. But that's enough! Too much, arguably. The closest weather station to me is on Weather Underground is reading -24 degrees Fahrenheit. And some things that happen to me when it gets this cold are, in no particular order, overall malaise (feeling shitty), a primal need to sLeEp (hard to wake up, hard to think, hard to do anything), and anxiety about my car starting. I had a roommate at one point who used to start her car every X number of hours when working overnight shifts at the hospital when it got teens-below-zero, and I've been racking my brain trying to remember what the number was. Six? Three? Online opinions seem to differ slightly, but the general consensus is just starting it will do more harm than good, so drive it once a day for 20-30 minutes to keep it Gucci. Unless your battery is just bad, in which case: you have bigger problems. S, being from North Pole, had me start it this morning anyway, and I will have to do An Outing to pick up L from school this afternoon, so that should that <dusts off hands>.*

Schrodinger's Earring: I presume I will not figure out umlauts in blogger before publishing, so I apologize and - yes. I know. So I got my ears pierced in mid-August to show L what it's like to get your ears pierced. This ended up not working out the way I'd hoped because pediatricians are a little more like Claire's when it comes to piercing than a piercing studio, but in any case I got little titanium moon-shaped studs and that was fine. They look like this except black, and I never changed them out because I think that part of my brain (the accessorizing part) has gone on permanent vacation. I'm a fidgeter because of course I am, and was fidgeting with my left earring while watching Physical 100 a couple of nights ago. I fidgeted kind of hard, I guess, and the back of the earring slipped out. Okay, no big deal. I pick it up and look for the front. Except I can't find the front and now there seems to be a mass in my left earlobe. Great. I am now convinced that the earring front has slipped inside my earlobe. I am not as freaked out about this as I would have been in my 20s. I make the damn urgent care appointment and just...don't sleep on my left side. My sacrum is behaving itself a little better, so this is not really a big whoop. Maybe just a medium one. The next day is a blizzard/white-out driving conditions kind of day with record snowfall, etc. However. The show must go on! So off I go on a 20-minute drive that actually takes 40 minutes for a nice PA that wasn't even supposed to be there that day, all Clerks style, to lidocaine and incise** my left earlobe and dig around for a bit. 

This was all pretty expected. Guess what was unexpected, though. Go ahead. Don't read on! Think about it for exactly ten seconds. Okay. She rummaged around for a few minutes and said either it wasn't there or she couldn't find it. She said there was an infection and I guess she removed that, but - no earring. I'm not 100% sure she's right. But I wasn't going to make her body horror my ear any more than she already had, because:
1) Who knows? Maybe I'll find the earring front under or in the couch or something and then feel like I was acting the delusional fool.
2) Urgent care is not a surgical...um...auditorium thing. This isn't really probably what she went to school for if we get into needing to do full-on plastic surgery. I mean maybe she has a secret passion for that but I sure don't and no judgement if you don't either.
3) Apparently the type of earring I had was implant grade anyway, so if it doesn't get (more) infected then maybe it doesn't matter?
4) They for sure don't have an x-ray at that urgent care location and that's probably the least intrusive way to find out for sure either way.

...so yeah! Fun little thing I now have to remember and explain at all future medical appointments or surgeries. I may or may not have an earring stuck in my left earlobe! Why? What do I mean? *sigh*

Fuck Meetings, Man: I only kind of mind meetings. I do get anxieties, though, which run the gamut from: does my hair look alright? (No, it doesn't. But also: nobody cares! And that's such a relief if I'm honest.) Is this the right meeting link? Am I even really a person at all? What is life? I also like a paper trail because I hella misunderstand things, and it is beyond frustrating to ask directly for someone's resume >4 times and/or dates for A Thing I Need To Know About with no written words addressing those things and end up at: let's just make a meeting. Bestie, please. Just. Do. The. Thing. I will meet with you anyway, I swear. I will buy you coffee and a croissant! But a girl has needs (not like that***)! I know I am as or more guilty of shit like this than not, and it's especially annoying that I just apparate after an extended period of silence with a gazillion questions. I know, I know, I know. Woo. Okay!

Time to do more SUD training while huddling indoors next to a heating pad. 

*I keep meaning to name my car and then forgetting and nothing really feels super-right. Maybe her name is Myrtle Moo? I think I suggested it, my kid ridiculed me because "That's a silly name, mom." Yes. But she is reliable, un-fancy, and American-made. Any better suggestions?

**I learned that an incision in my ear is my second-least-favorite sound! Glad to know I'm not too old to keep learning new things about myself.

***Okay, maybe like that, occasionally, but certainly not in this context. I am a pre-professional.