{{{Maria}}} It's so hard. I liken it to being half of a team of oxen and now you have to pull alone so you keep turning in circles, if you move at all.

I don't want to tell you it gets better or easier because that doesn't seem accurate to my experience, but you get better at coping with it and the challenges change.

I'm just starting to listen to music again, within the last couple of months. And it's still weird. And it was only when I started actually enjoying comedies again that I realized I hadn't for a long time.

le nubian, I met with the gastroenterologist this afternoon, and I have an appointment for the colonoscopy and a scope of my esophagus and stomach. ("We'll do it at the same time," he says, then he sees that I'm visualizing this. "On the same day, I mean. Not the exact same time.")

The first available appointment is at the end of April, though. My nerves will be shot by then. I can keep calling them to see if there's a cancellation, but that's awkward because I then have to find someone to drive me there by 6:30 a.m. and hang around until 10 or so. I'm going to e-mail my doctors to see if they think it's important for me to do it earlier. There's also going to be a co-pay I can't afford for the one test. The GI guy did nothing to make me more cheerful by asserting that my results don't look like GI bleeding to him. I want GI bleeding, damn it.

Maria, I know the most unlikely things will keep ripping the scab off, but it does get better. I bet I can come up with an Americana/folk playlist that you've never heard.

Oy, Ginger, that's an awfully long time to wait.

Oh horrors, nothing like having your scopys meet in the middle. All possible best scenario for you, Ginger, and telescoping time, if no earlier appointment is possible.

I did lipstick instead and I'm heading out the door for vocal lessons and I feel all PAINTED HOOR!

Clearly you are a LUSTFUL FORNICATOR not fit to teach CHRISTIAN CHILDREN. Or, you look just fine, silly lady. I get it though--I rarely wear foundation, so half the time I put it on I feel weird and cakey (even if it looks fine) and end up wiping half of it off before I even leave the house.

Maria, I wish I had magic words to help, but it seems others have been giving good advice. I'm sorry you have to work at this time, and know we're all here for you.

But also, dude? You can totally make it all about you for a while. We're all good with that. And you're not anyway, but you can.

Or, what Liese said.

I wish I had magic words to help

This. Where are the magic words? We needs them.

Ginger,

not that you can easily afford it, but will they let you go home via taxicab?

end of April? dang. here's hoping something opens up for you.

but will they let you go home via taxicab?

It has to be a person who stays there the whole time. It's very irritating, because I've had this anesthesia before and was wide awake afterwards.

Where are the magic words? We needs them.

Bibbiti bobbiti boo? Alakazaam? A la peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Bhutros Bhutros Gali? No?

Dammit.

The way sj feels about her new sellers is how I feel about my new(ish) landlady. She just gave me sushi. She is letting me pay my security deposit in installments, and let me take a payment holiday in February for Mardi Gras. She fixes shit. She loans me stuff (like an air mattress and a ladder). She returns my DVDs. I heart J.

I don't heart my acid reflux. Srsly, Zantac 150 is not cutting it. I got a stressful piece of news at the end of the work day (so, not right after a meal) and could literally feel the bile rising.

Ginger, I hope you get an earlier appointment. That is pretty ridic.