Friday, 12 September, 1997 01:49

I don't really want to be up right now, but I am anyway. My good friend insomnia has come calling, and I have to keep her company. It's not much use trying to get her to go away... insults don't work, and she's to insubstantial for thrown rocks to have any effect.

Karen and I had a nice evening... she got home later than I expected, she went to a weight-watcher's meeting. She's going to try their program again. So, to celebrate... I took her to Applebees! She had the salmon, which is indeed a low-fat, low calorie meal, and I had the usual Bourbon Street Steak.

Went to bed about 22:30, and I slept until about 01:00. That was it. Wide awake. So... I thought I'd scan some more pictures. This one is of my nieces Terri and Cathy, taken in 1966 in Maryland. I think that this was one of the first times that I visited Dan after I went to the army. I had never been exposed to cute little girls before, they wrapped me around their little fingers, a tradition that little girls (and some big ones) have honored ever since then.

This picture is of Dan and I in 1977. I think that he must've been visiting in Topeka, and the picture was taken with his camera, because the caption on the back says "U. Doug and Dad, 1977" My first wife, Marta, must've taken the picture: note the fake smiles. Marta didn't like Dan for some reason or another, and his visit was very tense. There were a lot of fake smiles, if I remember correctly.

The last picture for the day is of me and Mom and Dan in Maryland in 1980. Mom and her sister Aunt Bea and Bea's husband Don had driven out. I had arrived a few days sooner, and had gotten thrown in jail on a DUI as I was trying to find Dan's house. So I spent a few hours in the nation's oldest still-in-use jailhouse, Anne Arundel County Jail. That might not be spelled right. The experience is still pretty vivid. The second of the three times that I have been locked up...

Off on another tangent entirely... I took Karen's blood pressure tonight, someone had told her that it was high. So I got a 130/82, which is pretty normal. So I decided to take mine. 210/110! Not normal. I had just smoked a cigarette five minutes before. In ten minutes, it was back to normal.

My continuing stupidity continues to... stupefy me. I'm fucking killing myself. I'm fucking dumb. I don't want to be dumb, I don't want to be stupid, I don't want to kill myself.

Karen told me that she had seen an ad or something on a new anti-stupidity...oops, antismoking... drug that is available by prescription. I'll ask my surgeon about it when I go in to see him today.

More later, kiddies...

It seems that my email has been not just not getting to me, but bouncing all over the place. I have had some expressions of concern, giving me that warm fuzzy feeling. However, that brings up a different subject altogether.

No-one likes to talk about funerals and shit like that. However, they remain part of life, and will continue to do so, at least in the forseeable future.

The question has been asked:"So, Doug, how will we know when you die?"

My first thought is, why, I'll write about it in the journal, and you can read about it. But then reason sets in. That is not likely to happen, try as I might.

So, I'm gonna set up a page,Is Doug Dead? and I will set up a macro that Karen can run. Pretty simple, really. So that way, you can check, just in case I don't make an entry for a few days. This will also serve notice of an emergency hospitalization.

Again... more later!

Well, I seem to be incommunicado again, or maybe it's still. Or maybe nobody's sending me anything... Nah. I'm on like five mailing lists, or maybe it's ten. The mailman is lazy or his feet are sore or something. Trouble is, I don't know if the mail I'm sending is getting out or not...

Anyway, I went to see the surgeon this morning. He said it's epididimitis. Sent me to the urologist. He said it's not. He did a PSA and a dip UA. Got white blood cells in the urine. Hmmm. Infection, maybe. He did the digital probe, which the guy last Friday did. Said there was some firmness on the left side. Hmmm again. He thinks the pain is referred pain, possibly a kidney/ureteral stone, maybe something in the bladder, maybe something bad in the prostate. Hmmm. Going to do an IVP on Monday. I have to go to the other hospital, Stormont-Vail, to get it done. Fucking insurance, anyway. The guy last Friday who did the prostate exam said everything felt fine. OK, he's a young guy, still got a lot to learn. Dr. Lui examined my testicles and was sure it was epididimitis. Well, OK, he's a surgeon. Dr. Hsu, though, he's the urologist. He knows what he's doing around testicles. I hope.

I got back from seeing Dr. Lui at about 10:00 and my appointment with Hsu wasn't until 15:00, so I got the washer out and washed the back deck. The redwood is beautiful when it's clean, but this year I'm going to put some preservative on it, maybe it'll stay pretty for longer than a year.

Anyway, I have been working on building up a sleep deficit, so I think that I'll be in bed early tonight. It's been another cool, wonderful day, and there are thunderstorms building up to our west, so it'll probably be raining soon. Good sleeping weather (that's the only kind there is!).

More tomorrow....