Watch out, world--I'm a fat girl in spandex.

So, I have a confession to make. The tshirts that I've been mentioning frequently on this blog were, in fact, fictional. At least, until now. You see, I didn't actually go shopping for tshirts, even though I suspected doing so could cure my abdominal symptoms. Call me a sucker for modern medicine...

However, to correct the situation, I went shopping last night and actually purchased the tshirts that, until now, existed solely in my imagination. And, I am in fact wearing one right now. A brown one. And, it's made of 95% cotton and 5% spandex. However, this makes me pose a few questions for the world in general.

You see, the world of plus-size clothing is...bizarre at best, littered with butterfly-embroidered horrors lunging out of discount racks in the unlit sections of big box stores. It can be a little bit of a nightmare. Clothing designers often seem to have the idea that plus-size means styles that haven't been popular since 1985, and even then they moved to the 50% off rack within 2 or 3 weeks. It means looking through mumus and farmer-plaids and finding nothing but a half-okay belt buckle for your troubles. It means weeks of shopping and finding maybe one usable piece of clothing. It means...

SPANDEX?

I went off looking for a tshirt. (Or rather several tshirts if possible.) So, knowing that my best chance of finding something usable would be Target which, surprisingly, often has almost fashionable clothing in the plus size section (although it's always uncomfortably close to the maternity section, so it's easy to get confused & wander over to a rack of clothing that looks promising but turns out to hold clothing designed for women with people inside of them). So, I grabbed a couple of tshirts that looked fairly okay, then meandered over to the fashionably decorative tanks which I would, of course, only wear under some sort of button-down thingy, and grabbed a couple of those as well, then proceeded to get my little '6' tag thingy and marched confidently off to the dressing room.

When I got there, to my surprise, I discovered that these tshirts were stretchy! They had the texture of cotton, but were, let us say, a little more clingy than usual. So, I turned & I peered, and, to my great astonishment, I actually liked the look, so I bought 4. In various colors.

What the HECK is wrong with me? Why would a person in my condition buy clothing that contains spandex??? And, more importantly, why would plus-size clothing designers, who are admittedly NOT generally in their right mind, design clothing that CONTAINS spandex? It was a conundrum not to be denied.

And yet, here I sit, having spent one of the most refreshing, cool sort of days I've had in weeks. With my sleeves at the slightly-longer-than-cap length, and the material of my tshirt nice and breatheable, I've passed an exceedingly pleasant day.

So, to all of those mockers and naysayers who claimed it couldn't be done, to all of those men passing by who blanch in horror, to all of those women whose toes curl in disgust, I say: pshaw! Tut Tut! Humbug! Balderdash! And, maybe even 'Filigree!'

For I am a free woman. A free fat woman. Wearing spandex.

Let's synchronize our watches

I'm terribly embarrassed to admit it, but it took me ages to learn what 'synchronize our watches' meant. I was such a lazy child--whenever I heard the phrase in a movie or on a tv show (I rarely heard it used in real life) I always wondered what it meant, and then promptly forgot to look it up as I was swept into the derring-do heroism of Mighty Mouse or the vaguely humorus but mostly silly 'Full House.'

But now I know that to synchronize your watches means to set them so that they all read exactly the same time at...er...exactly the same time. So, when my watch says 6:13pm, your watch will say 6:13pm too! (It's kind of like 'best friends' bracelets, but less cutesy.)

Synchronizing your watches means that you won't be waiting around 10 minutes for a friend whose watch is abominably slow. (Or, maybe your watch is fast. Who's to say?) It means that when I say, "Let's meet at 8:42am!" We'll bump into each other in front of that one family statue at exactly 8:42am, not one minute before or after. It means promptness, and certitude. And, like, not lackadaisicalness.

So, friends, let's synchronize our watches. On my mark, it will be exactly 22:15 (that's military hours, yo) on June 27th. And, I will be going in for surgery on Friday, July 7th at approximately 8ish. Maybe 9. Actually, I don't have any specific time, so I guess it's all moot anyway. But let's synchronize our watches anyway, just to be on the safe side. And to be, like, extremely cool.

Okay.....

Wait for it....................................................







Mark.

***Edit: Okay, so I just noticed that the time there, right below, in the green, says 8:55pm. I have no idea what's wrong with the Blogger computers, but seriously, that is soooooo not the right time. I mean, it's not even the right minute! It's the wrong minute AND the wrong hour! Now that's just DANG wrong! Y'hear?!? DAAAANG WRONG! Yeah. So, I'm not crazy. Nope.***

Okay--I'm going boy-short.

We just found out on Friday that we're probably going to have to reduce employee hours where I work, so they asked to see if we'd be willing to take one day a week off and just work 4 out of the 5 weekdays. While I was a bit concerned about my subsequent smaller income, I realized that having an extra day off work will provide some definite advantages.

I can go get my hair cut without having to take time off work. There's this lady in my ward who runs a salon in her basement, but I'm rarely able to get a cut from her because she doesn't work on the weekends. But now... *Rubs hands together gleefully*

So, I'm going to go boy-short. Well, maybe not quite that short, but I'm going to get it cut at least to my chinny-chin-chin, and perhaps have it shaped or something around my face. Yeah. Okay, so it's still in the 'vague idea' stage. But, having my hair well past my shoulders is starting to be nothing more than a nuisance. I never give myself enough time in the morning to style it properly, so it's always pulled back, and it keeps coming out of my elastic hairband like a medusa-head impression. Cute.

Going short is (I believe) the only viable way to solve this problem. Also, I will get highlights, which I've never done before. My hair has always been completely au naturale, but I think it's time to make some changes & get some blondish highlights in. Hey, I'm not talking anything garish, people! I just want a natural looking lightening or something going on on top. Maybe it'll help my blah-ish locks be not-so-blah, at least a little.

So, yes. boy-short hair, and...lemme think what else....OH! I will also go to movies. (Dollar-theatre movies, of course. Heck, I'm not made of money, especially with these reduced hours, yo.) And.... maybe I'll go and sketch those horses that I drive past every day on the way to work! And.... maybe I'll also um... get manicures and junk like that. Oh, wait...That costs money too.

Or, maybe I'll just sit at home all day on my day off and think up entries for my blog. Yeah. That's what I'll do. And you'll like it, by golly.

Blaaaaahch.

Urg. I feel sick. I just...though you all might want to know that, seeing as how you're the main receptacle for my hypochondriachism.

Blech. Bleaaaaachchchchchch..... Ick.

Ick.

Okay, I'm done. Bye!

Oooookay... Well, I guess surgery it is.

So, I guess I can stop taking ulcer medication. And those twenty new tshirts bulging out of my dresser won't do me a lick of good (although they will make me look trendy and fashionable). And I guess I can kiss that hot Tahitian man good-bye. (Oho. That phrase sounds kind of funny when paired with hot polynesian men.)

Ahem.

Anyway--to get to the point, (as I rarely do), the problem is in fact my gallbladder. In fact, just to be informative (and a little gross) here's a picture of one that I found while searching the web:

















(Many thanks to: http://health.allrefer.com/health/gallbladder-disease-gallbladder-anatomy.html)

And here it is in context (I always like to see my organs in context):

















(Aaaand many thanks to: http://www.njsurgery.com/html/Diseases/Anatomy%20Lessons.htm)

The gallbladder in the above pic is (obviously) that ugly green thingy next to all those ugly pinkish thingys. (I believe that is the medical terminology for them...)

So, I'll be meeting with a surgeon next Monday to discuss my surgery, which I ardently hope will be the laparoscopic method rather than the cut-you-open-like-a-dead-fish method.

Urg. I'm nervous, guys. I will admit to that. I've never undergone anything approaching major surgery, and while this isn't as major as they come, still, I do believe that I will be fully under anesthetic, and that I will need at least a week to recover. During which I will try on all of my new tshirts at least once.

So, if I start calling all of you to say that, no matter what we've gone through in the past, I'll always love you, and to request that you donate funds to a charitable organization in lieu of flowers, please don't be alarmed. It's just me being nervous. And, well, just a teensy bit scared.

I bet it's more fun when there's a baby inside.

Well, so I did it. I had my ultrasound. My first one, actually. In fact, the very nice doctor who did the ultrasound asked if I'd ever had one before. He also called me 'kid.' Pretty endearing stuff.

It really wasn't a bad experience, though. I mean, aside from getting over the weirdness of having someone tell me to lift my shirt up, (my apologies if this offends any of you gentle readers--I didn't lift it too far), and having a warmish gelatinous substance smeared all over my belly, and having a doctor rub around this...paddle thingy on me, and having me recoil from it--repeatedly--and after I held my breath so he could take a picture of a particular something-or-other the doctor several times saing to me, "Good!" as if I had just spelled 'loquacious' correctly at a spelling bee (which, by the way, I got right the first time when I double-checked the spelling on m-w.com), and actually making me feel pretty good about myself, because, by golly, I could hold my breath pretty well........

Where was I?

Oh, yes. It was pretty okay. Surreal, yes. Awkward? Well, sure. It's not every day you sit around while someone else cleans the gelatin stuff off of your stomach with a towel. At least, I HOPE that doesn't happen every day. To most people. (Actually, come to think of it, wouldn't it be worse to be the person doing the toweling? He probably does have to do it every day. Poor man.)

So, I guess what I'm saying is that...it was an experience. Definitely. And, I still don't know what's wrong with me. The doctor doing the ultrasound didn't say; he just said that my personal physician and I would have a chat & decide on what to do next. Which makes me think there may have been something there. But, he didn't seem too concerned. But that could just be his professional detachment speaking.

Faugh. In any case, I won't actually know the results until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Which means, of course, that I'll be concentrating on producing as many possible gallbladder-or-maybe-gastric-ulcer-healing thoughts as possible. It's the Think System. I know it works on small-town bands, so surely, SURELY it will work on human organs. Right?

And I choose...door number three!

So, I went to the doctor today. He was nice, asked me questions which I tried hard to answer correctly and without lying, (lying being a very, very stupid thing to do with doctors), but even so, I'm still not sure what's wrong with me.

My doctor told me it was likely one of two things: I could have a gastric ulcer. Woohoo! I seriously have always been intrigued by gastric ulcers, ever since I found out they were primarily caused by a bacteria. And, like, NOT stress. Usually. I mean, I don't want you all to think that I'm completely stressed out, so I've got an ulcer. I mean, it's totally not true. No. I probably have one of those bacteria-caused ulcers. Or, I might not even have an ulcer at all. Come on, people. I could have......

Gallstones. Woohoo! I seriously (no, really) have always been intrigued by gallstones, ever since my mom had to have her gallbladder removed and was in serious and excruciating pain for about a month because for some reason they couldn't schedule her surgery any earlier than that. Yes. So, I too could face serious and excruciating pain. That is, if I have gallstones, and if they're serious enough to require surgery. Which would, truth be told, enable me to take a week or two off work, and spend a whole lot of time watching cheesy daytime television. But, as appealing as surgery sounds, I think I may even be hoping for a third option, a third cause of that really, really not-so-happy pain that has been plaguing me recently.

Yes. I am hoping that it's caused by, you guessed it, really, really old tshirts.

Although, I suppose you could claim that my tshirts aren't quite old enough for this rare malady (they being only about five years of age) and most physicians will tell you that the tshirts in question need to be at least eight years or older (said physicians being misled by a faulty study back in '89).

But even still, were it up to me, I would pick the tshirt option, the third door as it were. I mean, not only could I solve my abdominal problem by simply changing my clothing, I would have to buy NEW tshirts in order to really solve the problem, because really, you can't live without tshirts in the summer. Oh, I could buy a brown one, and a dark green one...maybe even a red one.

Or, maybe I will have that ultrasound tomorrow. Just to be on the safe side.

You can't run in flip-flops.

I finally discovered why everybody loves flip-flops so darn much, and it's definitely not the reasons I've thought all my life. You see, I suffered under the misapprehension that flip-flops were there to cool your feet, to provide a quick & easy way to attire yourself in a bare minimum of footware, and to, frankly, look cool.

Alas, I was wrong.

I discovered this today while running to my local Smith's store to buy lasagna and creamsicles (the lasagna for me, the creamsicles for my mom). I walked into the store, enjoying the rather new sensation of that flapping noise that inevitably accompanies flip-flop wearing. (You see, I only purchased said flip-flops on Saturday, so I'm still breaking them in. Hm. If you break in flip-flops...)

Anyway--so I was walking along, and I realized that, even if a monstrous great ant the size of a clydesdale had burst into the store at that very moment, I would have been unable to run away from it. I would have been forced, by my new-fangled flip-flops, to stroll along at a leisurely pace towards the frozen food section (necessarily screaming and waving my arms frantically the entire time) where I would grab a frozen turkey and knock the dang thing out cold.

And then, I realized that I LOVED flip-flops! I mean, even when your life is threatened by giant ants, or by frozen turkeys for that matter, you're literally forced to take the time to smell the roses. (Specifically those little dinky rose bouquets that Smith's sells for $12.99 each.)

Fortunately, since our lives are rarely threatened by such unlikely manifestations of the powers of evil, (and really, what can be more evil than a giant ant? Or a frozen turkey?), we can actually enjoy the sensation of having to slow down a little bit. Wearing flip-flops is summery not just because you HAVE to wear them or your feet will spontaneously combust from the heat of socks & sneakers in the summer sun, but because they make you take life easy, stroll instead of dash across the beach, saunter rather than sprint around the park. It's kind of nice to take things easy once in awhile, kind of nice to live in a summery style.

(But I'm keeping my sneakers around just in case that giant ant shows up. Seriously. I HATE those things.)

What is this funny feeling?

Well, I was getting all set to write a post about how I've started an online application for an MLS program--something about getting the ball rolling, and how good it felt to do so, and how much my brain feels like mush & utterly incapable of writing 2 coherent sentences together...

But I couldn't. Honestly, I'm just in one of those moods this evening.

You know, those kinds of moods that strike you at random times, with little warning, but that stick with you all day, or even several days. I'm feeling...a little sad, a little thoughtful, a little humorous, a little...(dare I say?) lonesome... But none of these feelings by themselves equal this emotion I'm experiencing right now. It's a strange emotion medley, a mixed up taste sensation for the brain & heart. It's funny--I mostly just feel like listening to vaguely somber music, and the crickets making a racket outside of my window. I want to lay on my bed in the dark and think about stars and hope and how many times I've wondered whether or not I'd ever find someone to be all my own.

It feels a little like loss, and a little like being tired, and a little like wanting to make changes. It also feels a little like I'll actually be able to make the changes. So it also feels a little happy, in a sad sort of way.

I guess it mostly feels like being human, and having the full range of conflicting all-at-once emotion that we seem to deal with constantly.

Hm. I keep trying to tie this up with something succinct and poignant, but nothing's coming to mind. I guess I'll just have to leave this one open-ended. And I guess that's like life anyway, right? Nothing's ever tied up neatly, packaged in shimmery wrapping paper with a card on top,(unless, of course, it's a wedding present), so certainly I shouldn't expect this blog to be. Should I?