Do I wake or sleep?

So I went to the cardiologist (finally--I was supposed to go two weeks ago but had to reschedule because my mother was in town) on Tuesday. First of all, he too was hottt. Why am I having all the medical crushes lately? Very strange. Still, makes ponying up a chunk of change for the doctor a little easier!

We went through my heart history--of the 5 big risk factors (which are, I believe, smoking, diabetes, genetic history, blood pressure, exercise--I think??), the main one I have is genetic. As I said, my father's family is RIDDLED with heart disease--my grandfather (heart attack, coronary), both my uncles (multiple heart attacks), my Dad (angioplasty before age 60), my brother (atrial fibrillation), at least one of my aunts. The doctor was mainly interested in Daddy and my brother, because they are first degree relatives. Daddy smoked throughout the '70s and '80s which exacerbated the likelihood that something might happen. But Stuart's and my risk profiles are fairly similar--no diabetes, neither of us smokes, we both exercise, etc. So I am assuming something could happen to me as well.

At any rate, Hottt Doctor wants me to come back a couple more times (okay!)--he wants to do a stress test (no, not the Scientology nonsense but a test where they measure your heart rate as you exercise) and a followup after some lifestyle changes. We shall see! But he doesn't think there's cause for alarm, at least not right now.

In other news, played another pickup soccer game last night and I'm not even in any pain today! And I guess I'm now considered a regular because I was one of the captains last night--what fun! AND I scored and had another assist--yay! Skills are comin' back, so happy! One of the teams we played had a couple of super-aggressive jerks on it, including one older (late 40s?), bigger guy who clearly had Something To Prove. He kept taking really hard shots at the goal (I should explain the setup--we play three games at a time on a regular-size field, so we are playing on half-size fields with much smaller goals. Each goal is about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, and the top is arched (not square). So a hard shot on goal will almost certainly go wide--the best way to score is to work it in). I was standing in the goal and he kicked it very hard--it went over (of course) but not before SMACKING ME IN THE FACE. I collapsed onto the turf and naturally most of the players nearby on both teams came running over, trying to help me. Except one. Mr. Something To Prove didn't have shit to say--I don't expect an apology per se (although most players will offer one as a matter of form) because getting hit is part of the game. But you really should say "are you okay?" or something like that, and if you don't you're an over-aggressive asshole (as my team agreed later after the game). One of my teammates said "well, good for you, at least you blocked it!" I said, pointedly, "no, it would've gone wide anyway, my head is higher than the goal." In other words, kick it as hard as you like, Insecure Male, your shot still was a bad one. In fact it was terrible as it went over the fence (so--WAY high) and he had to climb over the fence and get it. Then a little later he sent *another* one over the fence and I said loudly "you probably shouldn't be kicking it so hard, the goal isn't really wide enough for that." Watching him trudge back after having to climb over the fence again warmed the cockles of my heart.

Other than that, good game though--I'm thrilled I scored again. Have another game this Saturday.

Beautiful day out--it's in the 50s! Spring, I can't wait for you!

I was outside because I slipped out of work to go the church and get ashes. So medieval and Lenten!

Mardi Gras was lovely last night--and most of my soccer team stopped by! And hung out for quite awhile, huddled together and looking around my apartment and petting the bebbehs. (I had to drag Tibby in whining the whole time, naturally.) Trying to remember who was there--Tesse, Michael, Griffin, Tim and his friend Jason, Joy (I did Fare for All with her) and her BF, Ryan, Caley, Jenny Fersch and her BF, plus my team (5-6), plus Anya and me. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. Joy's BF is kind of a jerk, sad to say--I remember two years ago when they left there was a thorough consensus that no one liked him. He has that "I'm socially awkward so I'm going to try to mask it by putting people at a disadvantage" thing going on. I can't remember exactly what he did two years ago (the party last year was at Charles's) but I do remember we ALL talked about it when he'd gone. And last night after he left Griffin told me that he'd said to G "you need to rethink that checkerboard thing with the shirt"--he was clowning Griffin's outfit! So, so rude. He did this weird thing--at one point Jenny, her BF and I (and I think Anya and Griffin) were in the kitchen talking and he came into the kitchen and stopped upon seeing us. Naturally we all noticed he'd come in and stopped in this kind of obvious way, and WE stopped talking, thinking he wanted to say something and of course he didn't--he just wanted us to notice him. Ugh.

I was a little concerned with the King Cakes--I'm not sure they came out okay, they seemed a little dry. I think I might have overbaked them, and since our microwave is broken, I had some difficulty making them (couldn't melt the butter easily). Although I'm amazed I didn't have MORE problems with no microwave--it actually went pretty smoothly! I finally remembered to take lots of pictures, lots of BLURRY, impressionist pictures.

At one point I was talking to Caley and someone else about directing The Vagina Monologues--how I'd talked about the poetry to one actor and said think of these words as jewels, but they don't only look beautiful, they also taste wonderful and smell good. They satisfy every sense, because poetry is the densest, most intense, compressed form of the language--you need to hold these words in your hands and offer them to the audience. Caley liked this image and I said when I was on my cruise ship contract in Spain, I visited Sevilla and I saw the orange trees. They're everywhere in that city. And they're so vivid, so gorgeous--these beautiful green bushes filled with golden orbs, overflowing onto the sidewalks and the gutters and the courtywards. And I had this image in my head of a child's hands filled with these colorful candies, trying to offer them but they keep slipping out between the fingers. So I wrote Los Naranjas de Sevilla (one of my poems). I noticed a couple of my teammates were listening to me, and one of them, Zack, said "now I want to audition for you!"

Finally broke down and made an appointment with the bone doctor for my FUCKING KNEE. It seemed to be getting better until Sunday when I was decorating--I landed rather awkwardly on it and it's been hurting ever since. Last night the train ride home was literally torture--the stupid, incompetent MTA didn't send enough trains so when the A came it was super, SUPER crowded. Those are the worst for me--I'm too short to reach the bar easily, so I'm either barely hanging on, or trying to grab a side bar and swinging around. And psychologically I HATE crowds. Not fun!

I'm a little worried.  For about a month or so, I've been noticing a weird symptom--a rapid heartbeat at odd times.  I certainly drink a lot of caffeine, and that is one potential cause.  Heart disease runs very strongly in the Green family--my grandfather, my father, both uncle and at least one aunt.  And my brother had something going on as well. Gotta make an appointment to see the doctor--this is awkward because last year someone at my temp agency made a huge error. 

They sent out notices to all of us that they were switching health care providers, but the notice was weirdly worded, very unclear, and they only sent us a notice by e-mail and not by regular mail.  So a lot of people, myself included, did not opt in, and so I was without health care but didn't know it.  I went merrily on my way and visited my PCP who wanted to check on my B12 levels, and sent me to a laboratory to get a blood test (or something).  They also referred me to a bone doctor because I'd fallen in January and was still feeling pain.  It wasn't until the visit to the bone doctor in March that I discovered that I had no health care.  I raised the effing roof on the phone with the H/R department. Like WTF--HOW could you make this mistake?!  I've been working here for years, OBVIOUSLY I don't want to opt out, and why would you leave such an important notification to E-MAIL?  E-mail is not secure, people miss emails all the time, especially those that are sent to large numbers of people and get filtered!!!  For such an important notice you need to require a response from people one way or the other, not just assume!  Luckily--very luckily--they forced the new health care plan to accept me even though it wasn't open enrollment period.  VERY lucky.  But I was still dealing with random doctor bills coming back to me from those visits in the beginning of the year.  All of these but one were eventually dealt with (my agency had the new health care provider cover them) but there's one still outstanding and I don't think it's been dealt with.  This is almost a year now and it's something like $200.  I don't know if ny doctor will want to see me if there's this dispute--I have no idea what's going on but...it's awkward.  I noticed this past year (they switched health care providers AGAIN, this is my third in three years now!), they were much, MUCH more careful about making sure we all understood what was going on, and requiring us to either opt-in or opt-out.

But back to my heart.  Ugh.  If I have to start eating salads and vegetables I will not be happy.