mixman's bionic ear

So, after almost a year of discussion and work and preparation and trips to the BigCity LittlePeople Hospital for tests and meetings and appointments, MixMan got his Cochlear Implant yesterday. He says now he can feel the bump behind his ear, and things are kinda itchy. They fired it up to make sure the device wasn't faulty, and said they got great nerve response. So on September 2nd, they'll turn it on and do the initial mapping, and we'll see if it works. The patient is doing fine, although is rather disappointed that his stylish head bandage is white instead of black, which would be infinitely more cool. He's very excited, though, about his robot ear. So now we call him RoboMan.

one in each kneecap

I am a very, very lucky girl that I have so many good, kind men in my life. I say that because I am starting to understand how women become man-haters; if I didn't have the boys I have to balance the assholes, I could very well be a man-hater myself. In the last year, I have been raped; cornered in the stock room of the ER by a co-worker I trusted (who shoved his tongue down my throat and his hand up my shirt); and groped and come onto by several patients who seem to think that the ER is a great place to pick up girls.

All of them had in common the inability to hear the word "no." Repeatedly. And, due to the red-headed temper I had as a kiddo, I was raised to talk things out, leave a situation before it gets violent and confrontational, count to ten before shouting, be cautious. Of course, my parents assumed I'd remain in a fairly sheltered Mormon existence. Little did they know. And unfortunately, in the last year, in all of these situations, my skills set has come up sorely lacking.

I have been angry, and sad, and so ashamed since last summer; ashamed that I couldn't talk my way out of a situation I was in completely by accident because all my fail-safes had fallen through. Over the last few months, I've started lifting again, and I have a heavy bag I beat the shit out of on a regular basis, and my cardio is better than it ever has been. But I am still sad, and angry, and have felt so powerless. And over and over again, I have wondered how it is possible for someone to be so disrespectful that they would disregard the wishes and free will of another person and violate not just that person's body but their soul.

People who know me will tell you that I might be cranky fairly often, but I rarely get really pissed off. Sometime last Wednesday, in the five minutes between finding a man on my patio watching me through my curtains and the moment when I lost my temper and threw myself out the door after him because he wouldn't leave, I became a person, a woman, capable of killing another human being.

But I'm pretty sure I'd rather just maim.

somebody explain to me all the assholes in the world

So last night, I'm lying in bed, reading a book, as I'm wont to do. I have the sliding glass door in my room open a little to let in a breeze, and I'm half in/half out of the covers and half in/half out of sleep. I hear a noise on the side patio, and I'm assuming it's a raccoon-- they like to tip over my plants-- so I get up to scare him off. I push the curtains aside, go to open the door a little more, and right there, I mean right there, is some guy sitting in one of my patio chairs that he's moved right up against the glass.

My first thought, as you can imagine, is "wtf?" because this is not a scene my mind can quite wrap around.

My second thought is "thank god I don't sleep naked."

And then I start getting a tad angry, and the adrenaline starts up. And I look at him (he hasn't even moved, but he's watching me) and I say, "what the f--- are you doing on my patio? Get out of my yard."

And he starts talking to me, apologizes, tells me he hopped the fence and he's just waiting for his friend and his back pack and blah blah blah and he's so sorry if he frightened me.

And I'm shaking my head, trying to get the sleep out of it, and things start coming a little more clear. Like the fact that my fence is not easily hoppable in any direction. And that I didn't hear the chair move at all, so he's probably been sitting there for quite a while. And that he's still there, staring at me, and I'm getting really sick of men who don't know me assuming that because they find me attractive that it is their right to tell me so, or watch me, or grope me, even when I tell them no.

I tell him again, "get the f--- off my porch, and don't let the gate hit you on the way out." And he apologizes again, says he'll give me some weed to smoke if I want. And he's still standing there, and he looks me up and down, and says,

"Hey, you've got that sexy librarian thing going."

I'm afraid I temporarily lost my mind. The wise thing to do, of course, would have been to close the door and call the cops. I didn't do the wise thing. I got very, very angry, and that adrenaline was really pumping, and I threw open the sliding glass door and lunged out, all 5 feet 5 inches and 130 pounds of me, and yelled "get the f--- off my porch or I will beat the living shit out of you!!"

He ran through the gate (he knew exactly where it was) to his car parked in front of my house, started it up and took off. And I sat down very fast and laughed.

and then I cried, and called the cops.

I woke up this morning and saw that he'd been watching me before I went to bed, too. The chaise lounge on the back porch is turned so that it looks directly in the dining room window at the table, where I sit and write every night before bed.

I was just starting to feel safe again, you know?

But you should have seen his face when I came out at him.

cliff surfing and more proof that i'm regressing

This is the full version of the carefully censored story I told my mother the other day.

On a recent camping trip, me and the Rock Star and a few others went mountain biking on a 14 mile trail (real mountain biking, like on the side of a mountain, with a steep drop down one side, straight into a river that stupid people ride in big rafts). anyway, about a third of the way in, we'd pulled aside up against the cliff face to let some other bikers pass going the other way; one of their back tires nicked my back tire, my bike tipped, and I slipped over the side. (Yes, you read that right, I fell off a bike that was not moving.) Frankly, I thought I was going to go all the way to the river, but I caught myself about 10 feet down. I'm very bruised- everyone at work is joking that Rock Star beats me, and I reply that no, he just throws me off mountains. I'm guessing the fall was rather spectacular to watch, judging by the look on his ordinarily deadpan face. And the fact that I regrouped before he did, which is difficult to do when you're picking shrubbery out of your hair, your heart is trying to jump past your uvula, and your limbs are so rubbery that sitting and contemplating the scenery seems like a really, really good idea for oh, an hour or so.

I did get a fairly remarkable gash in my leg and a couple of sprained fingers. Luckily, we had a pretty extensive medic bag back at camp (that's what happens when you go camping with a bunch of firefighter/medics with foresight and a lot of beer), so after things clotted up, we finished the ride and then I washed up in the river and poured down some liquid courage and we steri-stripped me. I've included a picture for your viewing enjoyment. That would be my right thigh. A week post-incident. It's going to be a big scar.

I don't recommend cliff sliding, though. I darn near wet myself.