My parade plans were almost thwarted by the time change and a cell phone that was slow to change but I made it out to the South side to celebrate being a dirty Mc.

I went to a party at high school friend’s mom’s house. Nothing makes you feel old like seeing little brothers all growed up. Then I went to my parent’s house where I ruined my diet with corned beef and “just a tiny slice” of cake. No wonder my family has trouble losing weight.

And look at this article. “A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.”

I totally knew about this from a Cafe Science talk. Unfortunately, it looks like I didn’t blog about the talk but the professor said that the estrogen in the water supply from birth control pills will eventually decrease penis size. We must do something about this now!

My workplace is involved in the 50 Million Pound Challenge. We had a kick off event this week and there is an inter-agency contest going on. Whoever loses the most weight in 10 weeks (by percentage, not pounds) wins moneys! My agency isn’t that big and I’m sure everyone won’t participate. I would say there is a 1 in 50 chance of winning. So really I have no excuse not to start working at losing weight. The first weigh in is Monday (so I’m working on finishing my box of Valentine’s truffles this weekend.)

My tattoo is healing nicely and has stopped being itchier than Lindsay Lohan’s crotch. My tattoo is another reason for me to lose weight! I gots to look good to show it off!

Wonderful moment at work this week: Assistant of the Last Minute department comes by asking for FedEx envelopes. I don’t have any, just Express Mail. No, she needs FedEx because these are VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS. Whatever, keep hunting. She finally finds the envelopes (probably in her own office because her department is the only one that uses Fed Ex) and sends off her docs. Next day I find out the very importantness did not reach it’s very important person because the Assistant sent it to the wrong address. Competency. We do not have.

Oh, I was silly to think that I would get my tubes tied by just asking a nice, qualified doctor.

I called to get my bloodwork results and schedule my tube tying and the office person I talked to said that my doctor doesn’t do surgery with my HMO. She told me to call my HMO and go to an outpatient clinic. He didn’t mention that my insurance would be a problem during the visit but I know how oblivious doctors are as to which insurance networks they are in.

So I call my insurance and they tell me that he cannot do the procedure because my hospital is religiously affiliated. I knew that at one time this hospital was St. Something but I thought the new name had bought out the old one. I’m still not quite clear on how the doctor does sterilization. All the info I find on him says he only works at this one hospital. His staff person made it sound like it was my specific HMO he didn’t work with but maybe it is HMO’s in general. I called his office a bunch of time going back and forth with the insurance company, I feel dumb calling again but I want to know if there is a way of getting the surgery at a hospital.

I want to stay at a hospital, preferably this one, because I am worried about my robotness and the clinic they referred me to is pretty much an abortion clinic. They do other stuff but if you google them, the first results say abortion clinic. I don’t want to deal with protesters, that tense feeling in the waiting room or weary doctors that have been vacuuming all day.

Hate you, health care system.

I went to see my girly doctor last week and for the first time ever the doctor didn’t argue! I went in prepared for a fight. I rehearsed what I would say in my mind while I waited next to pregnant bellies and women smiling at ultrasound pictures. I went into the exam room and started to lose my voice as the nurse asked routine questions. Nervous or just awkward around cute dykes? Not sure.

I told the doctor I wanted to know about sterilization and he started explaining the procedure. Didn’t ask if I was married, how old I was, if I had any kids.  He had the nurse take some blood at the end of the visit to make sure I can handle the anesthetic.

I was really expecting more of a fight or even having to switch to yet another doctor. This doctor seemed very nice and non-judging. I almost interrupted him to tell him how I’ve been asking for this for 10 years and have been rejected by multiple doctors. But I didn’t need to tell him.

For all your haters out there, let me remind you that pregnancy would surely upset the robot buried in my chest and we do not want that!

A couple people suggested a tube tying party. I’m down with an excuse to have a party. Would Sweet Mandy B’s draw a uterus on my cake?

Last day! I’m a shark! Suck my cock!

I finished up all my cases like a nice employee, my coworkers fed me chocolate twice and my supervisor did not even say goodbye to me. Employees usually send out goodbye emails to the department when they leave. Being a snotty bitch, I had to send out a sarcastic one. The trick is to send out something that isn’t so offensive that a supervisor will retract the email and send it out late enough that a supervisor won’t come by to talk to me about it. So 10 minutes before 5, I send out a goodbye letter template and don’t fill in the fields. So it says “dear (name), I leaving (company)…”

As soon as it comes out, I walk to a coworkers desk and I can here the cube dwellers talking about it. It went right over some of their heads but most people understood where I was going with it. We get about 1 goodbye email a week at this place, turnover is high and morale among the easily replaceable cogs is low.

Today my friend forwarded me an email that my former supervisor sent out in response to my email. She said that my email was open to interpretation but she wanted to her team to know that they were valued. Valued how I wonder? With the low pay or with the job that is marketed as clinical but isn’t?

After work I got drunk at Roscoe’s, convinced coworkers I would not abandon them just because I’m changing jobs and watched karaoke.

My new job contacted me, I won’t be starting until Wednesday now. More time to be laaazy! Tomorrow I get my hair chopped all super cute Victoria Beckham-like.

Today I went for my sleep study consult. Minor respiratory issues, not enough to say I have sleep apnea. And the neurologist made it sound like he couldn’t diagnose night terrors because no one has ever seen me have one. I didn’t have them as a kid, just was a sleep walker/talker. I don’t have them when I am sleeping with someone and my roommate has never heard me screaming. He pointed out since no one has heard me scream, I may not actually be screaming. I just think I am. So he gave me the vague “parasomnias” label, gave me a script and the psychologist at the clinic suggested counseling. Pretty much what I was expecting but as I’ve said before, it’s nice to be able to rule out medical problems.

Transitioning to new job land is kind of fun. I made a sock puppet for my coworker and today she gave a clinical presentation on PTSD with the puppet. It was fun and educational!

I’m going to have a big gay happy hour in Boystown on my last day and my coworkers are taking me out for chocolate fondue! I don’t get anymore cases since I’m leaving so next week will be a lot of me calling people and saying “Hi, I’m leaving. Talk to my boss from now on.”

Roommate has been gone for a few days. It’s kind of peaceful being alone except at night when the anxiety kicks in. For some reason, my head believes that my skinny little roommate can ward off bad guys. Maybe she’s more a good luck charm than a bodyguard.

I moved my sleep study meeting to next week. For the next week, my homework is to try to go to bed earlier. I hope I didn’t do a sleep study just to get stellar advice like that. I would rather them offer me drugs than tell me “try to get 8 hours and everything will be OK!”

I’m trying to figure out the online dating protocol. Every site now has a feature where you can see who views you. If they look OK you, of course, view their profile, too. Then there are “hot lists” people can add you to which pretty much does nothing except saves your profile on a separate page for them and notifies the other person that they have been “hot listed.” Personals sites really like to make verbs out of nouns. So do I “hot list” the person back if I’m interested? Or just go ahead and send them a message? Is this the equivalent of making eye contact vs making the first move if I weren’t a geek and met people in real life? Because I will make eye contact in bars but I rarely go up and start conversations with strangers. Which maybe is why I’m single…hmmm.

I will have to give this more thought.

Time for bed. 8 hours!

I had my sleep study consult today and damn those docs are quick, I do my sleep study tomorrow! I go in at 8pm, get hooked up to a bunch of monitoring devices, someone records me sleeping and I leave at 8am the next day. For some reason, everyone thinks I get paid for this study. I’m not doing research, I’m doing this to figure out why my sleep sucks.
I was worried it would take them a while to schedule and I would be in no insurance/new job limbo land. The intern said it should take about a week to have some results back. And I have no idea when new job will start, that is yet to be confirmed and becoming more frustrating as July comes to and end.

So this week is super busy. My MIA gone for the summer friend returns, sleep study, Grinderman (woo Nick Cave!) and then home for working dad’s store/family graduation and birthday parties.

This is by far the biggest crisis I’ve had to deal with in a while.

I got called a hipster.

I of course denied but then I started thinking:

-I live really close to Wicker Park

-I own a lot of Threadless shirts

-I’m really sad that Filter closed.

-I’ve been to Debonair Social Club twice (but only for open bars!)

-I really want an old moped.

There are lots of things that don’t make me a hipster like not having a bad haircut, not owning a white belt or a bicycle and I’m not going to Pitchfork this weekend.

It was my acupuncturist that said I’m a “hip kid” after commenting that she liked my Threadless t-shirt. I told her I was a geek and she said geeks don’t get acupuncture because they question Eastern medicine too much. She is right about that, I’ve had to defend my actions to my geekier friends several times. (My current defense being “fuck off, it’s my body.”)

I didn’t even know that it was an old moped I was coveting until today. I’ve been calling them motorbikes and finally saw a manufacturer name on one today and looked it up. I thought mopeds=scooters. Something where you’re sitting, knees bent, like a Vespa. I guess I was wrong and the bikes I see out all over my neighborhood are mopeds. There’s even one chained to my fence but I haven’t determined who the owner is yet.

So if(when) I get this new job, I know what my first stupid purchase will be!

Unrelated to the current crisis, I have ear seeds in my left ear. Hopefully they will stay in for the week and I can play with them and see if they’re helpful. They kind of look like jewelery.

I turned in everything the research job asked for. I got letters of recommendation, transcripts and I went to the doctor. I am very anxious for a confirmation call now. I’m not feeling as bad about leaving my current position anymore. Even with the promotion, I will still be making more at the research job. And my current job isn’t all that interesting. I feel like I’m running in circles all day, doing follow-up upon follow-up.

At the doctor, I mentioned my sleeping problems, night terrors and constant napping. The doctor suggested a sleep study. So I’m going to hopefully make an appointment before I quit this job so I can suck all I can out of my stupid HMO. She wants to see if there is a neurological cause or if I’m not getting my good “deep” sleep. She also referred me to a psychologist just in case it’s none of the above and I’m just fucking crazy. She mentioned putting me on Tegretol and I’m happy she can’t (or won’t) because of my defective heart.

I told her I’m trying acupuncture and looking to go a non-drug route. I get bitter about taking meds after a while. I get angry when my big uncoated pills get stuck in my throat or when I feel sick because even after all these years I still forget a dose occasionally. It’s a common feeling among those with any sort of chronic illness. I’m sick of being sick. Fix me NOW or leave me alone. And goddamn, stop lumping me in the same category as other sick people. I hate them.