The Usual New Year's Shit

So, once again, I stand optimistically on the verge of a sparkling, brand spanking New Year and wonder, "What the hell am I going to do with the next 365 days allotted to me on this planet?"

And I can only say, "I don't fuckin' know."

I only have one New Year's Resolution this year. I'm gonna try and finish writing my book so that by December of 2010, I can ask people whose writing I respect and admire to read the goddamn thing and give me some valid feedback. There's nothing like writing to make you feel all Multiple Personality Syndrome. It's a solitary activity, so while you're banging out the words on the keyboard with passion and precision, it's easy to convince yourself that what you're writing is so fucking brilliant, you must be the unacknowledged love child of Margaret Atwood and Jeannette Winterson. Then, you get writer's block or you read something awesome by your friend who just won the Three-Day Novel Contest, and her first draft is so gob-smackingly engaging and well-written that suddenly you realize that you really have Downs Sydrome and your manuscript is nothing more than "I want a corndog" written over and over on construction paper in crayon.

But what the hell--I'm gonna finish it and see what happens because, honey, if Anne Rice can still get published with her tales of Jebus the Ultimate Vampire, then there must also be a market for the vapid ramblings of the Downs-stricken.

That's the only resolution that I have concretly formed in my consciousness right now. I had originally planned to lose weight this year by going on one of those LCDs (Low Calorie Diets), but I recently switched G.P.'s because I lost faith in the old one.

Example:
Me: I have chronic pain. The Celebrex doesn't appear to be working at all.
Him: Take more!

The new G.P. is female, very attentive, thorough, and not at all convinced that the LCD is the best way to go. Having had a consultation with her last month, she's sending me for all these tests. I haven't menstruated in about two years and she seems to think that that's a little early, so she's sending me for a whole battery of tests, including bloodwork, an EKG and a frigging ultrasound. She wants to know if my cervical walls have thickened, to which I say, "Honey, I weigh over 200 pounds: everything on me has fuckin' thickened."

Now, I've never had an ultrasound, but I understand that the external type requires me to drink a lot of water (although I'm fairly confident that beer would do the trick, too), some jelly smeared on my fish-white belly ("Jelly Belly"--that would be my name if I sang the blues) and then some kind of weird Star Trek imaging paddle. I'm good with this, and would actually like to see my Fallopian tubes, cuz I'm fascinated by the idea of having orchid-like structures in my innards.

But then J. tells me about this other procedure called a trans-vaginal ultrasound, which doesn't sound nearly as benevolent. First of all, it doesn't sound like a medical thing to me, it sounds more like a railway in Monopoly: "Go take a ride on the TransVaginal Ultrasound!" Secondly, there was no mention of water/beer. Thirdly, it seems that what they do is stick a wand in your squish mitten and they get an image of your insides by reading the sound waves that bounce back.

I'm inclined to think that someone is having me on, because what I envision in my head is some technician getting me into the stirrups and then putting a boom box speaker in my vag and blasting some ACDC up there (probably "Thunderstruck" or "Hell's Bells"). Reading the images seems to require sonar, so I then imagine that they hold a specially trained bat near my cooch and get him to describe what he sees ("It's a cave! No, wait--there's the Edmund Fitzgerald!").

So, naturally, I'm kinda hoping it's the first procedure rather than the latter.

Anyway, I have a question. Actually, I have several, but I'll stick to the one for right now. It's mother-fucking cold outside right now, which sucks, but inside the house it is 18 degrees Celcius. Now, if this was June and not January, 18 degrees would be plenty warm. But we're all pissing and moaning because it's cold in the house, and J. has turned up the heat. We're also in our jammies and bathrobes. Now, why, if 18 degrees is jim dandy in June, is it not sufficient indoors in January?

I don't get it.