back in the saddle again

these are the things i have recently accomplished

1. i am up to page 38 in the great semi-autobigraphical novel
2. i defended my decision to write something based on my life and the lives of me family and i stand by that decision because it isn't really about them. it's drawn from an incident that really happened but the people it's happening to are not the same as my family they are very very different.
3. i bought 2 turtle necks, one grew neck sweater, a shower curtain, 2 pairs of navy tights and a purse for the low low price of £24
4. i called the estate agent and made an offer on a house in nunhead. jeremy made the second higher offer and we'll know today if it was accepted. this house has a name rather than a number. you can't get more english than that!
5. i went to a really crowded and boisterous party on saturday night without having a panic attack, although i did leave early, but that's more about knowing my limits than mental illness.
6. i talked to my parents and remain in denial about the seriousness of my father's current condition. they are being very bright and waspy about the whole deal so i'm going to stay the same.
7. i made a scarf for jeremy's dad. it has cables!
8. i actually woke up and made it out the door and onto the bus and into work today. this is possibly the greatest and most amazing acheivment of all.

news of the world

• feeling better physically today so i kept my dreaded dental appointment where mrs. stephens the dental hygeinist scraped my teeth and told they looked much better than the notes on my record indicated. i bled a bit at my last appointment a month ago. i am also very flinchy at dental appointments due to my recurring nightmares about crumbling and or loosening teeth. also, i always feel guilty when i go to the dentist because as a cocky undergraduate whenever i would get writer's block i would moan and moan and get drunk and tell everyone that i was going to quit writing and become a dental hygienist, like working in dentistry was the worst imaginable fate. i know better now.

• last night we looked at a house for sale in nunhead, for the uninitiated in south london neighbourhoods, nunhead is a little sketchy. not like detroit sketchy (i don't actually believe that anyplace in london can compare to detroit in terms of sketchy scary or bad but this could just be my american naivite) but you know, higher crime levels, fewer bus lines, etc etc. it was a nice house though with hard wood floors and a pretty garden. we're going to look at it again on saturday morning so we can see it with natural light.

• the french estate agent proved the international inability to pronounce my name once more. no matter how many times i stress the short i sound in that last syllable the citizens of europe remain unable to say carolyn. they can only manage caroline and are simply unwilling to attempt any other variation.

• no more news on my dad as yet. he should have come home from the hospital yesterday afternoon. i expect i will have an email from my mom when i get home. i can't yet tell how worried she actually is. her emails are always very low key even when she's at the highest code red state of emergency. plus she just ignores unpleasant things. she's spent the last, gosh, 10 months now, denying that i was ever seriously ill despite all evidence to the contrary. it's what she does, she's got a gift.

• oliver was sorely disappointed to see that i was not staying home again today. not because he likes me or anything but because when someone is home all day he has free access to the garden whenever his manic little heart desires. otherwise, he is locked indoors since there isn't really a decent shelter for him out there when it rains, an it always rains. this is london after all.

• we're going to copenhagen the weekend of 1st december last night jeremy called me to the computer and showed me a google map of a european city and said "know where this is?" and i said "no." and he said "that's the square in copenhagen where we got in a fight about change" (and he didn't mean like the idea of change as in changing jobs or moving or the possibility of a tube stop in or neighbourhood, no he meant change as in money and yes we did get in a very heated argument about it that ended with him saying "why don't you just shut up?" and me glaring at him and considering divorce, but we got over it and still remember that trip to copenhagen fondly which is why we are going back) back to the narrative, i responded by saying "oh yeeeah, you were being an asshole," and he said, "well you were being weird." so i biffed him on the head and then he panned out a bit and showed me the location of a restaurant we tried to go to but couldn't because it was fully booked. we'll reserve a table this time. somehow i think the secret to our love is wrapped up in this ability to have blow out arguments in a public square in a foreign city and then remember them with good humour. this is only a theory though.

• that's all, i just thought one more bullet point would be nice.

i stayed home today because i still feel like crap. probably i could have gone in but i'm tired of going to work when i feel gross

my dad had one of those deals where they put the dye in his arteries yesterday to check for blockage. this is the email i had from my mom this morning
Hi,
Dad is in the hospital over night and I hope to bring him home early
tomorrow morning.
He has three blocked arteries but his heart muscle is strong so they feel
they can correct this problem with angioplasty (balloon inflation to clear
the artery) and stints that will help hold the artery open. But being that
this is your father there is one more little problem we have to check out
first. He has an aneurysm in the main artery to his heart located in the
stomach area that is quite large. It is something the doctor feels is
hereditary but before they can do the angioplasty he must have more test to
determine the size of the aneurysm or weak spot. These test will be done in
the next few days by a specialist and then the decision will be made if he
needs surgery on this weak spot or if it is just something they will watch.
Once that is out of the way he will go back into the hospital for the
angioplasty and get his arteries opened up.
The good news is they could do open heart surgery on him but because his
heart seems strong he can have the easier procedure. This is really good
news and means he will be back to normal fairly quickly. The bad part is we
have to find out about this aneurysm stuff.
It is after eleven and I just got home so I am going to bed and will write
more when I get him home tomorrow. He will have to take some more
medications to help the blood flow smoothly until we get him fixed up but
other than not overdoing he will just wait for the test.
Talk to you later,
Love
Mom

not exactly good news but not exactly terrible, i mean nobody wants an aneurysm but at least he shouldn't need open heart surgery

small blessings, right?