A Crumbling Ruin

A mere shadow of the bastard I once was, that’s me.

I think I mentioned the arthritis yesterday. Shoulder’s been bothering me for months, so I finally had it X-Rayed this week. In addition to the arthritis, they also found an old, formerly undiagnosed, untreated fractured collarbone. I figure this either happened during a sledding incident 10 years ago that banged the shit out of my ribs, or sometime during my decades of nightly black-outs. I expect somebody out there has a hilarious anecdote about some drunken shenanigans that I don’t remember that resulted in the unhappy, delayed diagnosis I received this week.

This explains the excruciating agony I’ve experienced lately when I made the mistake of rolling over in bed onto my left side. Explains a lot of things, really. I need to get this taken care of in order to be a proper father to The Boy. I don’t want to be the kind of delicate, pussy Old Man who can’t rough-house with his kid. Steps must be taken!

So the same-day doc I went in and got the X-Ray permission from called to ‘break’ the news to me, but I insisted on scheduling the follow-up visit with our regular family sawbones, who I wrote to immediately who hasn’t gotten back to me yet. In retrospect, knowing our family doctor only comes to the office 12 days a month, I shoulda jumped at the first opportunity to take the next step, but I am a sucker for brand loyalty. Anyhow, we’re still within the 24-hour period that the online thingee I wrote to her at promised me she’d reply in. If you’re reading this, Dr. Sawbones, I sure would like to hear from you.

I’m also in psychological disrepair brought about by a new weekly newspaper I took over production duties on 4 weeks ago. By this time, I expected we’d have worked out the kinks and would be a smooth-running engine of news dissemination, when in fact, each week has created more redundant work and unnecessary stress than the week before. Production day is Wednesday, and each week Weds. has lasted later into the night than the week before, and the process has broken down worse than the preceding week. My Wednesday diet has lately consisted solely of stomach acid and klonopin. Plus I took the job at a really cheap rate, figuring by a month in we’d be that smooth-running machine I mentioned above; instead, I’ve got the stress-level of Osama bin Laden’s body-double and am drawing about the hourly salary of an assistant manager at McDonalds.

Have I mentioned it’s been a shitty summer? “Dark Knight” is the perfect snapshot in amber of this summer. Bleak, depressing, discouraging and almost too painful to bear.

On the other hand, this new shoulder diagnosis adds a welcome physical element to the misery I’ve been in for months. This, maybe, something can be done about. If Dr. Sawbones ever gets back to me, I’m gonna tell her to take as drastic a measure as my insurance will allow me. I actually feel better already, having something solid to hang my unhappiness on. Physical maladies can be pushed back against; psych melt-downs are just pathetic and open-ended.

And as far as the new paper goes, I’m having a pow-wow with the boss tomorrow. Either things get more organized, and quick, or I’m giving my two weeks notice. I really like this boss and our working relationship has been ultra-cool up till now, but things are going to change on this new publication, and fast, or I am no shit outta there. The money was nice and we’ll miss it, but money has never been my bottom line.

So finally, after months on end of sad shit I had no power to affect, change or undo, suddenly I’ve got two major issues that I’m actually empowered to resolve. I’m almost beginning to feel like my old self again.

Emphasis on “old.”