Just in case you hadn’t noticed, I am a talented and very serious artist.

I call this… Mixed Message.

(Only click through if there are no bosses, kiddies, kitties, members of the clergy, Dakota Fanning, or baskets of fluffy chicks and goslings present.)

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So, My Writing Mojo has been MIA for a couple months now. I came just short of putting out an APB when she flounced in unceremoniously this morning, dropped her bag on the floor, flopped on the couch with her feet up on one arm, and turned on the TV.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said the only thing I could think of. “Where the hell have you been, young lady?! I’ve been worried sick! You could have been dead in a ditch somewhere! What, they don’t have phones where you were?!” I spun my mental Rolodex and searched my memory for other similar admonishments my own mother had used on me. “You are SO grounded, missy!”

She smiled smugly in a way that made me want to punch her in the throat a little bit. “Yeahyeah, suresure. Whatever.”

“No, there’s NO whatever. You just disappeared without a trace and not so much as a warning shot for a couple damn months. AND you missed our bloggy birfday yesterday! I demand an explanation! Hell, our readers reader deserves an explanation! They’ve been putting up with only Wordless Wednesday and Tell Me Thursday posts, which are all well and good, but all alone they spell LAME, sister!” I fumed.

She didn’t bother glancing away from The View. “I wouldn’t figure you’re in any position to be demanding anything.” she huffed. “Do you have any Cheetos?”

“No, I don’t have any– Dammit– if I get you some Cheetos, will you fill me in?” I pointed and shot red laser beams out my eyeballs at her.

She gave me her best color-me-unimpressed expression and said, “Throw in a Mountain Dew and a pack of smokes, and you got a deal.” She directed her attention back to Whoopi and Elizabeth who were currently in a heated debate about saving beavers in the rainforests.

I threw my hands up in the air. “Oh, for the… I’ll be right back, you extortionist.” I was secretly pretty proud of her chutzpah; she had something I needed, and she didn’t let that go without making use of it.

As I drove down to the convenience store, my mind whirled. Where had she been? What had she been doing? Images of dirty carnivals and cold Taco Bell and jails danced in my head.

I came back in the house and tossed her first, the Cheetos and second, the smokes. She caught one with her left and one with her right, barely glancing my way.

“Well?!”

“Oh, unclench. Where’s my pop?”

“In the freezer. Spill it, sister.”

“Let’s go smoke.”

Twist my arm. I turned on my heel and walked out of the room.

On the way out to the deck, I snatched her pop out of the fridge and grabbed myself a Bud Light. At that point, I was so flustered, it was not a want; it was a need. I paused, thought better of it, and exchanged the Mountain Dew for another beer. Perhaps it would grease the wheels a little. We settled into lawn chairs, not looking at each other, but rather across the backyard and into the timber beyond. I handed her the beer and got a slightly surprised look in return. The expression left as fast as it came, and she directed her gaze back out into nowhere as she packed her smokes on her thigh before she opened them. I cracked my can open and took that best, first pull. She made the sign for “lighter” without looking at me and I lit her up. She took a long, hungry drag and picked at her fingernails.

I said, “I really could’ve used you all those hours I was on third shift instead of sitting there with my thumb up the internet.”

Almost apologetically she said, “Yeah, I figured. I felt kind of bad about that.”

I used one of my therapist’s favorite techniques and remained silent, not breaking the silence for her. Suck it, chivalry.

She risked a glance my way. “Yeah, January was great. We got a lot done, didn’t we?”

I didn’t answer, just took another pull on my beer and studiously avoided looking at her.

“February was bad. Teh Crazie scared me,” she remarked quietly, looking down at nothing.

I nodded slowly. “Me, too. I suppose I probably didn’t handle it as well as I thought I did. But I thought we had it under some semblance of control.”

“Well, then we were pondering The Girlbeater and I got really spooked.”

“That’s understandable,” I allowed. “But we have some important work to do. It won’t be easy.”

“I guess I knew that deep down. I suppose it’s what made me realize I needed to come back home.” She looked at me timidly, needing a pardon.

“Well, I’m glad you did. I kind of missed you, you crazy bitch,” I chuckled a little.

“Yeahyeah, suresure,” she shot me a mischievous grin.

“Are you ready to get back to it?” I wondered.

“Yeah, I suppose. I’ve got some great stories for you.”

“I bet! Gimme a taste, girl!” I sat back in the chair and put my feet up on the little end table between us, immensely glad to see her and thankful she found her way home.

“You asked for it!” She put her feet up on the other corner of the end table and held out her beer can. I gave it a clunk with mine, and extended my closed hand to invite a fist bump. She smirked and bumped. “So, there I was, in a dirty bus station in Utah, a used spark plug in one hand, a Red Bull in the other, and a drunk slumped onto my shoulder and mumbling about being on a porn set with Martha Stewart, some midget clowns and a Zamboni…” she began.

I settled in with the first of many, many beers and cigarettes, and some really fantastic stories. A couple hours in, some Chinese delivery was added to the equation.

It’s so good to have her back.

You may have seen my tweet about the tax refund coming (Well, helloooOOOoooOOOooo Mr. Tax Refund! Come to Mama!) and lots of huge changes came with it.

New Ears

First of all, HunkyDory paid it forward. Much thanks from the bottom of my heart to all who helped me get my new ears. They’ve been working fabulously! That money that was given to us for the HAs has been paid forward plus some extra. So your gift did double duty, first to me, and now a gift to someone else in need.

Just as I was getting used to the new HAs, I had a setback last weekend. I had sharp, stabbing pains in my left ear on and off all day Friday. I get these once in awhile and really didn’t think much of it. It feels kind of like a bad toothache except in my ear. But when I put in my HAs on Saturday morning, it felt like the left one wasn’t working at all. I tried new batteries, and that didn’t work. I tried sticking the receiver of the left aid in my right ear and realized it was actually working fine; it was my ear that was the problem. I went in to the audiologist today, and when he peeked in there, he didn’t see anything abnormal. He said I needed to go see an ENT doc because he had done all he could do. I asked him if he could just turn up the left so I wasn’t so lopsided. He was all, “Sure, no problem” and we went into the office and plugged the aid into the computer. He said, “I’m going to turn this up about 3db and we’ll see if that does it.” Nothing. No difference. He looked a little puzzled and said, “I’ll turn it up another 4db.” Zip. Like he hadn’t turned it up at all. He looked a little worried, turned it back down, and said we’ll have to see what the ENT says. So I can hear almost nothing on the left and it rings almost constantly and is a lot louder than I’m used to. If you’re so inclined, I’d sure appreciate it if you remembered me in your prayers, because it’s seriously freaking me out. I’ve never experienced a decay this noticeable this fast before. I hope it’s just something temporary that they can fix, because it would seriously suck ass to lose a bunch more hearing when I feel like I just got it back.

New job

I’m working at a homeless shelter now, part-time overnights, on the weekends. The new HAs made that possible. I couldn’t do this before because there’s only one staff member on at a time and you have to be able to answer the phone. Even with the volume at maximum I still can’t catch every word, but I understand most of the conversation.

My very first night, the cops called to see if we could give someone slightly inebriated an emergency cot, and I had to tell them we had already told the person earlier that we wouldn’t; then someone else came in way past curfew all upset and I dealt with that. Talk about getting thrown in the deep end!

I think I’ll like this job a lot. When things are quiet, you can do about whatever you want to, except sleep. So hopefully I’ll have more time to read and write. I’ve been so stinkin’ busy the last couple months, I have a list of post subjects as long as my arm, and I’m really looking forward to getting more writing done. Oh, and call me Captain Obvious, but I just gotta say, overnights seriously throw your sleep schedule all kinds of out of whack!

New phone

After salivating over the iPhone for almost two years, I finally got my hot little hands on one.

It’s so frickin’ hawsum, I want to buy it a shot of tequila and tongue kiss it and ask it if it wants to come in for “coffee” and buy it breakfast in the morning and call it the next day and court it and tell it that I don’t want to have any more kids but I would if it would make it happy and take it to Vegas and marry it in a drive-through wedding chapel with an Elvis impersonator officiating and live happily ever after.

It needs a name. Now taking suggestions.

Since Hunky felt sorry for my poor jilted Tilt, he took it in and gave it a new home on his hip. It’s very thankful. Actually, it runs on Windoze though, so it probably is nursing an arrogant, false sense of entitlement. It totally has Hunky pegged as a soft touch, and it’s all acting out and testing him. I have to step in now and then and use my scary mom voice to coerce it into submission. It’s kind of a snotty little shithead.

New furnace

This came about not because of the tax refund but I’m throwing it in there because 1- It matches with the “New ___” theme I’ve got going here and B- It’s just so hawsum. We applied for energy assistance a couple months ago and, thank God, were given credit on our gas bill. I had to sign something about completing a weatherization thing on our house and didn’t think much of it. So a couple weeks later, this guy came in and said, “Oh, this furnace has got to go.” And I was all, “Because you know the furnace fairy personally and she owes you a favor?” and he was all, “Uh, well, you don’t have to pay for it.” and I was all, *speechless* because I’m quick and witty like that.

Let me just tell you how old our furnace was. The house was built in 1948 and it’s original. It’s a bonafide antique. Somewhere along the line, it was converted from coal to gas. It still had the hieroglyphics on it from when my house was a cave and dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Six estimates later, we have a bright, shiny new furnace and my basement really couldn’t be more happy to welcome the new guy. It takes up half the space. It’s 92% efficient compared to the old 60-ish% efficient dinosaur. It’s handsome and smart and charismatic and sexy.

New computer

My beloved iMac, Edgrr, is four and a half years old, and I was starting to really worry about it pooping out or crashing when I have graphics jobs lined up to get done. Obviously, we haven’t exactly had a couple extra thousand dollars lying around to get a new Mac. Well, my friend Marcia knew that I was a complete mac nut and told me a friend of hers had a Macbook for sale, only one year old and all tricked out (4gb RAM and 500gb hard drive!) to be able to handle graphics work. I told her I was really super interested and she hooked us up. We emailed back and forth on Friday, and the UPS man visited me TODAY! I can’t wait to move into it! *claps hands excitedly* As we speak, I have the Carbon Copy Cloner copying the hard drive on the old computer, and I’ll start moving into the new laptop tomorrow after I get off work and get a nap. This laptop is going to come in really handy when I’m working these overnights. We now have three Macs in our house.

Again, with the name-needing. Now taking suggestions.

New… wait, what?

To wrap up, HunkyDory has done their part. Consider the economy duly stimulated.

Dory didn’t get ALL the good stuff. Just most of it. Hunky got the parts to make his Virago AND his Intercepter run, and the Virago will get some plastic surgery to get a new paint job and take out the dent in the fuel tank. We are still batting around the idea of finding a used Wii so the boys will also get some happy happy from the tax refund even though the little turds probably don’t deserve it. I can’t get them to finish their chore list every day for a week to save their life! We told Rocky that if he would finish all his chores consistently, we would keep him in minutes and texts on his cell phone. It is currently a glorified paperweight.

The rest of it goes to *sigh* BILLS. But I certainly can’t complain. It’s just so amazing to me how God makes sure we have everything we need and even some things we want. We’re so blessed.

What’d you spend your tax refund on?

Then as hard as I tried, I couldn’t NOT do it.

Do what? you inquire.

(As an aside, my photoshop powers carry an awesome amount of responsibility which I find immensely easy to ditch when it suits me.)

Well, in way of explanation, first I read this post wherein Tanis is speaking on “ping envy.” (Shuddup, that’s what we call it at our house.)

Then I clicked a link she posted to this website, where I saw this picture:

Well, lookit that! A CityGirl! What a coincidence, I have a CityGirl! She’s one of my best bloggy BFFs, and has perpetual immunity from getting kicked off my Google Reader. I’m 99% sure that she’s subscribed to me, too; which is a state that I am about to place in a very precarious position. A state which is in grave danger and very well could change after I post this:

*ducks and covers*

*peeks out from hiding spot*

CityGirl, you still love me, right? Right?! I get as good as I give, so feel free to wail away on me!

So. About those hearing aids.

I’ll back up a bit to fill you in. This process has been dragging on for months and months and months. I’m not even exaggerating– I started working with Voc Rehab in July 2007 to get new hearing aids. I was working with a program that’s designed to give people with disabilities some help in setting up their own business. It’s really designed to get people off SSDI and earning their own income. I don’t receive SSDI because I applied and was denied because apparently I’m not disabled enough (the important thing is I’m not bitter about that *wink*) but you know, whatever. *waves hand* Anywho, they match up to $10k for equipment you need to get going, and for me, that meant, a new computer, display, software, and hearing aids. Well, like all things bureaucratic, it was moving at approximately the speed of erosion.

So, I decided, enough, let’s get this show on the road. I had my VR guy change the paperwork to halt that process and just get the hearing aids as quickly as possible. I could pursue the other program again afterward. I went in and got the hearing tests done, and found out that the aids I needed were about $1000 more than the state would pay so we’d have to pay the difference. We couldn’t fit even one more payment into our budget, so financing was not an option. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone. Well, as far as I know. I went on a mission to find the funding that could pay the difference. I was trying to make the calls, and was hung up on multiple times. Apparently, a relay operator sounds remarkably like a telemarketer. So I emailed my guy, gave him the information and asked him to make the calls for me.

About a month later, he emailed me… “Hey, where are we at?”

Seriously?

I replied, “Last we talked, I sent you numbers to call for funding.”

A few weeks later, I emailed him… “Hey, where we at?”

He replied, “Sorry, I got busy, but I have CR Hearing Center on the phone as I type. I’ll let you know.”

A couple weeks later, I emailed him… “Hey, where we at?”

He replied, “Why don’t we get together so we can see where we’re at.”

*drops face into both hands*

You get the picture.

On 2/6/09, I got frustrated enough to take matters into my own hands. I asked Tom to call Abry Hearing Center and make me an appointment to see if they knew of any funding resources I could use. I have a friend that is also losing her hearing, and she said these were just the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. Tom called for me and they said I could come in on Monday 2/9/09.

I went in thinking they’d have some time blocked out for me and we’d just be talking about funding resources. Well, before I knew it, Bill did the whole shpiel, testing and everything… and then asked me if I’d like to test-drive a pair of Zon 7s! Uh, hells yeah!

Bill plugged one into the computer and did his magic to make the thing know all the results of my hearing tests. He put it on me, and turned it on.

Whoa.

There really aren’t words to describe how that felt. 

Bill said he had another one, but it was out with another customer while their HA was in the shop.  It would be coming back later that day, and so I should come back then and he’d fit it to me.  How’d they do that, you ask? Well, it’s one that doesn’t use an ear mold; instead it uses a tube with a rubber stopper that’s kind of like a noise canceling ear bud, and that part is what they keep on hand so multiple people can use that “loaner” aid. The tube goes from in the ear, over the top of the ear, and behind where it plugs into the aid itself. The tube is clear, so you can barely even see it. I don’t care if people can tell I’m wearing HAs, so I’m considering buying some lime green nail polish to paint the aid bright and happy anyway. I’m just kidding. Kind of. Ok, I can’t lie to you, I’m still considering it.

I walked outside, and the whole world rushed at me. All the different sounds were so overwhelming, so huge, so crisp, so amazing. 

I ran a few errands and then came back to have him fit me on the other side. This time I hauled Hunky in, too, so he could see the cool stuff going on in the computer. This particular model plugs into the computer and looks at your audiogram, then compensates for your particular level of loss accordingly. For example, I have almost normal hearing at the highest frequencies, a moderate loss in the lowest frequencies, and severe loss in the middle frequencies where most voices carry on normal conversation. So the aid doesn’t boost the highs, boosts the lows a bit, and boosts the mids the most. He even showed us how the computer makes a graph with bars showing what I hear, and what the hearing aid is compensating for. As we were talking, we watching the bars dance up and down; sometimes what I heard didn’t even register any bars, and you could see the bars for the hearing aids high-stepping their little hearts out.

It was simply astonishing. I can hear the police car before I see it in the mirror, the birds, conversation… oh, and music. Oh, wow. Oh, wow oh wow oh wow. Music sounds right. Since my mids are gone, I can’t hear melody well at all, so music sounded… off. I can hear the bass parts well and some background, so it ends up odd or off-key unless I turn it waaay up, enough that it would do damage and prematurely deafen me. Which reminds me of another cool little extra… because these have like a noise-canceling little stopper inside the ear, it actually protects my cochlea from loud noise damage. When loud noise hits the receiver, it actually turns it down before it transmits the sound to my cochlea, so I still hear it some, but it’s buffered a little bit to avoid further damage. How friggin’ cool is that shit?!

I had those for a week, and hells yeah, I put those little suckers through their paces! I went all over town running errands, a Valentine’s Day banquet in a noisy ballroom, and a bar with live music, and even used the phone. And it was absolutely astounding. Like I said, I had no idea that I had lost so much hearing, and what I was missing. 

Then I had to give them back when the week was over. 

I thought I had prepared myself adequately. I was wrong.

It was bad timing anyway. February is always hard for me to get through, the worst month of the year when it seems like the gray winter will never reach her end. PMS week in February? You better put me on suicide watch, and I’m only half joking about that. I managed through PMS week and thought I had gotten through it. Well, the PMS had a fun little surprise in store for me. It cruised right through the P and kept right on truckin’ right into the M. The day I gave them back, I was hemorrhaging to death (well, that’s what it feels like, right, girls?), ripping peoples’ faces off, and on the verge of tears all damn day. I couldn’t even hardly stand myself. I became convinced that everyone, including and especially Teh Innernetz, hated me hard and that I was the bloggy equivalent of that pathetic little kid who know one picks for their team and eats lunch alone and *wails* no one ever talks to me on Twitter and no one reads me because I suck ass *dramatic hand to forehead* and WAAAHHHHH. Oh, it was UUUUHG– LEE. The final blow was when I seriously and completely. lost. my. shit. I totally ripped into Hunky over something really stupid and he called me out on it. One minute I was shredding him with my she-claws and the next minute I was apologizing for being so nasty and selfish and sobbing ugly-crying, snot flying hither and yon. He literally took a step back, shook his head, looked at me and went, “WHOA. Where’s. The. Fries.” 

Not my proudest moment ever.

After he talked me down from the ledge, I admitted I perhaps, possibly, might have been a little more upset than I initially let on about giving back the hearing aids.

We talked for quite awhile about the hearing aids and our options. They weren’t exactly plentiful. The ones that I had test-driven were Zon 7s and they were $4850. They said they’d give us $600 off, and VR would pay $2200.We hadn’t heard back from The Lion’s Club or The Masons yet, which were two possibilities for funding. About then, CityGirl emailed me and said I should ask for help from my friends, both IRL and of the bloggy variety (i.e. Mah Peepull). I replied that I felt like I really couldn’t because it was such a high amount. Meanwhile about four different people came up to Tom at the Mission and said that they wanted to help me get the aids if they could. Then Hunky talked to Bill, who said that maybe we should consider that they also had two other models, the Zon 5 and the Zon 3. It was possible that I could get the Zon 3 completely covered by VR after more discounts Abry wanted to give us to try to help. I was like, ok, but truthfully, I was underwhelmed. I felt like I would be getting a little old lady’s hearing aid, and I’m a little more active than a LOL sitting at home and watching her stories and going to Bingo and Potluck every other week. I was afraid it wouldn’t sound the same, and Hunky encouraged me to go back and talk to Bill about it.

Which brings us to today.

Bill said yes, the Zon 3 was kind of a LOL hearing aid, but it would get the job done. He showed me the differences in the two models, the Zon 3 and the Zon 5; mainly how intuitive it was, additional bands and channels, and how it reacted better in special situations like a quiet room, a busy restaurant, or outside on a windy day. He said that eventually we could trade up to the Zon 5, which really was best suited for someone younger and more active like me. Thinking that he’d say something like $1000 or $1500, I asked, “So how much would we need to come up with to trade up to the Zon 5?”

“$400,” he said.

“$400?!” I squeaked. 

“Yes, $400.”

My jaw dropped.

*skwees a little bit*

See, between my IRL friends and my bloggy friends and of course us, that’s totally doable! I’m sure you’ve seen how $5s and $10s and $20s add up real fast, so I’m so excited!

Once my VR guy returns Abry’s call with the OK to go ahead, it will only take one week for the new HAs to arrive! So, I admit, I’m like, rilly rilly bad at this, but if you want to help, I’d be so grateful to you for any amount at all, because it all adds up. If the budget is too tight, I understand. Maybe you could just help by emailing your IRL friends about my Etsy, or tweeting the url of my store, which is http://cantrememberdiddly.etsy.com. So if you could send your friends over to my Etsy store, they could get a purty picture and help me get my new HAs! 

I would truly appreciate anything at all you can do to spread the word, mah peepull.