An inauspicious anniversary.

For many years, I've been very aware of the anniversary of starting this journal on LJ,  which has been a large and largely amazing part of my life. In several of them, it was possible, even easy, to speed up/slow down an entry here and there so that the anniversary entries were also numerically significant. This one from two years ago, for instance, was the 2900th; the '07 anniversary was the 1440th (gross!); and, the year before that, I hit 1000 on the button.

Yesterday, the eight anniversary of beginning, I was stuck on 3,978, and it was so short of a meaningful mark that I didn't even bother posting anything.

I've been worried about this blog (in, now, its double life on both LJ and DW to flummox the spammers and DDOSers) getting too tired, too same-old, too kvetchy. If I'd taken the time to write about anything yesterday, it would have been more blah blah Emily's back to the dentist blah blah and I couldn't subject me, much less you, to much more of that.  Comments here are way down, and I sense a growing sense of ennui getting into a lot of the journals and journalists here.

It won't be easy for me to just shut up. Hell, I've got my next entry already in my head, and it's a beaut.  But your comments (whether here, there or anywhere) and friendships will always matter to me, no matter what does, or doesn't, show up on these electronic pages.

We're facing a near-certain reality that Eleanor's laptop content will not be recoverable, and, while we managed to store and save her collection of pictures that was on it, a lot of other content- recipes, spreadsheets, contacts- is likely to have just gone poof. She will start over, as I have more than a few times over the years, and while we'll miss what was lost, I have no doubt that she will do a good job of moving on from it.  I hope that will never happen with these words, and even if it does, I will do all in my heart and power to maintain the friendships that began here and that now, and always will, transcend this place.

So happy anniversary to me. And thanks and love to all of you.

This Bud's for you.

When I said, earlier, that I already had my next entry "in my head," I wasn't kidding.

Let me tell you about my hoinia trip to the ear nose and throat place earlier.

I told some of you about this, I know, but here was Teh Stupid that got me there: Sunday before last, after decades of danger, I finally managed to pop an eardrum on account of using a goddam Qtip against its explicit instructions.  I felt what seemed like a water drop or air bubble hit way inside, and next I knew, OW. But the hearing in that ear seemed okay, which is key, because that ear, the left one, has been my only fully functioning one for over 40 years. I ruptured the eardrum in the right one a few months before turning 10, it healed but the hearing never fully came back, and between avoidance and indifference I managed to not ever try anything meaningful to enhance it or repair it.

When the condition didn't clear after a few days- pain was still occasionally there, plus more than usual ringing- I got an ENT referral, and today was the day. They were going to start with the audiologist checking the hearing, but when she looked at the left one with a basic-level scope, it looked, and this is a quote, "weird."  I was sent to a PA with stronger microscopic equipment, and she confirmed the weirdness.  Something was in there, and it wasn't a Qtip, base or cotton.  Had I ever had tubes put in?  Not from that end, I replied; I briefly wondered if some part had migrated from one of my many root canals up that way, but after a few painful pokes, she got it out.

And what was "it," you may ask?

( Behold a common everyday object.... )

So that cleared up the problem as such.  There's still some ringing, but there was a fair piece of yanking plus, you know, it was IN THERE for all that time so I'm expecting a bit of that. There's no hole in the drum and the hearing in that ear (once I was passed back to the audiologist) tested out as perfectly okay for one mine age.

But then a funny thing happened. Just for shits and giggles, they checked the hearing in the right ear. Dead ear. Deaf ear. And yaknow? There IS some. It's below normal on the charts, but especially when they bypassed the ear canal and connected the testing device to the bone in the back? I could hear words, even with the left ear white-noised out.

This opens up a long-overdue lifetime of possibilities. Hearing aids or even a surgical fix. We still have the wherewithal.

The best part, of course, was that in order to do the testing, they had to put fairly invasive noise-canceling headphones into both ears. I asked them to check and be sure that they hadn't left any parts behind;)