dear diary

Some things have happened lately:

1) I injured my shoulder at work yesterday. Really I would say I re-injured it, since it's been bothering me for, oh, a year and a half now. The initial injury was work-related too: I was vacuuming at work and something just went wrong in my shoulder (rotator cuff, probably) and it's never fully healed. I didn't report it because I was embarrassed by the triviality, and more importantly terrified of my then-manager, whom I tried to avoid as much as possible. Until now haven't brought my shoulder problems up with my doctor for various reasons, including but not limited to $$$ and whether surgery, if surgery were recommended, would actually do any good, and in any case wanting to save up my $$$ and time off for the surgery I actually want.

But yesterday it caught up with me. I currently am the curbside pickup department at work, the other person having quit a couple of months back. So I do everything from admin to loading groceries into people's cars. And yesterday, having loaded groceries into somebody's hatchback SUV, I reached up (and up and up) to close the hatch. I felt the strain, but reached up just a little more, and then oh noes, much sharp pain in left shoulder, followed by aching and weakness in my shoulder and down my upper arm. All of which has happened before, but this time I had a definite work-related trigger and a non-horrible manager, so I reported it and went to urgent care. Diagnosed with shoulder impingement (which seems to be Medical for rotator cuff injury), given an ice pack and a sling for support, referred to physical therapy, and placed on work restrictions that are not going to be easy to actually follow: no lifting above the waist and limiting my use of my left arm for most of the next month. The timing is very bad, because my only other help (1 person, 1 day a week) has just gone on vacation for the next two weeks, and since HR has been taking their sweet time about approving a hire, it was decided that I would just handle it all myself, limiting the number of pickups if necessary, until we managed to hire someone. Well, now I can't move boxes full of groceries, so either I get some help or we don't do curbside pickup. (And I don't know what I'll do for work--the plan had already been to move me more to the admin side, since I'm good at it and we need someone to coordinate, but we're not ready.)

Bad, bad timing.


2) After my visit to Urgent Care* yesterday, I had just gotten home and lain down with an ice pack on my shoulder when the UC clinic called me. I was informed that they'd just discovered that my account from my last visit (in late 2018, with bronchitis) was in collections for nonpayment and they recommended that I call the collections agency. Now, my insurance should have paid for this. I never had a clue that they hadn't paid for it. I never got any kind of bill or notice, and I am mightily wrathful. I need to call the collections agency and call my insurance company and I really, really don't wanna. I should do it today, but I am putting it off until next week on the grounds that I really, really don't wanna, and also I am tired and my shoulder hurts and I just. don't. wanna.

*I'm not sure if Urgent Care is a thing outside the US. It's developed here over the last 20 years or so? Basically, Urgent Care clinics handle cases where you need immediate treatment that can't wait for a regular doctor's appointment, but that aren't life-threatening emergencies. Got an earache or a shoulder injury? Go to Urgent Care. Having a heart attack? Go to the nearest Emergency Room (and hope they take your insurance). Urgent Care in itself is a pretty good system, really, but it's tied in to the increasing difficulty of seeing your own doctor if you're lucky enough to have one (despite what advocates of the US system like to claim, long wait times to see a doctor are normal here too) and the exorbitant cost of emergency treatment, which can run into tens of thousands of dollars for a single visit.


3) If the electricity goes off in my apartment complex, even for a second, all the main fire alarms start to sound. (Not the ones in people's apartments, but the ones outside.) It's been hot lately, with people running their AC and using a lot of electricity, so this has happened several times. Last night, it started at 3:30 in the morning and continued until almost 6:00. I'm very glad today is one of my days off.


4) Much less important than 1) and 2), but for some reason irritating me much more: after listening to the latest Rusty Quill Gaming, I commented on Patreon that I hoped ( a little spoilery, I guess, for recent character stuff )

more questions

From the question-a-day meme:

August 12: If you could implant one false memory in the minds of everyone in your country, what would that memory be?

At first I thought I would implant the memory of how Hilary Clinton won the Electoral College, as well as the popular vote (which, of course, she really did win) in 2016. But if it didn't actually change history, just our perception, it would only result in her getting the blame for the shambles the US is in.

So, I'm going to implant the vivid, clear, unmistakable memory of Donald Trump kicking an adorable puppy for no reason while on live TV. Even Trump fans love puppies, right? They've been able to excuse everything else he's done, but how could they excuse that?


August 13: If you could bring back any canceled TV series, which TV show would you choose to bring back?

The obvious answer is Hannibal, a show I adored that was canceled prematurely, but . . . no. By S3 it was strained to the breaking point, what with the queer love story/stories that Fuller wanted to tell, and the limits the network imposed on him, and Fuller's inexplicable attachment to retelling the events of Thomas Harris's novels even when they didn't fit into the story world he'd established. S3 was a hot mess with a few beautiful moments, and even giving Fuller complete creative control wouldn't fix the problem of him wanting to keep all of Harris's plots while telling an entirely different story. As a Hannibal fan, I think the show ended not a moment too soon.

Hmm. This is a hard question for me, because I have been disappointed, even heartbroken, too often by shows I started out loving. I would actually prefer that a show ends too soon, with lots of unfulfilled potential, rather than too late.

I'm going to go weird on this one and say: Cadfael. A show that I watched almost exclusively for some supporting characters, and that (except for those characters) was never as good as it could have been. It could be better now, with bolder scripts, deeper emotional arcs, and actual queer characters! Bring it back set twenty-five years in the future, with England finding peace again after the devastation of civil war, and some elderly monks of Shrewsbury Abbey still getting on each other's nerves. Let Cadfael take on some mysteries with fewer plot contrivances, less "dark ages of superstition" nonsense, and more genuine moral complexity. And let Brother Jerome and Prior Robert struggle through their feelings for one another.


August 14: Are you usually early, late, or on time? Why?

Usually a bit early. I hate being late. I also hate it when other people are late. I detest waiting; it makes me so tense that I can't relax and enjoy anything. (I've just spent all afternoon waiting for the pharmacy to deliver my meds, and it was awful even though I wasn't planning to go anywhere.) So I try not to make others wait for me, and hope they'll return the courtesy.