2003-10-16 - 6:55 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Come Together", Beatles

I want to write. I have an urge to write. And yet I am fussing because I feel too boring. So I'll just write for me for a while, boring or not.

My life is "boring" lately. Not to me, of course. In the writing sense. I'm not viewing life as as series of stories to tell -- my "inner journal voice" is turned off almost all the time now. But I'm experiencing a lot of things, in a pleasantly mindless sort of way, so I'm really very happy. Every day -- seriously, every day -- something happens that makes me say to Poindexter, "I love living here."

Now that my worries about my dad are subsiding -- his prognosis so far is really the best we could have hoped for -- I am settling in and enjoying the fall.

When MIL was here, she introduced me to the Comice pear, in season. They are just incredible. I never thought I liked fruit much, but apparently the problem was just that I was eating it out of season. I love the Comice pears. Then last week, I dropped by a farmer's market (reason #1078 why I love living here) and felt adventurous, so I picked up one each of the three ripe pears they had. Two of them were Asian pears, which have become my new obsession. WOW! They are so sweet and juicy and have a faint taste of butterscotch. And I love the texture, midway between a pear and an apple. I've been eating one a day for the last week.

I finally got my ass over to the Italian Market. I went there when I was a kid, with my mom, grandmother, Aunt Cassie, and cousin Stefan. Stefan was in a stroller at the time (he's 22 now). There were some things I remembered about it: An awning over the sidewalk, and tables filled with stuff for sale on the sidewalk. I was amazed and inordinately pleased to see that it was just as I had remembered. And it also has a poulterer and a butcher shop with really good prices, so I'm seriously considering doing my weekly shopping there. Look out for Crazy Cart Lady!

There is also a bakery there that I had heard about -- Sarcone's -- which was bustling on a Sunday morning when I went over there. It has the most wonderful crusty sesame-seeded Italian loaves of bread I have ever had. It's so good I don't need butter or olive oil or anything.

I love my mango tea. I get all excited about drinking it every day.

Also, I have been eating scones and cream every day. I was feeling guilty about it (saturated fat clogging my arteries!) until I read the label and measured the cream I use, and realized I'm only using about a teaspoon. This is about 7% of the US RDA for saturated fat. I don't think that'll kill me. And I only eat a quarter of a scone at a time.

Look at that. Most of my joyous rapture is about food. Hm. When I was a kid, I never understood why grownups got so freaking excited about food. Now it occupies a lot of my waking thoughts.

Another thing I've been doing that makes me happy is wearing my little fall outfits. All my favorite outfits are fall outfits. I love brown. I love jackets. I should start having Poindexter take a photo of each outfit so you can see them all. I got myself a gorgeous microsuede red jacket. I also like velour. I got gorgeously soft velour "utility pants" and a matching velour pullover hoodie at the Gap, to wear around the house. It has three-quarter sleeves, even. The web site says it's "navy", but the color is actually a deep purplish-blue with grayish-blue highlights (or whatever you call them in velour) that I get all excited about.

I've been making plans to get new hearing aids. When I was a kid, there was a guy who made house calls to fit me with hearing aids and molds. I tried to Google him, but kept getting some author with the same name. So I got a number from my mom. The number didn't pick up, so I Googled again and finally found a picture. The author IS the one who I knew as a kid. Wowie!

I don't think I've seen him in almost ten years. I'm very excited about it, because the hardest part about choosing someone to buy things like this from is the service, and I know I'll get good service from him. And his prices shouldn't be too bad either. I'm lucky that I have enough money so that I can choose to pay more for better service. For some things, like hearing aids and glasses, it really transforms the experience.

There seem to be some new possibilities for me, hearing-aids-wise. I hope. Fifteen years ago, the only real option for me was an analog hearing aid. This is the kind that just amplifies everything pretty much equally. Since my hearing is worse in some frequencies than others, this meant that in order to hear the bad frequencies, I'd have to turn up the volume so much that the good frequencies were too loud. So I'd have to forego some amplification on the bad.

Six years ago, I bought "digitally programmable" hearing aids. As I understand it, they are essentially analog hearing aids, BUT you can program them digitally (i.e. with computer programming) to amplify different frequencies differently.

A step up from this is "fully digital". These actually analyze analog sound and convert it to digital sound. This allows them to correct distortion and make really clear sound for the wearer. Supposedly it's similar to what happens with CDs.

If all this interests you, there's a little more detail here.

So. Back in 1996 when I got my current pair of hearing aids, fully digital was either not available or was only available for people with moderate losses. (Losses are described as moderate/severe/profound, in order of worsening hearing loss. Mine is moderate-bordering-severe at the lower frequencies to profound at the higher ones.) Now, however, they're making them for profound losses.

My ears MIGHT be too profoundly deaf to make good use of these -- my high-frequency loss was in the 110-120 decibel range in 1996 and could be worse now, and 110dB seems to be the bottom range for the hearing aids for profound losses. But I'm hoping. *crosses fingers*

One thing I AM very excited about is the possibility of directional microphones. One of the most annoying things about being deaf is how my hearing aids are overwhelmed with background noise. Those of you who dine out with me know that I always try to find quiet restaurants. But with directional microphones, you can flip a switch and tell your hearing aid ONLY to listen to sounds directly in front of you, thus blocking out most background noise. I had one of these on my first hearing aid, back when I was 8 or so, and haven't had it since. I really, really hope I can get it now.

Another big occupation lately has been organizing and keeping things neat. When MIL was here, I kept it neater than usual for her, and after she left I wanted to keep it that way. I'm being more vigilant about dealing with dishes and mail and little things that pile up.

I am not organized to the extent that Kit is, but I am at the point that I have a place for everything, making it a lot easier to keep the house neat. When I need to find something, I know where it is to within three places , as opposed to having to tear through piles and piles of paper to find it, getting more irritated by the second. I say "within three places" because my filing system is so new that I can't remember exactly where I put some things. But it's better than the random piles.

So, this is a huge improvement. Like, tonight Poindexter wanted some stuff related to his 1998 tax return. He calculated it in a way that Virginia didn't like, so they took money out of our 2001 refund. I found both the 1998 return and the piece of paper with the deduction in the refund in less than 5 minutes without making myself crazy. This is downright AMAZING for me.

Also, I finally realized that I have to have a "clutter box". I'm never going to have a place for every last paper. But if I keep the clutter box small, and force myself to go through it on a monthly basis (or more often, if I can stand it), then I'll have it under control.

Last night I had a dream that I had a baby boy. Except it wasn't Poindexter's kid, and I'm not even sure it was mine, so I'm really not sure how I got it. But there he was. And I tried breastfeeding him, and he actually latched on right away, first try. From what I've heard and seen, a lot of babies are surprisingly moronic and can't figure out how to latch (how the hell did this trait evolve? Before bottles, that was a good way to die in infancy, no?), so I was quite pleased that we were doing so well. Even though I really wasn't sure it was my kid, so how could I be lactating?

Then I misplaced the baby and couldn't find him. I always do that in dreams. Once I put a baby in a flour bin (he was very small, maybe three inches long) and couldn't find him in there later. It was very upsetting.

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