Got a call from the clinic and then a page from the Crowley hospital within probably half an hour of one another. Phone calls at home are unreliable and it’s one thing when it’s your brother and you can just text him to go “hey, the call dropped” and quite another when you are waiting to hear, from someone probably on a landline switchboard, whether you have a sick tit.
I wanted to get online anyway, so I came to Jennings (I am here right now) and called my clinic from the library parking lot. Not long after that talk, the hospital called me.
Good news. It’s benign. I have to go back in six months and do this fucking song and dance again, but they just want to watch it. I have a Mass of Unusual Size somewhere in there (I would not have felt it on a self-exam — it’s pretty deep) and a few other problem-child spots and they just want to make sure nothing gets any ideas. Fine by me. Long as I don’t have to keep getting stabbed in the tit every time as well.
I never told Dad about any of this and I won’t unless the mass changes. We can’t even have an intelligent conversation about nutrition and weight; I’m not going to burden him with worrying about my stupid tits when there’s nothing to worry about. If it’d been malignant I’d have had to say something, but only because you can’t hide tit removal and chemo hair loss. If it had been something treatable with pills and wholly invisible to him I’d have said nothing. I already haven’t told him I have a diabetes diagnosis. What does it profit? Nothing. I am not going to have a fucking fifty-five-year-long alcoholic who smokes and hates broccoli lecture me on “healthy lifestyle” any more than he already does. This is not open to debate. Even when he does bring it up I just let him talk because I know he’s full of shit and he isn’t going to convince me of anything on that subject, and it’s too late to convince him.
(Side note: There isn’t anything particularly healthy about broccoli. It is useful when you need fiber and certain vitamins IF the vitamins aren’t cooked or aged out, but it also contains antinutrients, particularly working against the thyroid so really, ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances. But most people associate it with healthy eating, and he sure fucking does. So.)
And let that be a lesson to the rest of you. If I don’t engage you in debate AT ALL, not even to offer words of agreement or encouragement, I have decided you are a fucking idiot — on the subject in question, minimum — and that there is no hope for you. You have not won. You are not better than me. It is not a fucking compliment. You have fucking failed. I argue when I think you are intelligent enough to understand and have the moral fiber to accept being disagreed with or even accept being wrong, if that’s the case. (Just because I take a stance on something does not mean I am always right. YOU HEARD IT HERE, FOLKS) If you WANT me to respect you and if you WANT me to stick around, you do not want me going quiet. Even if it means I’m no longer swearing. Swearing means hope. No swearing because no talking means doom.
I am pretty sure it works this way for most other people, which is why the biggest assholes of my life tend to go quiet sooner or later. To be fair, had I submitted to their bullshit and let them get away with it and therefore was still allowed in their lives, I’d have just been miserable anyway. It worked out for the best.
One exception to the above is if we have an audience. If we have an audience I might well argue with someone I find hopeless, because it might educate someone else. I still think you’re an idiot, but you’ve become a useful one. Yay?
Anyway, the other reason I might not bother arguing is if the subject is not important to me (probably also true of most other people). I will usually make it clear in some way if that is the case. I can, believe it or not, be diplomatic. But nutrition has played a major role in my current health miseries so this is not one of those unimportant topics. NO, Dad, eating less crap is not better than eating more crap. Eating crap is bad. Period.
(I don’t mean morally bad, I mean if you eat crap it will hurt you. Bad in that way. Speaking as someone who keeps eating crap. I know what it’s doing.)
I should write a Substack essay about that. I am brainstorming topics that are not gender identity so I don’t become a one-trick pony.
And speaking of nutrition, I finally got on a multivitamin again. I had been thinking about it anyway but what really decided me was recently flossing my teeth only to have the gumline around one of my fronts go a gusher. I will get minor gum bleed from time to time because I am not my own best friend, but it does not do that. I thought, well, maybe I don’t need to eat grapes at every fucking meal but I sure haven’t tried to get enough vitamin C, and that decided it. I don’t need to have scurvy on top of everything else. That was a few days ago, and already the situation has improved because that wasn’t the only time I’d had an impressive gum bleed lately and now it’s not doing that anymore. I can take a hint. It might take being scared a couple times before it sinks in, but I get there eventually.
It’s One-A-Day which is marginally better than Centrum, but at some point when I’m somehow earning regularly (however that happens), I’d like to go back to my old multi. That fucker was AWESOME, and it is still on the market. Hallelujah.
I’m looking back at what I’ve written and I want to clarify. I can think someone ain’t too bright and still like or respect them. That’s the case maybe about half the time but, say we’re talking about family, you can’t pick your family. So if a lot of them are being stupid it is just something you have to live with. The alternative is walking away from your family. I may yet do that after my dad passes, because no one’s given me any compelling reasons not to, such as regular and positive social interaction. My walking away won’t be because I hate them, though I may be disgusted by a handful of them. It’ll be because it’s a waste of energy to chase something that isn’t there. Blood kin should matter, but all too often blood kin don’t matter and the ones who treat you the least like you matter are the ones yelling loudest about blood being thicker than water. I’m over it, really. But no, I’m not saying I’ve given up arguing with Dad about nutrition because I 100% disrespect him. Certainly me thinking he’s a doofus about biology isn’t respectful, but it also isn’t untrue. Guess what: Lying to or about someone isn’t respectful either. I’m not going to call him a genius about the human body when he plainly isn’t.
It’s weird, because I sense that he is quite smart about some things. I think a lot of times he chooses not to use it. Probably why he used to get so pissed off about my grades and is currently pissed off at me for not being a millionaire. He thinks if he bullies me then I won’t turn out like he did. Because he could have done better with the brain he was given than he actually did, and he knows it.
Just don’t ask him about what vitamins do. That’s best.
Also, for the record, bullying don’t accomplish jack shit. What it does is traumatize the bullying target and mess up her brain so she’s actually LESS capable of stuff. We thrive, as a species, on solving problems. The only way to solve a bully is to kill him. The only other option is if he solves himself and stops being an asshole. Most of them won’t because duh, they’re bullies. Most of us don’t want to commit homicide. The bully therefore becomes an unsolvable problem because most of us are not bullies. And that’s why bullying isn’t a “what doesn’t kill us” that “makes us stronger.” It’s more like termites or rust.
I thought I wanted to write more for today but my brain is scattered. I see my most recent job application is still hanging in limbo. Meh. I gotta pee, then home I go.