Diagnosis

Perhaps some of you are wondering what's up with my stomach after that crazy story the other day. The test result, received by email, is that I have a "small sliding hiatal hernia with intermittent acid reflux." Fun! The doctor went on to explain what a hiatal hernia is. It's sort of like the other kind of hernia, but in this case your stomach tries to squeeze through the opening in your diaphragm and go up into the chest. Um, ick. While that totally sucks, it's not a very serious condition and is normally treated with dietary changes and/or medicine. I'll find out exactly what I'm not supposed to eat when I get a pamphlet in the mail from the nurse, but a quick internet search listed a few things to avoid: alcohol, chocolate, fried foods and peppermint.

The last couple of weeks, I'd say my alcohol intake was higher than normal, but only on two occasions did I have more than two drinks, and a couple of times I had only one drink and I didn't drink everyday. I can certainly make sure to never have more than two drinks in an evening. I rarely want more than that. When I do drink more, it's to be sociable. And I can drink fewer times a week. But completely stop drinking? Nope, I don't think so.

And the chocolate thing? Ha ha ha ha ha! I rarely eat an excessive amount of chocolate in one sitting, but I do like chocolate and I'm certainly not going to give it up. Having a few pieces of chocolate a week would hardly seem to make a difference.

Fried foods--well, I don't eat too many and it's a good idea to avoid them in general, so I'll try harder on this one.

Last, my good friend peppermint. Definitely something I can live without. Peppermint, I hardly knew ye.

Other than that, things are a little crazy in dating land. I went on an actual go-to-the-movies date with Kansas on Wednesday night. I had my doubts about it happening until I was on my way to meet him. We had fun and I was a little nervous--curious, because we've been sort of dating for over a month. When I got home that evening, I had email from Jumper asking me out again. Did not expect that. My first instinct was to say yes, which also surprised me. I said yes and I'll probably see him next week.

I wish that were the end of the story, but things got a little screwy with Kansas last night. I knew he was out, so I went to see him at the bar. We had a couple of drinks and chatted. I went over my two drink limit (to three drinks--which is really too many on a school night) and I did a couple of foolish things: told him I'd been out on a date with someone else (I didn't give more detail than that) and that I had a blog. He was surprised about the date but then said he thought it was a good thing. He didn't seem to care very much about the blog. I said I had a pseudonym and so did he. He said, "What's yours? Oh, I guess you don't want to tell me."

"No, I don't."

"What's mine?"

"Kansas."

"Ah, that's good. So people read it, really?"

"Yeah, maybe a couple of hundred people a day. I don't write much about you. I didn't think you'd like it."

"Really? I'm flattered that anyone would want to read about me--or write about me."

"Oh, well, yeah, I could write more, but I don't. I didn't think you'd like it."

And that was it. Oh, except for the 2am phone call from Kansas that ruined my night's sleep. Think maybe he wasn't so pleased to hear about the other guy after all? Who knows. I've forgiven him, but much more of that and I won't see the point of being friends. Got to act right or it's not worth the trouble. I saw work friend, Nancy, today and she pointed out that I'm not a player and this will get overwhelming quickly. I said, "Maybe I'm not, but I can play at being a player for a couple of weeks, right? Where's the harm."

"There's none if you're having fun--and no one gets hurt."

I'll keep that in mind. It's funny that playing can start to feel like work. I'm not quite there yet, but I can see it. Still, it's a bit of a novelty to be in this situation, and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Dammit.

Grateful for: my health.

Drop me a line.