Sunday, June 17, 2007

late evening

Another Pain Doctor Gets Prison, Instead of Gratitude

I’ve read several accounts lately of pain management doctors being sentenced to prison for trying to help their patients.  They didn’t sell drugs, abuse drugs, or knowingly prescribe drugs to patients who were abusing their medications.  The latest story is about a D.O., a doctor of osteopathy, which means that he has all the training of an M.D., but he also has training to do manipulations, like a chiropractor.  Dr. McIver was sentenced to 30 years in prison for drug trafficking.  Please read the story that I’ve linked to if you’ve ever been in significant pain, know someone who is living with pain, or think you might ever be in pain someday.  Your knowledge about pain could help keep a well-meaning doctor out of prison if you’re ever sitting on his jury.  Everyone agrees that Dr. McIver tried to help his patients.  He wasn’t a pill mill.  He treated his patients’ pain with a variety of physical therapies, pain medications, and information on how to help themselves with treatments at home.  His only “flaw” seems to be that while other doctors are satisfied when their patients are living with 5 on the pain scale of 1 - 10, Dr. McIver tried to get his patients to 2.  Can any of you tell me that you’d want to quit seeking less pain when you’d reached 5?  If so, you’re a masochist.  Yes, Dr. McIver sometimes prescribed very large amounts of opioids, but his patients agreed that he was trying to help them.  Also, opioids are safe if you increase your dosage gradually.  If we took five 80mg pills of OxyContin a few times a day, we might die from an overdose.  But, if you took what my body is used to, you wouldn’t die, but you would get sick.  We all have a different tolerance level, and if 20 80mg pills of OxyContin give someone a life without a significant amount of pain, who are we to say that they shouldn’t take so much, because that sure does seem like a lot of milligrams to us.  However, would you feel comfortable taking away the meds that are allowing someone to actually have a life, instead of being stuck in bed or stuck at home due to their pain?  If the drugs aren’t killing them, but are helping them live with chronic pain, we should be grateful there are doctors who are able to help these people.  People like me.  People like Leigh-Ann. 

Unfortunately, many juries end up with judgmental people like Jo Handy on them.  Because she once had some “female issues” and was prescribed some pain meds, she feels as though she’s qualified to judge what amount of pain medication other people deserve.  “Thirty counts is normal,” she said. “He was giving 60 or 90. A few of us had been on prescribed medicine. I had female issues. You as a person know not to take so much of that medication. If you were, you had a motive. Me, I still have a whole bottle left.” LOL, she’s going by the number of pills?  So, 30 pills is normal?  What if someone had 30 80mg pills?  And someone else had 60 5mg pills?  2400 mgs a month is less than 300, because 30 pills is fewer than 60?  Because of illogical people like this, a doctor who wanted to get rid of his patients’ pain, is in prison for 30 years.  I know I shouldn’t think this way, but if those people could experience severe chronic pain for a year, I’d love to hear how their opinions would change.  When you’re in severe pain, you don’t care about numbers or milligrams, you care about what will relieve your pain and give you your life back. 

When you’re on a jury, handing down judgments on a doctor who was trying to help his patients, I want you to remember that one day one of those pain patients might be you or a loved one.  Dr. McIver had some scummy patients, but those patients had or have something that caused them real pain.  The doctor treated these people with respect, and wanted to make sure that they felt as pain-free as possible.  The scumbags got meds that they didn’t need and they either sold them or injected them.  Now that the doctor has been wrongly convicted, the people who caused the problems for him are suing him for “alleged overprescription of addictive drugs.” I can’t believe that these cases aren’t being tossed out, and the people suing tossed into prison.  Yeah right, it’s the doctor’s fault that you sold your prescription drugs or injected them?  I would appreciate it if you would read the article, and if you don’t have a lot of time, then just read the first page and the last page.  I think it’s important to read on the last page about Ben, who got such pain relief thanks to Dr. McIver that he could go back to doing strenuous physical work.  He had his life back.  Now that his doctor has been sentenced to prison, Ben has been sentenced to his own prison.  No one is willing to give him the meds that he needs to be able to work.  They’re giving him less than a third of the meds that he was given by Dr. McIver.  His doctor was interviewed and said, “ There are well-recognized levels, and you don’t step across the line. You may have to live with some pain.” You may have to live with some pain?  Can someone tell me why?  Why does Ben have to live his pain?  I’ll bet if the person in pain was, say, the doctor’s child, he wouldn’t think that his child needed to live with “some pain”.  Ridiculous, this concept that people have to live with some pain.  No, no they don’t.  The high doses of opioids can be safely administered, and they’re a whole safer than Advil and Tylenol, which kill thousands of people a year.  “For individuals who are properly titrated and monitored, there is no ceiling on opioid dosage. In this sense, high-dose prescription opioids can be safer than taking high doses of aspirin, Tylenol or Advil, which cause organ damage in high doses, regardless of how those doses are administered. (Every year, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Americans die from gastrointestinal bleeding associated with drugs like ibuprofen or aspirin, according to a paper published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.)”

John Tierney, a blogger for the New York Times Science section felt the same way as I did about dopey juror, Jo Handy.  “One of the jurors in the McIver case, a realtor named Jo Handy, said she knew the doctor’s prescriptions were excessive because of her own experience taking pain killers for “female issues.” I wonder how she’d like having her house-appraisal skills judged by a jury of homeowners — and then sent to prison because they disagreed with her prices.”

Thursday, June 14, 2007

the wee hours

Methadone Is Great - It’s Very Affordable, It Gets Rid of Pain, It Lasts A Long Time, But…

Yeah, Methadone does all those great things that I listed in the title, but sadly it has developed one very very very large strike against it.  You’d think it might be the nausea, but I think I’ve mostly overcome it, most days.  You’d think it might be the stigma, but since no one has hassled me (people who get it for pain relief have been hassled by pharmacists throughout our great and loving country...even though it’s ILLEGAL to prescribe it to heroin addicts, because they have to get it daily from methadone clinics, so the people with prescriptions are patients who are in pain, not junkies, and junkies shouldn’t be hassled either), I feel kind of badass taking Methadone.  It’s like I’m getting my heroin problem under control and I’m fighting off trying to shoot up.  But no, I’ve never had any desire to do heroin, and I’m never going to stick something sharp into my body voluntarily.  It’s something much much simpler.  It’s affected my bladder.  After starting my Enablex medication in March, my bladder has been almost normal.  For about a week now, I’ve had all of the terrible bladder issues that I had before my (expensive) Enablex fixed me.  Now, I’m taking the Enablex, but it doesn’t override the Methadone.  Crap! 

I’m going to give the Methadone another two weeks to see if I can get over the urinary retention side effect, which I believe is causing the urinary urgency thing when I sit again.  Drives me CRAZY!  I can’t concentrate, I can’t drive anywhere again, and I’d forgotten how terribly disruptive it is to living a normal life.  I just can’t believe that I’ve found almost the perfect medication for me, and it’s screwing with my bladder.  What are the odds?  I’m going to give it until my next appointment with my pain management doctor, and if I’m still having the bladder problems, I’m going to have to start weaning off the Methadone, and back on to OxyContin or oxycodone.  That sucks for several reasons, but most of all the cost of going back to the other pain meds.  I loved having my perfect pain med cost $13 a month.  The other suckiness is that weaning off Methadone is supposed to suck and take a long time because of Methadone’s tremendously long half-life.  So, even after I’ve decided that I want to stop taking it because of my bladder, I’m probably going to need a couple of months to wean off of it...which means bladder problems for a long time.

I have a few more rants in me, but I need to get to bed.  We have haircuts scheduled for 1p.  I have some financial rants, and a bunch of idiots of the day.  Stay tuned.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

the wee hours

The “True Colors” Tour, Las Vegas, June 8, 2007 (or, Last Night, We Were Teh Gay)

6/10 - updated at the bottom of the entry with our lousy cellphone pictures of The Dresden Dolls - should’ve taken a real camera.  Also, Leigh-Ann wrote a review on her blog, plus a more detailed one that’s on Metroblogging Las Vegas.

Leigh-Ann and I went to the “True Colors” concert last night at the MGM Grand.  The day started off terribly, with Frank escaping through the doggie door and running away at 5am.  Luckily, by 7am, he ran away from the great outdoors and ran back inside.  What a relief.  It was the start of the goodness of the day.  Usually I despise the MGM Grand parking lot.  It’s squishy, crowded, too many tight turns, and takes forever to find a space, then forever to get out after a concert.  When I drove into the parking structure, a space opened up about 100 yards from the entrance.  Wow, amazing.  Also, no traffic at all on the freeway getting there.  Coming home was an altogether different story - there was horrible traffic on I-15, so I got off after about 20 minutes and a whole two miles or so.  The rest of the trip home was uneventful.  I digress.  On to the concert.

It’s a really far walk from the parking lot to the arena.  It annoys me every time we go to the MGM Grand.  If we didn’t want to see Frozen Fury pre-season NHL hockey games or some really good concerts, I’d never step foot inside the MGM again.  Most of the seats in the arena make it so you have to crane your neck sideways to watch a concert.  Very unpleasant, because twisting my neck gives me a headache, and a headache is very unpleasant for a concert.  Especially a four hour concert.  The concert wasn’t sold out, and in fact the whole top of the arena was curtained off because the seats weren’t sold.  It was, however, a very comfortably sized concert for the concert-goers.  No lines for the bathroom, short lines for food, slightly longer lines for booze, but Methadone Girl can’t drink, so that didn’t matter.  In fact, even before the Methadone, I’ve never had a single drink when we’ve gone out, except once when we were here on vacation and I wasn’t driving.  We had a few drinks and gambled.  It was fun.  But I’m not risking driving impaired by a single drink, because if you read the paper here, you know that you’ll need to have your wits about you when you’re driving, because everyone else is driving drunk.  Back to the concert.  No lines.  Also, there were a couple of sections that were pretty uninhabited, and they were facing the stage, so we moved after two acts.  It was the best decision I made all night.  My neck feels fine, and my headache that was starting after the first act, was easily squelched with a couple of Excedrin.  Or Tylenol.  It was dark and I couldn’t read what it said on the pills.  Actually, I’m going to have to assume that it was Excedrin because my bladder bothered me during the concert, which is a sign of caffeine being in my body.  Excedrin works better on my now only occasional headaches, because they’re usually sinus related.  Hmmm, so far you know that I hate the MGM Grand and that I have a whole pharmacy in my backpack.

The concert opened with Margaret Cho, who was MCing the event.  As usual (we’ve seen her on tv and once in concert at the Hard Rock), she was funny, crude, and mocked her Korean mom.  The first musical act was The Dresden Dolls, who I was not looking forward to seeing.  I listened to them a bit on Rhapsody a few weeks ago.  However, they were pretty entertaining and I enjoyed their music.  I’d like to say that it was entertaining watching them, which I’m sure it was, but most of the crowd couldn’t see the stage.  People were itty bitty and for some dumb reason, they weren’t using the video monitors to show us the stage.  Totally ridiculous.  Like I said, I hate the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and this is one of the many reasons.  It isn’t the first time they haven’t used their monitors.  The Dresden Dolls are freaky, explicit, strange, yet really quite good.  It’s not the first time I’ve liked a band much more after hearing them live.

Next up was my reason for buying the tickets, the Indigo Girls.  I’m not an Indigo Girls fan, but Leigh-Ann is a big fan, and we’d missed a previous Indigo Girls concert here for some reason (probably lack of money), and they’d said that they’d never play Vegas again because they weren’t allowed to display their political stuff on the merchandise table outside of House of Blues.  Since I don’t like to see my gf disappointed, I bought the tickets pretty much without thinking anything other than, “Leigh-Ann would like to see the Indigo Girls, and they said they weren’t going to perform here again, so I’d better buy these tickets...and I really love Cyndi Lauper live, so I won’t be unhappy at the concert.” Leigh-Ann was asleep when I bought them, and I was going to keep them a secret and surprise her, but I suck at keeping secrets, so I told her pretty much when she woke up.  I’m surprised that I was able to hold back long enough to let her wake up on her own.  When I bought her a ring as a birthday present after we’d been together for about fifteen minutes, I couldn’t even wait until it was her birthday before I hounded her into opening the box.  It was longer than fifteen minutes, by about thirteen months.  I think I was super nervous about the ring too, and I thought it was pretty cool, so I needed her to open it right away.  I probably waited a couple of weeks, but couldn’t make it all the way to her birthday.  So yeah, I told her about the tickets right away.  You can be sure that I’ll never throw her a surprise party, because planning and hanging onto that kind of information would make life unpleasant for me.  Anyway, she once followed the Indigo Girls around and has seen a billion of their concerts.  There’s even this tattoo that, well, is large and Indigo Girl centric.  Like I said, I’m not a huge fan, and don’t listen to them voluntarily, except I listened to their last new release when it showed up on Rhapsody.  But, I think they’re okay to listen to and like them more each time I hear them.  I think there’s a part of me that wants to dislike their music because I’m not fond of liking something that every lesbian seems required to like.  So, the Indigo Girls performed three songs, and then Amy performed a solo.  I think it was Amy.  If it wasn’t, Leigh-Ann will correct me.  I don’t know which one is which.  I like one of them more than the other, but naturally, I can’t tell you which one.  Heh.  Anyway, since they were the second band to perform while we were still sitting in the seats that hurt my neck, I dealt with it by not looking at the stage too much during their performance.  My headache was starting, and we were only in the first hour of what we were told was going to be a 5 hour concert.  It ended up only being 4, but still, that’s a long time to be in pain.  I couldn’t just dump some pain meds in me because my pain meds have started to sometimes make me nauseous when I combine them with the Methadone.  After their set, Debbie Harry was introduced.  Her band was too loud by at least 50%.  It was painful.  This was a good time to go to the bathroom, and then get a soft pretzel w/ cheese.

The Dresden Dolls were signing their cds at a table right outside when we left, so we finally got to see what they looked like and what they were wearing.  Amanda was wearing fishnet stockings and a bustier, I think.  Brian was wearing just underwear.  He’d started off the show wearing what looked like a white sun dress.  He took that off after a song or so.  Leigh-Ann got a picture of the two of them with the phone.  I’ll link to it when she gets it up.  She also took a picture of them posing with two fans.  We got their email address so she could send them a copy of the picture.  Their picture was taken with their phone by someone else in line, so we’ll have a battle of the cameraphones.  Hopefully, at least one of the pictures is good enough for them to enjoy.  Then, off to the uncrowded bathroom.  (Yay!  How often can you say that there wasn’t a line for the bathroom at a concert?) Then, we got the world’s most expensive soft pretzels with a small Sprite.  For that, it was the ridiculous amount of $14!  Geez, what a ripoff.  They didn’t even have little cups in which to put our cheese for dipping purposes.  Please note again that I hate the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and I wish the artists would boycott it.  This concert would’ve definitely been so much better at the Orleans Arena.  7000 seats were probably enough.  Then we would’ve gotten cheaper and better snacks, Pepsi instead of Coke products, little cups for our cheese, a video monitor that would’ve been used, and better parking.  I love the Orleans Arena.  We took our ripoff snacks back to our seats, only took the seats across the aisle from our seats.  A thousand times better.  No more neck-craning.  No more neck pain.

Debbie Harry’s band was so loud that it was hard to listen to them.  It honestly hurt my ears.  I debated whether or not I wanted to look like a dork with earplugs in.  I brought them just in case I had one of my SuperNausea Girl moments and needed a little quiet.  I decided to suffer along with the rest of the crowd.  Debbie Harry sounded good, and it’s too bad for her sake that we couldn’t hear her better.  She looked, however, tremendously old by the way she moved on stage.  It looked like she was afraid that she’d slip and break a hip.  But, I vaguely remembered back to the old Blondie days, and I think she’s always looked like that when she performed.  Kind of a wasted looking moaner.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Blondie; therefore, I’m a big Debbie Harry fan.  I’d just rather listen to her, than watch her.  Well, mostly I want to imagine that she will always and forever look exactly like this album cover, my favorite.

My eardrums got a break because Rosie O’Donnell was on next.  No music.  Phew.  She was great, and it was nice to see how happy she was to be there “with [her] homos” versus stressed out over the problem with “The View”.  She talked about Donald Trump & Larry King and how they were talking about how neither of them found her attractive, because she’s always wanted to give skanky gross guys a boner. (<---insert sarcastic eyeroll from Rosie here) Blech.  I can't believe they keep talking about her, and especially keep talking about her looks.  They're two of the grossest rich & famous men around.  Bloated combover dude, and scrawny ugly farting dude.  (a comment on someone's blog from a guy named Marc, but I've heard this from other sources too, "A friend who works at CNN tells me that during commercial breaks, Larry King sits at the desk and justs lets the old man farts fly. No warning, no apologies. I've always wondered what the smirks his guests had after a commercial break, but now I know." Gross!) During Rosie's act, there were two older guys sitting in front of us that kept mumbling "hypocrite" when she'd say things, but I don't know if they were talking about Rosie or Donald Trump.  It seemed like they were referring to Rosie, but I have no idea what they were talking about, and frankly, I just wanted them to STFU.  Oh yeah, speaking of STFU, some idiot kept blowing a loud & annoying whistle during the show.  A whistle?  The hell?  Rude, annoying, and stupid.  If the whistleblower somehow finds this blog, I want them to know that I'm usually a pretty non-violent quiet person in public (okay, in private too), but I had fantasies of stuffing that idiotic whistle down their throat.  It was worse than even the damned cowbell that people sometimes bring to hockey games.  Because hello, at least one is a sporting event.  But blowing something that sounds like a rape whistle at a concert?  Whose dumb idea was that?  Clap or cheer like the other people in the arena.  So yeah, Rosie was great.  This was the first time I'd ever seen her do any standup and be allowed to use the language she wants to use.  She almost fucking puts our fucking friend, Kristine, to fucking sailor mouth shame.  Almost.  It's a fucking tie.  Also, during Cyndi Lauper's set, Rosie played the drums on one song.  She was really good!  I hope Rosie gets a cable talk show where she can be herself.  I think she'd be great.  She's always at her best when she's allowed to be completely herself, like on her blog.  You should go to her blog right now and watch her vodcasts/videoblogs(?) with Ross “the Intern”.  They’re really good together, and Ross is so adorable.  He was adorable before the weight loss, but he’s super adorable now.

Rosie introduced Erasure.  I’ve never seen them live before, but I’ve been a fan since I was a teenager.  Andy Bell brought the gay pride dance party.  He sounded exactly like he does on his albums.  He and Vince Clarke were the musical highlight of my night.  Well, Erasure and Cyndi Lauper, but she’s always great live, and I’ve seen her several times already, so it wasn’t a surprise.  I don’t have much to say about the Erasure performance, except that it brought back really good memories of going to Pride events over the years.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoy watching gay boys and the dance floor.  I cannot dance to save my life, but I love watching other people dance.  Erasure brought the gay feeling to the concert.  It’s hard to put into words though, so you’ll just have to trust me.

Margaret Cho and Diana Yanez came out dressed in gangsta clothes as “Maureen and Angela”, who complained about their neighbor in San Francisco who, instead of asking them to move their RV out of her driveway, called and got it towed instead.  Here’s the hilarious (NOT safe for work AT ALL) video “My Puss”, but it’s missing some of the fun talking parts of the act.  Nonetheless, incredibly crude, but really funny.

Last, but not least, the fabulous Cyndi Lauper.  Her dress kept falling down (I think she flashed the front rows) and she spent most of her first few songs yanking the top up constantly, but someone in the crowd, I think, gave her a big shirt to wear over her dress.  She put that on and then really got moving.  She’s just incredible.  If you ever have the chance to see her perform live, go.  Whether she’s opening or headlining or part of a huge group, go see her.  And, like I said somewhere up there, in the first part of this humungous entry, Rosie played the drums on one of her songs - Rosie is quite the little drummer.  I was surprised, as I had no idea that she could play.  Color me impressed.

The “True Colors” Tour is to kick off gay pride month, and to help foster gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender awareness, and to help raise money for the Human Rights Campaign.  A dollar is donated from each ticket to HRC.  Even if you’re not gay, if you have a chance to go to one of the concerts, go.  My preference would definitely be one of the Rosie O’Donnell attended concerts, but even without her, it’s definitely a good time.  Rosie will be at the Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, and New York City shows.  The shows are from now until June 30th, so check the dates right now.  RIGHT NOW! (Nancy, they’ll be in Atlanta on June 21st) I reiterate, you don’t have to be gay.  Gay people like straight people who are willing to hang out at gay pride events.  People won’t know that you’re straight, but even if they do, they’ll love you for showing up and supporting the event.

As an aside, for some reason two of three bands I didn’t want to see, didn’t perform.  Now I feel all guilty because I said I didn’t want to see them.  Maybe I would’ve liked them, because I like The Dresden Dolls.  The bands that didn’t play are The Gossip and The Misshapes.  The Indigo Girls only played Las Vegas because they’re starting their own tour on the 11th.  Other cities will have other special guests, like Sam Harris, Rufus Wainwright, Cazwell, Jeffree Star, Amanda Lepore, or The Cliks.

Click HERE for the full-sized pictures, in the set with our other lousy cellphone pictures.  You can also see some blurry pictures that we took of Missy Higgins at her concert, and tiny blurry Liz Phair.  Flippy & Leigh-Ann, your source for awesome poor quality photographs.  Hire us for your next concert or party.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

late at night

The “True Colors” Tour

A couple of months ago, I had a few extra dollars and thought Leigh-Ann and I should do something gay for once, so we’re going to the “True Colors” Tour in honor of the Human Rights Campaign, and we’ll be sitting in the cheap seats.  We’ve never been to Las Vegas Gay Pride, and we don’t have plans to ever go.  I went to my first Pride parade in West Hollywood when I was in my early 20’s.  I spent most of that day looking around at all of the pierced and tattooed gay people...and the rest of the time, I dodged the tv cameras so my parents wouldn’t see me on the news.  Nothing really tops the very first time you go to Pride and don’t have to hide who you are (except to the aforementioned tv cameras), because you’re in a huge group that is just like you.  After that, after you’ve been out for a while, one parade is much like another.  Dykes on bikes, half naked men dancing on floats sponsored by gay bars, parents marching with PFLAG, etc.  I went a couple of times in San Francisco too, but Vegas Pride never interested me.  We have terrible public transit, and I’d have to drive and find a place to park, just for the same thing I’ve already done.  I don’t need gay pride parties anymore, I just want my rights.  I’ll leave the parties to the youngsters, and to the people who actually enjoy parties.  But, I want to see Cyndi Lauper live again, and I thought Leigh-Ann might like to see the Indigo Girls again.  Plus, I figured Margaret Cho would be entertaining, and I like Erasure and Debbie Harry.  We get a bonus - because Rosie O’Donnell quit The View a few weeks early, she has more time to appear on the tour.  She was originally planning a couple of shows, I think, but she’s added Las Vegas, the first stop on the tour.  One thing that doesn’t thrill me, because I’m old & cranky and suffering from methadone side effects - the concert is 5 hours long.  I wish I knew the order of the bands because I have no desire to see The Gossip, The Misshapes, or The Dresden Dolls.  Like I said, I’m old, and I’m just not cool anymore.  I want my 80’s superstars and my comics, and that’s enough for me.  The MGM Grand is one of my least favorite arenas in existence.  It’s big, it’s far from the parking lot, the parking lot is cramped and crowded.  I’m thinking about parking at the Sahara stop of our almost useless monorail.  What city spends millions on transportation that is almost useless and too expensive?  Las Vegas does.  The monorail takes people down the Strip, only they do it behind the casinos, and people have to walk too far to get to and from the monorail stops.  It costs $5 for each ride, and it doesn’t go very far.  But, I just checked their website and they’re having a special price on a one day pass for only $8.  That’s decent, considering a round trip ride is generally $9/person.  For a 3 day pass, they charge the outrageous price of $40.  That would almost get you a free month of transportation in San Francisco, and that includes not only buses and Muni underground, but BART within the city.  So anyway, the timing as per our usual, is lousy for us.  But, we’ll go and we’ll have a good time, dammit.  We’ll be gay for the day. I suppose it’s a good idea to go out once every five years or so to a place where you can hold hands without getting any dirty looks.  Tomorrow we’ll be GAY!, instead of just gay.

late evening

Blech, What A Lousy Week

I’m still feeling yukky from methadone side effects, but it’s still working to keep my pain mostly in check.  I thought I had everything under control, until yesterday afternoon.  I felt good, and we spent the early part of the day running lots of errands.  After my 4p dose of meds, I ended up couch/bedridden for the rest of the day/night, like most of the past week and a half.  Blech.  I’ve lost half of my pay period feeling nauseous, so that makes life even more stressful than it already is.  It would be one thing if I’d just decided to take a little work vacation, but no, I wanted to work.  Crap.  Also, to make my problems seem exceptionally tiny, the father of one my friends died this morning.  I never know the right thing to say, other than “I’m sorry.” But that feels so inadequate and uninspired.  I want a do-over of this week...for everyone.