Today marks five months, two weeks from my transplant surgery. I can no longer give the days elapsed off the top of my head, but I can usually come up with the answer after about five seconds of calculation. I don't want to identify myself as a liver transplant survivor. I want to be a veterinarian, a friend, maybe even a writer who happened to have had a liver transplant. I don't know how to jump tracks to get to there, though. Some days I almost do it. I can go ten, even twelve hours at a stretch without thinking about it. But then it comes time to take pills again, and I'm once again "The Transplant Kid".
Some weeks ago I made a totally unnecessary purchase at a local department store. While I try to fight it, I have been known to succumb to the "impulse purchase" pressures that stores apply to the vulnerable consumer as they stand in line, bored and impatient, waiting to check out. In this case, I purchased a pen. It's a nice pen, comfortable grip, good point, comes with its own refills and batteries. Uh, yeah ... batteries. It glows in an array of ever changing colors when the top is pressed and the point deployed. I admit to being the teeniest bit ashamed of myself for throwing money away on this purchase, when money is somewhat tight right now. But impulse purchases short-circuit the common-sense circuitry somehow. I picked it up knowing I shouldn't be looking at it, I put it back knowing I shouldn't buy it, I stared longingly at the display knowing I should turn away, and I picked it up again at the last minute when it came time to ring up my tally.
I have managed to make several co-workers intensely jealous of me though, as well as having earned the envy of the big boss. You can't buy love, but you sure as hell can buy attention.
I have discovered that (much to my chagrin) I missed a lunar eclipse on Saturday. Technically speaking, I didn't miss it. I saw it. I just didn't recognize it for what it was. The Socialist stopped to look at the moon when we went out for our take-out pizza Saturday night. I'd noticed the moon looked different, but I put it down to cloud cover. It really did look neat, but I can't believe I didn't recognize an eclipse in progress. What's worse is that I didn't even have a clue there was supposed to be an eclipse. Worst of all is that the Socialist must have even pointed it out to me, since he made a comment about looking at the moon, and even went back out after we got home to look at the moon (which I thought at the time was a little strange, but everyone's allowed to be moonstruck now and then) but I somehow missed that he told me. I feel majorly imbecilic at the moment.
Hey, they got the heater working again. Looks like Hell has heat again.