Living the Nightmare

I've been wearing glasses since I was 6, contacts since I was 15. One year shortly after that, the doctor was going to move my right contact to my left eye and order a new right contact. But then he kept getting it backwards, and wouldn't listen to me. I got upset—like, verge-of-anxiety-attack upset, and my mother couldn't figure out why.

I realized it was because the doctor hadn't given me my contacts back, and I couldn't see. That ramped up my anxiety to 11, and ever since, my most common recurring nightmare has been fuzzy vision.

Today, I started living my nightmare.

Okay, that's overly dramatic. But I'm very nearsighted, and clarity is literally 6 inches in front of my face (I just measured). I wear rigid gas permeable contacts, which change the shape of your cornea, and my glasses prescription is set for that shape. So when I'm out of my contacts even overnight, the glasses aren't strong enough. Which is why I never wear my glasses. Five minutes in the morning, half an hour at night, that's it.

But because those contacts change my cornea, I have to be out of them for 4 weeks before pre-op testing for LASIK, which is a week before the operative consult, which is a week before the surgery. So six weeks of the entire world being slightly out of focus.

it's almost enough to make me forget about doing it!

I got up this morning with a low-burning anxiety over this. You know how they say people don't like clowns because their real faces are hidden? Try completely featureless blobs. THAT'S truly freaky. Of course, the glasses are good enough, so it's not that bad. But I'm on edge, working too hard to accommodate it.

I tell myself six weeks will fly by, but on this end of it, it seems like forever. The worst part is that there's a chance they tell me I'm not a good candidate, or they can't correct enough to be worth it. THAT would seriously suck.

So what's your worst minor nightmare? Have you ever had to live it?

In Over My Head

Yesterday was a pretty productive day, culminating in a meeting to revise and finalize the Policy and Procedure manual for my local writer's group, something that's been in the works since 2003.

Unfortunately, none of my productivity was the stuff on my list. And the same thing happened today! I spent hours darting (figuratively) here and there, getting ready for The Month of the Hero. And I'm still doing it! I stopped writing this post to go set up that page at my website, then created a few more bit.ly links, then posted on Twitter, then took a deep breath and came back here.

I still have to set up my posts for the week and schedule them to go. They're written, but need some additions and tweaking. I also have mail to prep to send, some revisions on three chapters to enter and print so I can mail them tomorrow, a contract to finish reading so I can mail that tomorrow, too, a checkbook to update, an insurance policy to review and file, and the aforementioned P&P manual to proof, since our overachieving committee chair already made the 26 pages of changes we discussed over 3 hours last night. OY!

I have a synopsis to finish by the end of the week, some phone calls to make, and my annual mammogram tomorrow. Oh, and the Carina marketing plan to complete for my March 28th release!

I'm a little worried about my ability to get that all done. I mean, it's already 5:22 p.m.!

What's your go-to defense for drowning in "must get done NOW"s?

Overheard on the Soccer Field

Some guy standing behind me at the soccer field today said, "She's three-quarters Lhasapoo..." I didn't hear the rest, but it doesn't really matter. I'm still puzzling over that part.

How can that be possible?

A Lhasa Poo is already a mixed breed. Half Lhasa Apso, half Poodle. So if that was one parent, then the pup is one quarter lhasa, one quarter poodle, and half whatever the other parent was. If the other parent was a Lhasa Poo, then the pup is also a Lhasa Poo. If they're a Lhasa-something-else, then the pup is three-quarters Lhasa, but then only one quarter poodle and one quarter something-else.

Gah. Let me start over.

Let's say one parent was Lhasa Poo, half and half. The other parent was half Lhasa Poo and half, I dunno, retriever, which means one quarter Lhasa, one quarter Poo, and one half retriever...

1/4L + 1/4P + 1/8L + 1/8P + 1/4R

Got it! The pup would be THREE-EIGHTHS Lhasa Poo!

Is there another scenario I'm missing that could add up to 3/4 of a mixed breed?