Man, what a shitty couple months. (Long, ranty rant inside.)→[More:]

Met a girl, fell hard, got dumped, tried the 'friends' thing, found out that she's an even worse friend and possibly even a not-very-good person. It kick-started a big dose of hope after not having (or needing) any for a while, which then all went away very suddenly. This leaves one's head spinning.

Now, fast-forward. Have spent a few weeks working through that shit. My mom (who, for those of you who haven't followed along, has been diagnosed with a rare pulmonary disease) goes to see a congenital heart defect specialist for the recently-discovered hole/misdirected vein in her heart. She'd been told by the cardiologist that surgery was probably not necessary -- that it wouldn't fix the problem and would be high-risk. The specialist though, tells her yesterday that surgery is the ONLY option, that it WILL fix the problem and that she'll DIE if they don't do it. Great, huh? Conflicting reports. Die if you do, die if you don't.

She's having more tests today (doing that camera-swallowing endoscopy thing) and will have another heart catheritization soon to make sure there aren't any blockages. And then, depending on which doctor wins, she may have open heart surgery that involves repairing a hole in her heart, redirecting a wayward vein and, depending on the heart cath results, a possible bypass.

Sure, sure, people undergo open heart surgery all the time, scary as it is. But there are two elephants standing quietly in the corner: One, it's rarely performed on PPH patients. Two, my grandfather died on the table. So, yeah.

And then there's the little shit: My DSL has been out for 3 days. Tech support said there was a problem with the line, and they're sending someone out to fix it this afternoon. (Had to wait 3 days for the fucking technician!) But tech support also recommended that I try the modem on another phone jack to see if it worked there. Desperate for high-speed, I did that. It was comical. The phone jack isn't in the same room as the computer, so the cable is about 30 feet long and was buried between the baseboard and the carpet. It took me about an hour to disconnect the modem from the computer and the wall (half of it in the un-air-conditioned room), rip up the cable, and move it to another phone jack. I had to move furniture. And then? Voila. Modem no longer has power. Killed the modem after moving it. So I'm sure this visit from the AT&T guy is going to be all about "No, really, the modem worked until I moved it, which I was advised to do by your staff. No, really.

[And the worst part, the very worst part, is that it just NOW dawned on me that I'm a fucking idiot. The DSL cable isn't 30 feet long. It's three 10-foot cables joined together. All I had to do was disconnect one of them instead of pulling the whole fucking thing up from under the carpet. Yeah, I just realized this. And it did not improve my mood. Jesus.]

It's these things you focus on when you don't want to focus on the other things, yes?

The ex-girl and I had plans to go to Reno this weekend. I'd been bummed about that, about the not-going, for a couple weeks, because I'd really been looking forward to it. Went to cancel the reservation earlier this week and finally said "Fuck it, I'm going anyway!" So shit, I'm going to go to Reno tomorrow to sit by the pool and play craps and generally spend 48 hours forgetting about what there is to come home to.

Because really, what else can you do?