I am sure there are people who go their entire lives without physical agony but, alas, I am not one of them. Kidney stones have seen to that.

And, as it turns out, food poisoning gets me there too.

I should preface this by saying that I've had a cast-iron stomache for as long as I've been alive. I don't get food poisoning. I've been around the world a dozen times and have eaten all kinds of questionable things without any ill-effects. Everything from the horrors of Nattō (fermented soybeans from Japan) to suspect cheeses of every kind... didn't affect me in the least. Any time I do get affected by something I'm not accustomed to eating, it's mild. Maybe an upset stomach for an hour or two... or a mild case of diarrhea.

But recently? Disaster.

A couple months ago I had a rice dish that made me so sick I thought that I would never be able to eat again. I was vomiting for days. A sip of water was enough to send me into painful convulsions.

And last night (or rather, tonight since I am writing this on Friday about last night)... I had food poisoning so bad that I was praying for death.

It all started when I grabbed a slice of leftover pizza as I was headed out the door. I felt a knot in my stomache within a half hour. That should have been a sign to go force myself to puke it up. But I endured. By the time I got home from work I was sweating and starting to have cramping.

Two hours after that I was rolling around in bed screaming my head off.

Around 8:00pm I swallowed an old Oxycodone I had found in my travel bag. I swallowed it dry because I had already been puking all night. Somehow I managed to keep it down and fell asleep. Or passed out. Or something.

When I woke up at 10:15pm I was still in pain, but knew the minute my pill wore off that I'd be in agony again. So I took the last decade-old Oxycodone I had and went back to sleep.

And managed to sleep through the night, not waking up until 5:30am.

My pain was still there, but dulled enough that I could go to work. Which I really, really didn't want to do... but really, really needed to do.

Now the agony is but a memory. Though a foggy one. I remember wanting to die. I know I was in pain. I'm just so far detatched from it as to wonder if maybe it was a dream. But then I found the empty bottle from my pills which expired 9 years ago and know it was all too real.

I don't get a lot of checks in the mail, but I get enough that I am adept at spotting them when I clear out my mailbox every week. Most of them are tiny residual checks or usage checks or clearance negotiation checks and what not. Seriously tiny. My favorites are those for pennies which cost more to mail than to pay out. A lot of the time I just toss them if they're less than $1, because they're just not worth the effort to cash. I doubt they add up to $20. And it's like... hey... $20 is $20, but if it takes signing and processing 40 checks to get it... well...

All of these checks are machine-generated into those oragami-folded nightmares where you have to fold and tear it on both sides (sometimes three sides) to even open it. Then risk a paper-cut to try to break the glue seal to unfold it. They're called "snap-pack checks," and I loathe them.

But it gets worse!

Now scum-sucking asshole companies are sending ads that look like checks. So if you are used to getting these kind of snap-packs in the mail, you go to the effort to open it to see if it's more than a dollar only to find it's not even a check at all!

But it gets worse!

Some companie DO include a real check... but it's a trap. Because if you cash it (even if it's by accident because you get a lot of these things and don't look carefully) then you've committed yourself to some kind of service or product you don't even want...

The above sample is a check for $20,000, which most people would investigate before cashing. But a check for $4.58 or whatever?

This kind of deceptive bullshit should be illegal.

But it's not because politicians get paid big money to look the other way when it comes to Americans getting scammed.

If there's an "American Way" anymore, that would be it.

The longer I live on this earth, the more I'm convinced that humans are the most inhumane creatures on the planet. We seem intent on destroying each other and destroying the planet we live on... along with every other creature that exists here. So much needless cruelty by people who enjoy being cruel.

This morning I wanted to sign up for a newsletter. Before the form would process, I had to "Confirm Humanity"...

Fortunately I passed the test.

Because there are days I seriously wonder if my existence is some kind of A.I. hallucination in a computerized simluation to see how many horrors my subroutines can endure before my program terminates itself.

At least now I have something I can show to people when they ask how I know I'm real.

Though I was kinda wishing I was a robot.

Why wouldn't I? Just look at what humanity hath wrought.

Strap yourself in, because this is a long one.

Sorry, but I got stories to tell.

It all started when I was on Facebook I saw this map (thanks to Terrible Maps) pointing out the drunkest city in every state...

And so...

I was going through this map trying to check off all the cities in states I've been drunk in: Pullman, Boise, Corvallis, Las Vegas, Park City, Dallas, New Orleans, ALL OF WISCONSIN, Nashville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Savannah, Virginia Beach, Atlantic City, Boston, New York City, and Lewiston.

That's 17.

Out of 50.

So a full one third of them. Which I'd like to chalk up to my having traveled a lot... but is more likely a consequence of my having drank a lot.

And because I am up with a gippy tummy and cant sleep, I present to you all 17 times I was drunk in the drunkest city of these states...

• Pullman, Washington: AKA that time I got drunk up the Wazzu. Pullman is home to Washington State University, AKA WSU, AKA Wazzu. It's a city in the middle of nowhere (an hour-and-a-half south of Spokane, ten minutes from the Idaho border, which tells you everything you need to know). I was there for training on a subject I didn't want, didn't need, and felt was a total waste of my valuable time. Remarkably, I found out that all I had to do was pick up my badge, sign in, and I was marked as having taken the class. You have no idea how quickly I bailed and ended up at The Coug, a nearby bar that absolutely did not believe in over-serving once I had too many. But I ran across a loophole whereas I volunteered to buy a round for the table next to me if one of the beers could be for me. Something I did twice. Now beyond sobriety, I told the table that I was going to walk back to The Hampton Inn and asked if somebody could point me in the right direction. At which point they told me that it would be a 40 minute walk. I had gotten a ride to class, and didn't realize it was so far away. One of the guys from the table said he'd run me there because it would only take a couple minutes by car. I took him up on it because I had bought him two beers. On the way to his car he introduced himself. Turns out I knew his older brother. Small world.
• Boise, Idaho: AKA that time I got drunk because I was in Boise. Come on. What else is there to do in Boise frickin' Idaho? This was a stop on a drive with my girlfriend at the time, who wanted to visit her parents in EASTERN MONTANA But didn't want to fly, so I had to drive. 12-1/2 hours. It was one of the worst things I ever did and our relationship didn't survive it. On the way back we were dumb enough to take an EIGHT HOUR DETOUR so we could pay a quick visit to Yellowstone and "experience" Southern Idaho. It was the only good thing about the trip... until we actually made it to Boise to stay the night. I was so frickin' done at that point that I got just drunk enough not to lose my mind. She ended up having to drive the 3-1/2 hours to Pendleton the next morning so I could sleep off my hangover. I then drove the remaining 3-1/2 hours home. Which was almost entirely in silence. My biggest regret (other than taking the trip in the first place) was that I didn't get drunk when we passed through Butte as well. That would have been another city for this list, and probably would have made the journey a bit less awful.
• Corvallis, Oregon: AKA that time I got drunk with a cats. The title says it all. I went to a house party. There was a cat named Rover. I spent all night drinking and petting Rover. Eventually Rover left and I was very drunk. Apparently you lose track of your alcohol consumption when a cat is around. Fortunately I was a guest of the house so I didn't have far to go to get to my bed. The next morning I stumbled out of the guest room with a hangover to find something for breakfast. That's when I found out from my host that I hadn't been petting a cat, I had been petting cats... plural. As in three of them. In my defense, they did look a lot alike. Rover, Chuck, and Tom. All were girl cats. The situation was just as confusing to me as when I was (mostly) sober as it had apparently been while I was drunk.
• Las Vegas, Nevada: AKA that time I got drunk on power... but mostly alcohol. It would be easier to count the times I went to Vegas and didn't get drunk than it would to find a story that's suitable to tell where I was drunk. Let's go with the time that I got drunk barhopping in The Wynn (a hotel I ended up in often from work). I had just got off work and wasn't flying back until the day after next because it was cheaper to pay for a night at the hotel than it was to fly back home after I was off. When you're there alone, Las Vegas is one of the loneliest places on earth (despite being surrounded by tons of people) so I decided to drink. And drink I did. First I drank for free while playing slots... got tired of watered down drinks... then decided to drink everywhere else you could drink. While exiting the lobby bar, a guy covered in a bunch of electronics asked if I could help him out, as his phone charger had come unplugged. I went to plug it back in and... ended up getting electrocuted. It was so shocking (pun intended) in my inebriated state that I passed out for a second. Next thing I know there's a bunch of people trying to sit me upright while the guy I was helping was asking if he should call an ambulance. Instead of going to the hospital I went back into the bar and had another drink.
• Park City, Utah: AKA that time I got drunk at the wrong hotel. I got stuck in Park City when I missed my ride back to SLC. So I decided to just grab a cheap hotel since I was too tired to figure out a way back. After checking in, I went to a bar down the street and drank. A lot. So much that I didn't remember which way I came and left going the wrong way. Ended up at an entirely different hotel. Not knowing what to do, I explained the situation to the front desk. They called the first hotel in the opposite direction, confirmed that this was the hotel I was at, THEN TOOK ME IN THEIR SHUTTLE BACK TO MY HOTEL BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T TRUST ME TO GET BACK ON MY OWN! Boy do I have a lot of stories like that. Too many.
• Dallas, Texas: AKA that time I got drunk waiting for fries that never came. After having been in L.A., I stopped in Dallas on my way to Atlanta to visit the new Hard Rock Cafe there. The property was a disappointment, so I said good bye to a friend that met me there and ran to Reunion Tower so I could see the city at dusk from the observation deck. Closed for renovation. I went back to my hotel, blogged about my visit, then decided to call it an early night and get some sleep before my early flight. Instead I went downstairs for a nightcap. Or several. Eventually I was told that if I wanted another drink I had to order some food. I wasn't drunk (yet), but food sounded great, so I ordered fries. While I waited for my fries to arrive, the guy who told me to order food left, and I ended up ordering more drinks from the woman who took over because I had food coming. Except my fries never came, so I asked where they were. Turns out the order was never turned in and the kitchen was closing. Now I was absolutely drunk and had no fries to absorb all that alcohol. The woman took pity on me and brought out numerous tiny bags of pretzels. I was still drunk when I got on the plane the next morning... where I was served yet another tiny bag of pretzels.
• New Orleans, Louisiana: AKA that time I got drunk for the first time. Look, I have gotten drunk ever single time I've been lucky enough to visit my favorite American city. And I've blogged many of them. My first time getting drunk was in New Orleans after winning a state DECA competition. My supervisor couldn't make it, so I was in the city alone and unsupervised two weeks before my senior year of high school... at the young age of 17. Drinking age was 18, but absolutely nobody asked for my ID so I ended up drinking way more than I should have. Unaccustomed to being drunk, I was a bit of a mess and left my new Kodak Disc camera in a taxi. But don't feel too bad, I may have lost my camera but I also ended up losing my virginity. Ah New Orleans. I've been to The Big Easy dozens of times, but that first time was pure magic.
• ALL OF WISCONSIN: AKA that time I got drunk on cheese and gave a guy constipation. I've been drunk in cities all over the state, so I guess I just pick one? But which one? Lots of good Milwaukee stories. HA! And that one time in Madison. But let's go for something less obvious, shall we? One of my work sites was 15 minutes south of Fond du Lac. Most of the times I was put into campus housing, but one time I wasn't. So I ended up at a hotel in Fond du Lac (French for "the foot of the lake" or something). It was a real shithole that looked nothing like the pictures, so I decided to celebrate my misfortune after my last day of work by heading to a bar down the street. But before I left the hotel, I cruised by the lobby where they had a big plate of snacks out. I asked if I could take some cheese with me as a snack for when I walked to the bar. The woman said she'd "hook me up" and came back with a massive bag of cheese cubes. She said she had loads of cheese that was expiring, so I might as well have it. And when I say it was a massive bag, I mean massive. Take a gallon Ziploc bag and triple that. And so I walked over to the tavern that was 10 minutes away eating cubes of cheese. When I got to the bar I asked if it was okay to bring my cheese in with me if I left a good tip. I was expecting to get the "NO OUTSIDE FOOD ALLOWED!" drama, but the barkeep said he didn't care what I did. So I sat at the bar and ordered drink after drink while eating tons of cheese out of my big bag on the bar. A guy took the seat next to me and asked "So you're just going to sit there drinking and eating cheese?" I told him this was my life now, and he shouldn't knock it until he tried it. At which point I was sharing my pile of cheese cubes with him. He then informed me that he was going to end up constipated and it was all my fault. The barkeep, however, din't blame me for anything because I did indeed give him a great tip.
• Nashville, Tennessee: AKA that time I got drunk waiting for somebody who never showed up. Because of this blog, I end up "knowing" a great many people wherever I go. One time I was in Nashville for work and had a Blogography reader from the city ask if I wanted to meet up for a drink. I said sure, then went to the restaurant to wait for him. After he was 15 minutes late, I had a drink. Then another. Then another. Then another. Pretty soon an hour had flown by so I went ahead and ordered dinner without him. And more drinks. I finally gave up and took a taxi back to my hotel. Miffed, I emailed the guy telling him that I was at the restaurant for nearly three hours and finally left. Then I passed out. When I woke up I had an email from the guy I was supposed to meet. He apologized profusely and said he had an emergency pop up, then asked if we could meet up that night instead. I said sure again. This time he showed up before I did. That's when he apologized again and said that he had to take his daughter to the hospital. I said "The hospital? Holy cow, what are you doing here then?" Turns out that she works there. He had to drive across the city to take her to work, then get her car fixed. This was pre-mobile-phone days, so he had the valid excuse that he "couldn't contact me." Except he could have called the restaurant and saved me from a hangover, so it wasn't much of an excuse. I was going to mention it, but he paid for dinner... which excuses a great many things.
• Lexington, Kentucky: AKA that time I got drunk with a bunch of bloggers. Hollywood Nights, baby.
• Cincinnati, Ohio: AKA that time I got drunk for Jesus. Like you wouldn't get drunk after visiting The Creation Museum.
• Savannah, Georgia: AKA that time I got drunk from too much Paula Deen. Oh boy. I went to Savannah for a work conference about web sales. One of the activities was a visit to the Paula Deen warehouse where all her cooking stuff is distributed. This was before her controversy involving using racial slurs (in the worst way possible), so she was everywhere in that warehouse. She slapped her face on every product, and there were a lot of products. I was so fucking sick of Paula Deen's face that I headed straight to a bar after the conference was over so I could drink to forget. Four years and two months later, I'm betting it was Paula Deen who was drinking to forget as she lost everything.
• Virginia Beach, Virginia: AKA that time I got drunk in drag. Many years before drag queens were being wrongfully vilified by a bunch of weird assholes trying to deflect from their own bullshit, I attended my first drag show in Virginia Beach. It was such a great time. So great that I can't even remember why I was in the city. I only remember that incredible night where I got incredibly drunk while being fully entertained. And while I didn't end up in drag makeup, a queen did wrap her boa around my neck, put her hat on me, and sing to me during her number after she found out it was my first time at a drag show. It was everything you could hope for. Except RuPaul wasn't in attendance, and she was the only drag queen I knew. It was a couple years before the first episode of RuPaul's Drag Race would air.
• Atlantic City, New Jersey: AKA that time I got drunk because John F. Kennedy Jr. died. I was in New York the day after John F. Kennedy passed and it felt like the whole city was mourning. The vibe was sad and hopeless. So I decided to head to Atlantic City to get away. My seat-mate on the bus was also escaping the city, and we spent nine hours together talking about our lives as we rode the bus, gambled, visited the Hard Rock Cafe, then rode back to NYC (which I wrote about in this blog entry). I was drinking the whole time, of course, and ended up pretty lit. I am not an emotional person, but when I got back to NYC and bid my new friend adieu, I went straight to a restaurant with a full bar so I could continue on drinking and keep from having a mental breakdown. It was either that or join in on the despair that fell over the city and burst into tears.
• Boston, Massachusetts: AKA that time I got drunk because the Red Sox won... or lost... or something. One of life's greatest joys is getting drunk at Fenway while watching a Red Sox game. A veggie dog. A beer. The Green Monster. A blue sky. And the Red Sox. Then more beer and more beer and more beer. You kinda have to get drunk because if the BoSox win, you're already in a party mood. If they lose, you're inebriated and it doesn't hurt as much. The drunkest I ever got at a game was courtesy of the guys seated behind me who had money and kept buying everybody drinks. "Yah wann-ah nuh-dah bee-ah der bud-eh? Well fuck yeah I wanna beer if you're buying! And I had many, many beers on a flawless Summer day. I think we won. Either way, I left happy. It's impossible not to be happy at a Red Sox game. Have no idea who we were playing.
• New York City, New York: AKA that time I got drunk in The Big Apple's then bought an Apple. I was in NYC for work. I closed a massive deal for the charity I worked with. To celebrate, I met up with my colleagues at a pub in Midtown Manhattan. The rest of the night is a blur. And when I woke up the next morning I had upgraded my iPhone to the latest model. I have zero recollection of how, when, or where I bought it. Though I had a bag from The Apple Store, so at least I didn't steal it. Though I wouldn't know for sure until I got my credit card bill a couple weeks later. Drunk shopping is the best shopping, isn't it? Sure. Until you have to pay the price...
• Lewiston, Maine: AKA that time I got drunk across the river in both Mexico and Ireland then went to work. For over a decade I had work that took me to Maine twice a year. And every time I would stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Riverwatch in Auburn. There were not a lot of restaurants within walking distance, and so I asked at the front desk if there was anything I could try instead of the same old places. I was recommended a Mexican-Irish(!) restaurant across the river in the city of Lewiston. Named "Pedro O'Hara's" they had a menu and atmosphere I liked. Plus a full bar. My work was often at odd hours with a schedule that could change on a dime. On one such incident, my work was pushed an entire day, after which I went for dinner at Pedro O'Hara's and drank. A lot. Because there was nothing else to do. I could walk back to my hotel, so no biggie, right? But what can be pushed can also be un-pushed, something I found out the hard way. Not able to drive, I had to take a pricey taxi ride to work (which I had to pay for). Then try to work while under the influence (which came surprisingly easy to me). Fortunately, the people at my worksite drove me back to my hotel so I didn't have to pay for another taxi. Unfortunately, I had to be back at my worksite at 3am. I had sobered up just fine, but was in no mood to work. But who is at 3:00 in the morning?

Interesting to note that I've been to a lot of these cities, I just didn't get drunk in them. Which is to say that the damage could have been so much worse. I could have gotten drunk in Tallahassee instead of Destin, just 2-1/2 hours away. I could have gotten drunk in Iowa City after visiting The Field of Dreams. I SHOULD have gotten drunk in Boulder. And Tempe! Oh well. Maybe when I retire I can make a run though all 50 states and get this figured out.

June 29th was the sixth anniversary of my mom's passing. I wrote this entry, but didn't feel like reading through it to post until now...

There's a rule of thumb which states that the amount of time it takes to get over someone is half the time you were together. If you were together 10 years, then it takes 5 years to get over them not being in your life any more. And though this was coined about relationships, it can easily apply to anybody, really. I was close to my mom since birth, which means I was with her 52 years. I assume this meant I'd be 78 before I'd be over her passing. Assuming such a thing were even possible. It's my mom, after all. How do you get over that?

My mom only made it to 73½ years, which makes it easy for me to envision never making it to my 78th birthday.

But here's the thing... I think there's levels to being over somebody close to you who has died. At least that's how it's been for me...

• The first level is where you're inconsolable. You can't imagine how you will ever be able to carry on... ever be able to be happy again. You think about that person multiple times a day and it cuts you to you core. For me this was the first six months. Fortunately I had cats to feed or else I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed in the morning.
• The second level is where you're starting to accept that life goes on, but randomly think about the person all the time and the waves of sadness makes you think this is just your life now. This lasted for weeks after the first anniversary of her passing.
• The third level is where all the sadness and all the bad things start to mostly fade away leaving you only happy memories. I could start looking through our travel books again and be joyous that I had such a great relationship with my mom and got to do so many wonderful things with her. Sure Mother's Day, birthdays, anniversaries of their passing, and other memorable dates (like Christmas) are tough, but they're manageable. Mom's birthday that came four years after she passed was when I crossed this threshold. From then on I had made peace with no longer having her around and stopped feeling like I was enduring some kind of torture.
• The fourth level is where you aren't thinking of the person all the time. And when you do, it's without the kind of deep sadness that rips through you. From here on it's just your new reality. You miss them (sometimes more than others) but you've moved on. I notice a photo of mom hanging somewhere or see a Facebook memory of somewhere I went with her and it's almost like I'm looking through it. Do I still miss her? Of course I do. But I rarely think about how much I miss her... it's just a photo that makes me think "Oh yeah, that was a fun trip" followed by a flash of sadness that she's gone, and then I carry on.
• The fifth level was where it just all... stopped... for me. And I remember the day clearly. It was Mother's Day of this year. The night before I went to bed dreading waking up on the day that was most special to me because it was the day I'd buy her a card and ask her where our next trip would be. Then I'd make plans and take her there. In the five Mother's Days past, it hurt realizing that there were no more trips to be had. No more Mother's Day cards to give. But Mother's Day 2024? For whatever reason I woke up, looked through the photo book of our final trip together, and thought "Kinda cool that our last trip was to someplace as amazing as Zimbabwe!" Then I put the book back on the shelf and went to work feeling nothing but happy that I had such a great mom and was able to see the world with her. Now I just coast on all the good memories when they pop up (while still missing her, of course), and that's it. No more random panic attacks from the crushing realization I don't have a mom any more. Because I still do, and I can think about her any time I like...

And here it is, six years since my mom died. It feels like I'm writing all this in a detached kind of way. I'll say "This is what happened and this is the awful way it felt," but from an observational point of view. I'm not reliving it every time. I'm not in there feeling it any more. Thankfully, I'm not able to feel it any more.

And it's very strange putting that out there, because I honestly didn't think it would ever happen. Or at least not until I was 78 years old...

In many ways I still feel robbed. It's not fair that she got dementia and the last four years of her life were so hard (for her and for me). It's not fair that I didn't get another ten years of her company. It's just not fair. And I don't think that feeling will ever go away. Even though I fully realize that there are people out there who got less time with their mom or had a terrible relationship with her, and I'm so very, very lucky...

So, um... yeah.

Still wishing I had mom around.

No longer sad that she's not around because my mind just doesn't go there with her any more. It goes places like this...

It's all happiness, gratitude, and love from here on out.

On Sunday I managed to finish up the closet upgrade project and consolidate my two closets into just the one. Which wasn't easy, because Jenny was having none of it. I had to work around her or listen to her complain. And I really don't want to listen to her complain.

My plan was to coast for a while before starting another project, but the cruel, cold hand of fate intervened last night. Long story short... I took on a new charity project.

Which surprised me because after the charity I volunteered with shut down back in early 2020, I decided 16 years of donating my time was enough, and I was going to do my own thing from here on out. But when somebody you enjoyed working with calls... and it's for a seriously good cause... and you know that it's going to be something that helps a lot of people... well... how can you say no to that?

And so I didn't.

Which means that for the next couple weeks my evenings will be occupied with pushing forward on the 50 to 60 pages that have to be designed, illustrated, laid out, and assembled. So long as I get 4 to 5 pages a night completed, I should be done ahead of schedule. Which is kinda what you want to have happen for things like this, because you absolutely can't run late.

And so...

Not sure if I'm going to have to take a short sabbatical from Blogography, but if I end up disappearing you'll know it was for a good cause.

Compared to my other eye surgeries, the whole cataract lens replacement surgery thing was a drop in the bucket. It doesn't even register to me. But the stellar results absolutely register.

People are asking me questions about how I'm doing two months on, so I decided to interview myself and ask the questions that people might want to know about. I'm both a great interview and a great interviewer, so this should be a treat for the both of us.

• Any regrets over getting cataract surgery? Zero. Less than zero. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
• If the surgery is so great, why didn't you get it back in middle school when you started wearing glasses? Bad eyesight is not a qualification, because your lenses are still clear at that young age. I mean, maybe there's a way to find a doctor who would replace them, but insurance certainly wouldn't cover it. And it's probably not a good idea anyway. It wasn't until I didn't feel safe driving at night that it was even an option from an insurance perspective.
• You got two-focal-zone lenses (mid-range to infinity) how's that working out? Phenomenal. I mean, sure, it's an adjustment going from nearsighted to farsighted, but for 90% of day-to-day life, I don't need readers. For 5% it would be a bit more comfortable to be wearing readers, but I can get by without. And for the remaining 5% I need readers to see something close up or that's very small type... although half of those times I hold the object 30 inches away and squint so I don't have to look for readers and I can get by.
• So... you don't regret passing up on the three-focal-zone lenses so you wouldn't need readers at all? Nope. Wasn't worth the risk to me. If I lost any contrast or color fidelity at all it might have jeopardized my work. The two-focal-zone lenses I got are gradated so that there's minimal light splitting, and that was far less risky than having the light split three times and losing information. It's not like you can just swap out lenses cheaply or easily if you don't like them, so the gradated two-focal-zone lenses were the right choice for me. If my situation were different, I might have risked it.
• So no loss of contrast then? As I mentioned in my initial posts, my contrast was actually improved, because there was a bit of fogging happening to my natural lens that got replaced.
• And the color? Once my brain realized that it didn't have to compensate for my natural lenses turning all dingy and yellow any more, it quickly remapped colors back to what they should be. Took less than a week.
• So no down-side at all? No. Except, kinda. I've always been light sensitive, but after my surgery that's next level. Bright light pretty much incapacitates me now. I don't dare go outside on a sunny day without a good pair of sunglasses. And the ones I'm wearing are the really expensive ones I bought for my Antarctica expedition. They have shields on the side to block stray light and are perfect. I'm told most cataract surgery patients gradually lose this sensitivity (if it happens at all) but that hasn't been the case for me.
• So driving at night, the reason you got your lenses replaced in the first place, must be bad with the headlights shooting in your eyes? Not really. Well, sometimes, when the oncoming car has their brights on. But that bothered me before the surgery. Night driving is much improved. Almost no glare or halos where it used to be a serious problem.
• What about the floater exaggeration problem? Once my brain got used to my eyes focusing at the lens instead of a pair of glasses away from my lens, that sorted itself out. In fact, I find that I actually notice my many floaters less than I used to. Before surgery if somebody even whispered "floaters" I would instantly be distracted by them. But now? Here I am talking about them and I'm not seeing them at all. I think my brain has an easier time dismissing them when the focus point is where it's expected to be.
• You're too happy. Surely you can think of one thing that sucks? I'll give you two. 1) The cost when you get multi-focal-zone lenses because they aren't covered by insurance... and 2) I never realized how often my glasses were keeping me from getting stuff in my eyes. Sawdust is the worst. I never worried about it when I wore glasses while woodworking, now I have been trying to train myself to wear my safety glasses so I don't end up hurting.
• How's the eye abrasion issue? That was no joke. Recurrent corneal erosion is painful and made my vision blurry in the eye that got scraped during surgery. But once I was prescribed some sodium gel to keep my eye from swelling while I sleep so it could heal, it was good as new in less than a week.
• So what happens now? Once everything is paid off, I'm finally going to get that fancy anal bleaching procedure done. I'm going to have an asshole that looks as fresh as it did 30 years ago! And don't you worry... I fully plan to blog the entire procedure!

And there you have it.

If you're needing cataract surgery, it's definitely worth looking into. I can only speak for me, but it's one of the best things I've ever done.

I am losing all employer contributions to my HSA until the end of the year because the IRS will only allow $4150 per year to land there, and I had to add up to that amount to pay for one of my eye surgeries. This isn't even touching the $1000 I got to add because I'm older than 55.

This is so fucked.

It was my understanding that everything after $5150 in my HSA would be taxed, and I was like "well, whatever..." but it was not made clear anywhere that any contribution over the non-taxable amount made to my HSA would be rejected.

Honest to God I don't understand why this country isn't in active revolt over shit like this.

Given the fact that we have to pay for health care insurance then pay what insurance won't cover, shouldn't all medical expenses be tax exempt?

I have to pay taxes for something the government should be providing in the first place only to end up having to pay taxes on what they're not doing because insurance companies fucking OWN our politicians? What the fuck?

How are politicians not dying of shame over this bullshit?

Oh... wait a second... our politicians are openly sucking lobbyist dick for cash, so they have no shame. I forgot myself for a second.

It is sheer insanity that nobody actually knows how anything works and you can't find out that you fucked up until you get fucked. It's this kind of impenetrable, idiotic, red-tape, bureaucratic process that makes people hate the government. Or maybe it's just me.

Meanwhile... politicians pat themselves on the back for passing yet another pay raise for themselves.

God bless America.

Yes.

It's so perfect out here in Washington that there are delays in deliveries.

Assumably because postal carriers want to head to the beach...

Makes about as much sense of this...

Oh well. Good thing this isn't life-saving medication I'm waiting on. At least I hope not.

The fact that I've been working every day of my vacation would be tragic if not for the fact that I am thrilled come Monday I won't be completely drowning in all the work I missed. That makes it all worthwhile.

Today I did get to hang out at a friend's pool after going to the office in the morning. Then go out to dinner. Then finish a book I've been reading (I'm trying to catch up with the Jack Reacher series, and this was #27, No Plan B, which is excellent... even though the books aren't the same since Lee Child started collaborating with his brother on them so Reacher keeps going after he retires). So, plenty of vacation to be had.

In other news... why are book covers for major authors so frickin' boring?

I get that you want a popular bestselling author like Lee Child to dominate so his fans will notice it on the shelf (or, more to the point, notice it in an Amazon thumbnail), but surely they can come up with something more interesting than this?