7:42 pm - Monday, Dec. 17, 2007
You Can't Put \"Corpse\" On Your Resume

Thurs 12/13/07 (9:36 a.m.)

I�m officially acclimated to California.

A couple weeks ago, I had an outdoor �Gift Certificate Kiosk� shift at the theater.

It was cold out � cold for L.A., anyway (In the 40s) - and even though I had on my ArcLight shirt, my blue hoodie, and an ArcLight jacket, I was freezing and miserable (Miserable as in �So this is where life has taken me...� miserable).

But that�s not been the end of me being cold in LA this year (Which feels grossly inappropriate; when I moved here in March of 2001, I thought I�d given up temperature-based discomfort).

My building has no heat, cause some...thing - I don�t know what - is being replaced (Though the fact that this is happening in mid-December seems, once again, grossly inappropriate - You�re just getting around to turning the heat on, in mid-December, and now it doesn�t work?).

None of this is terribly interesting, except maybe for this - I�ve lived most of my adult life in apartments where the utilities are paid, which means you get heat when they want to give you heat, and you�re basically at the mercy of how well things are or aren�t maintained. So needless to say, this is not the first time I�ve been in an apartment with no heat, at a time there really should have been heat.

And in all that time, all those years of getting heat when someone else decided I needed heat...I never bought a space heater.

It seems...telling somehow.

All my life, I�ve been uncomfortable with this or that circumstance, and basically just sat in my discomfort, feeling unable, for some reason, to do anything about it.

So a short time ago, I went to Walgreens...and bought a space heater.

Sometimes personal growth is demonstrated in strange ways...

Mon 12/17/07 (2:30 p.m.)

Like I did with my most recent email to Jane, I�m going to start this entry on an up-note (Before going all whiny on you) - My WW weigh-in yesterday went very well; I lost 3.8 lbs this past week, making it my best week in the past number of weeks.

I�m now a pound-and-change away from my 10% goal of 26 lbs.

(For those of you wanting more of the weight-loss nitty-gritty, I�ll be posting a WW-specific entry soon.)

I also just got what is - I guess - positive news from Brett; the �Funeral Director� people are still interested in me (I just got a call from Brett less than an hour ago).

They called him back, and when Brett reiterated my lack-of-interest in the non-speaking role of �corpse�, they floated the idea of there �maybe� being a small, one-line part for me.

It wouldn�t be any more money - they were already offering �day player� money for the �corpse� - and obviously they don�t give a rat�s-ass about my �acting�. But it would at least be a credit I could put on the resume, and that immediately makes it of more interest to me (You can�t put �corpse� on your resume, cause it�s obviously �background work�).

Anyway, I�m sure you�ll be hearing more about this before too long. But for now, moving on...

Heard from SAGhp (My health insurance) recently, letting me know they�ll be paying exactly zero on my emergency room visit awhile back (For the infected blister on my foot); between �hospital� and �doctor bill� deductibles, and my $75 ER co-pay, that means I�m out about $1100 (More if you count the prescriptions, for which there�s a $100 deductible).

This is galling on two fronts.

1) It wasn�t my idea to go to the ER; I went to an �Urgent Care� in my neighborhood, and they turned me away (They said they didn�t take my insurance, which is fucking Blue Cross); when I spoke to my insurance people on the phone yesterday, they said that was probably a mistake on their part, that they were in all likelihood �confused� by the SAGhp thing, and didn�t realize it was Blue Cross (I know I thought everyone accepted Blue Cross).

(And going to an Urgent Care, even if it was �out-of-network�, would have been substantially cheaper.)

2) Since this happened towards the end of �07, I now get to start over with brand-new deductibles next month.

And because of the lack of heat, I�ve had my power go off, either completely or in sections � computer one day, entertainment center the next, refrigerator the day after that - every day for the past five days (The theory being that people are overloading the circuits with their space heaters).

And while my computer has now stopped scrolling up and down like it was doing - I don�t know why. It wasn�t anything I did, that�s for sure - now there�s some problem with the network, and I haven�t been able to get/stay online for the past couple days.

And I seem to have exchanged an infected toe for an infected thumb.

I don�t know what I did, but I seem to have a sliver of something in my left thumb, and it really hurts (It�s at times like these that you realize how much you take your opposable thumbs for granted).

Jane suggested I soak it in hot water, which I did. And while I temporarily felt better (At least my thumb was warm), it didn�t seem to bring the whatever-it-is to the surface like I�d hoped.

(She also suggested Neosporin, but I haven�t yet made it out of the house today - it�s now 7:00 p.m. - and I don�t have any laying around the house. All I�ve got is some hydrogen peroxide and, I think, some rubbing alcohol.)

So I�m going to QueensCare tomorrow morning; it�s close, they know me there, they�re up for seeing me tomorrow as a walk-in, and since I�ve already used up my deductible, I might as well get something out of my health insurance this year.

And I thought I was going to get to have breakfast with Gail C. today and that didn�t end up working out, which was very disappointing (As you know if you follow along in here, I don�t really get out much, socially).

Okay, so there it is. Bitch bitch bitch.

Is there anything else good to say...?

Well, I guess The Funeral Director thing still being in play is �good�. It�s not �bad�, anyway.

And callbacks for Jack-In-The-Box are Thursday, and while I haven�t gotten a call yet, I�d be genuinely surprised if I didn�t, so I�m going to consider that one still �in play� as well (And I�m starting to feel like the Comcast one probably isn�t �in play�, but I could be wrong).

And over the past number of days, when the power�s been on, I�ve enjoyed watching, first, the entire 19-episode run of My So-Called Life (One of the best short-lived tv shows ever), then season two of Weeds (I love Mary Louise Parker, and fantasize that I will someday get to act with her. Maybe in 2009, when everyone quits striking).

(I paid way too much for MSCL, but we�re going to overlook that, and just focus on the tremendous enjoyment I received, and will receive again, when I watch the whole thing all over again, a couple years from now.)

Well, I�d better post this, while I seem to have a connection...

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