Well I ended up not doing much yesterday, ran a few errands and took all those beer bottles from Saturday night to be recycled, did a bit of cooking, etc. Just trying to get ready for the work week to start.

After having such a nice weekend, I had a frustrating start to the week.

I saw the ENT doc this morning, and he tells me that he doesn't think he'll be able to do the surgery for at least another month, because he'll have to fight with the insurance company to get the approvals for all I need done. The only silver lining is that he doesn't have to do anything with the polyps, which he says are too small to really be a problem. I do have one, though, that is very close to my ocular nerve and carotid artery. If that one grows, it could be a problem, and would be very dangerous to remove; but right now it is pretty small and not a problem.

So I'm kind of stuck on hold for another month waiting around, not really able to make any plans because I don't know when this surgery is going to be. But there's not really a lot I can do about it. He said he would talk to the insurance people and see what he could do about getting the approval moved up, but he didn't sound very hopeful.

***

This was on top of hearing back from my friend Michael E. Now I've known him for about 20 years too, and I love him dearly when I don't feel like strangling him. It's about 50/50. He has issues with his mom that he has never resolved, which result in big self-esteem problems. So he goes through these rebellious phases where he isn't happy if he doesn't look like a freak. So he'll run around looking like a freak for a while, and enjoy shocking people and rebelling, but then the low self-esteem will suddenly kick in and he'll have a crisis because he'll realize that people don't like him/are talking about him/ disapprove of him because he looks and acts like a freak. At that point he withdraws from the world, loses/quits his job, and basically immolates and runs away to start yet another new life. He has been through this over and over since I have known him. Since I am one of the few people in his life who has been around long enough to know this pattern, he has cast me in the role of a parent, and rebels against me because he is too chicken-shit to really duke it out with his mom. In all honesty, this woman is a razor-tongued harridan, and probably one of the most negative people I have ever met, but she is housed in a fragile invalid's body, and I can, to an extent, understand his problems in facing her down. I have never heard this woman say one positive thing about her son, who despite being nuts, is a sweet man. The conflicts they are having would be fine if you were in your 20's, but this man is in his 40's and still hasn't moved past this.

Since he knows where and how to find me, he does periodic kamikaze runs on me. He'll show up out of the blue from out of town, and call to tell me he'd like to see me. I usually drop everything and see him, because I don't get to see him that often, and because at one time we were very close. Usually if he shows up to see me, he has some hair-brained scheme he has cooked up that he needs to be talked out of. I think he really shows up here for me to talk him out of things he knows are a really bad idea to start with, but then he can resent me for "bursting his balloon".

Case in point: The time before last when I saw him, he had decided he was going to have sex re-assignment surgery. The problem was that he isn't a transsexual. His reasoning was that he hadn't been happy as a man, and he was dissatisfied with his sexual organs and performance anyway, so he may as well "try things" as a woman. He had been to see a prominent therapist here in town, known for her work with transsexuals and homosexuals. She had treated him before. I suspect that she knew what was going on, and decided to call his bluff. She told him she would schedule him an appointment with a surgeon. Of course unable to admit to himself that he never really intended to go through with this, he showed up at my house, where I talked to him seriously and laid out the reasons why this was wrong for him. He later called me to resentfully tell me that he had cut his hair and nails off, sounding for all the world like a petulant child.

He has now decided that, although he wanted to say hello, that he is too fragile to talk to me, and that I am too judgmental for him to risk actually speaking with on the phone. I was just like fine, whatever, let me know you're alive every so often. I would love to see this guy. I would love to be his friend. But I am tired of being a resented oracle, and I just am not up to walking on eggshells around him, and coaxing him like a frightened rabbit into coming to see me again. At this point, I need some nurturing myself. Although doing for others does me good, I don't have the energy to get on the merry-go-round with Michael E again. I love him, but he's all take and no give, which has been a problem with us for a long time. Usually, I have enough to spare that it doesn't bother me. I don't have the surplus to give away right now. So that's what I told him, via email, and he dropped the last word before heading for the hills again.

It was the right thing to do. But it still makes me sad. I really miss the way our friendship was in the old days, but it can't be like that any more.