Writing this Tuesday morning. All of the vision in my right eye is very foggy and hazy. Like trying to see while taking a shower or something.

There's no irritation, so that's good. Now I guess it's just a matter of being patient, using my prescription drops, using my non-prescription artificial tears, and waiting for my eye to stabilize.

I have patience.

Sunday things were actually okay. I even went to stupid Jack's and shot some pool for a while. I sucked, but at least I shot some. I saw ghost balls, but they were focused.

Yesterday and today, blurriness and haziness have been the main theme of my vision. I don't remember the haziness from the first time around, so it's a little more disconcerting than the blurriness. I still expect everything to be okay within the next several weeks. I hope.

One other thing that's definitely new is that I'm super-sensitive to light. Even the lights here in my building at work seem too bright. I'm almost constantly squinting. I might go get my sunglasses from my truck.

Saturday morning I had to drive back to the eye place for a checkup. I very seriously considered calling CornerGirl to come and drive me. I also even caught myself wishing that LaptopGirl and I were still close so she could drive me. I was in an incredible amount of pain, and my right eye was useless for seeing.

But I drove myself, and somehow I made it to the place without killing myself or anyone else. They had me sit in a chair at try to read letters on a chart. I could not read a single letter, not even the top line on the chart which consisted of just one big letter. The doctor looked at my eye and made a yuck face. Not really something you want your doctor to do. He then started trying to remove the bandage contact lens. This took about five minutes, and it was excruciating to me. The doctor said it was stuck to my eye because there was no moisture at all. I said that I'd been applying the eye drops about every five minutes for 24 hours.

Turns out that the bandage lens had prevented all moisture from reaching my eye, no matter how many times I tried to apply drops. To me, this seems like a bit of a design flaw.

So, to summarize, I'd had a flap ripped open on my eye, then I'd had a laser zap my eye, then I'd gone 24 hours without any moisture on my eye.

No fucking wonder it hurt like a motherfucker and was as red as a cherry tomato.

He finally got the bandage lens off, and there was immediate relief. He also squirted a bunch of artificial tears onto my eye, and there was even more relief. I actually began to suspect that I might live through this LASIK enhancement process.

But nooooooooooo.

He'd also put numbing drops onto my eye, and that numbness wore off by the time I got back home. And the pain and the itchiness returned with a vengeance. Every time I opened or closed my eye, it was like scratching it with a nail.

Saturday might even have been worse than Friday had been, at least at first. By Saturday evening, I was starting to detect a lessening of discomfort, and I was able to sleep for the rest of the night.

They say you learn something new every day. I don't know if that's completely true, but I did learn something new three days ago. Several things, actually.

What I learned first is that a LASIK enhancement starts out differently than an initial LASIK procedure. With the initial procedure, the one I had back in March, what they used was a very thin, very sharp blade to cut a flap in the front of my eye. Then they folded that flap out of the way, zapped my eye with a laser, and folded the flap back.

With an enhancement procedure, however, there is no very thin very sharp blade. Nope, what they do with an enhancement is insert a "surgical instrument" (small putty-knife) into the scar from the original incision, then tear the flap back open along its original lines.

I'm sure there's a good reason for doing it this way, but I can't help but think that any healing that might have taken place over the last six months was for naught.

I found this out about 10 minutes before I had my own LASIK enhancement. At about the same time, they informed me that I would probably experience more pain and discomfort after this procedure than I'd experienced after the initial LASIK. Because of the ripping, I figured. made perfect sense.

A lot of the steps were the same, though. The doctor put a lot of numbing drops in my eye. Then he drew on it with a medical pen. Then he jammed the putty-knife in and lifted part of the flap.

Then I went to the actual LASIK table. They put the anti-blink doohickey on my eye, The doctor lifted (ripped) the flap back out of the way, then the actual laser zapped for about one second.

Then the doctor spent what seemed like a year fiddling with my flap. He ended up telling the nurse that I'd need a bandage lens. As he was fitting that (an oversized contact lens) onto my eye, he explained that, when he'd initially jammed that putty-knife into my eye, he'd caused a small amount of abrasion. That abrasion would be sore, and the bandage contact lens would decrease my discomfort.

The first problem I noticed with this bandage lens was that it made things hazy, so I couldn't tell if I could see better or not. I wish this had been the only problem I noticed with the bandage lens.

But noooooooo.

After OddlyFamiliarGirl ferried me home, I tried to take a nap. It didn't work. The numbing drops had worn off and I was in a lot of pain. A lot. It felt like I had a staple in my eye. I squirted some artificial tears in, and they helped, for about 10 seconds. I kept putting the drops in, but the relief never lasted more than a few seconds.

I went to get something to eat, and drink, reasoning that a full stomach might help me to sleep. It did help. I was able to sleep for about four hours. When I woke up, my eye looked like a cherry tomato. Very red and very swollen. My eyelids were swollen, too. I mean, I really looked like crap. More so than usual.

But I didn't want to be the pussy who called back into the eye doctor because of some pain. They'd already told me that I'd experience pain. I figured this was normal. I kept putting in the artificial tears, about every five minutes or so. I managed to sleep fitfully until Saturday morning.

I think I'm just going to go ahead and miss TheGirl and TheKid today,

It's Halloween and, if things had turned out differently, we'd be enjoying some trick-or-treating together.

Tomorrow I'll go back to bottling things up, but today I think I'll be sad.

I've earned this right.

I have this desire, more than an inkling but less than a resolution, to write in this damn thing more often. Like maybe even every day.

Problem is, on some days nothing really happens. Like today. I had a boring all-day meeting at work. I came home. I took a nap. I got up and watched Big Brother.

It's on days like this that I would like to be able to reach into my brain and pull out a topic. Even if it's not timely, or relevant. I have such topics, waiting in the wings so to speak, I really do. But I fear that they're all stupid.

So, on days like today, I might write an entry like this, and try to be satisfied that I at least wrote something.

Every now and then, it's just memories. Nothing present current pounding buzzing eating eroding exploding. Just the past. The fucked-up past.

Who was I? Who was she? Who were we? What were we? Are we dead now? Were we ever alive? Or were we never anything more than figments?

I always have to remind myself, that I have this outlet for my thoughts and feelings, and for the words that do their best to represent. It's been a month since I've written here, and much longer since I've written anything relevant decent memorable therapeutic.

I want to write a novel. An autobiography of sorts. I have it in me. I have the story, or at least the beginning and the middle and a thousand endings. I have the title, even though RockGirl disapproves of the title I've chosen.

I think it's brilliant, so I'm keeping it.

Friday night CornerGirl made yummy lasagna for dinner. Then Saturday she made me take home the leftover lasagna, so I nuked it for dinner.

Now that I've had her yummy lasagna for two straight days, I think I'm spoiled for life.

I don't see the prying eyes anymore, hardly ever. Maybe they're hidden. Or maybe they're gone, and I can actually be relevant here.

Sometimes I watch a movie and some turn of phrase will give me pause. It will make me think or wonder or ponder or wish or dread.

Who knows? Lightning may strike.

And the gist of that statement, the unspoken implication, was that, without the lightning, a life has not been lived. Only a rough semblance of a life. A cheap copy. A dream. A manifestation of wishful thinking.

An imposter.

No matter. For me, lightning did indeed strike. And boy did it burn me. Sear me. Knock me down and keep me down, shaking from the shock. Unable to rise on noodly legs.

So does this count as a life now? If so, it doesn't seem worth the hoopla.

A year ago, I outlived my mother. In a little less than a decade, maybe, I'll outlive my father. Is there a point to this? I dunno. I used to think that maybe there there was. Wait, scratch that - I use to know that there was absolutely a point.

Lightning had struck.

How do you live with no hope? I don't think you do. Maybe you can exist without it, but that's just another imposter.

Inadequate.

CornerGirl is off today and tomorrow because she's mean and clearly wants me to ask LaptopGirl to lunch one of these days.

But that's not the funny part.

The funny part started last year, when we went to Harvest Homecoming and two different people saw her with me and thought she was HatGirl and she got all mad about it.

Then this morning CornerGirl went to get her hairs done, and some girl came into the salon place and thought she was HatGirl.

Well, I think it's funny anyway.