Things I Did in 2008

• Got really bad haircuts - three of the last four. These ladies keep insisting that they know my hair better than I do and that they've taken "years off me" and that all the pretty women are going to be "Oooooh" but dammit, woman, I just want my hair nice and short so I can get out of bed and go to work and not have to bother with it.
• Learned that women don't like it if you call their hair "frizzy" - and I learned that the hard way too. I happen to think "frizzy" hair suits some women... apparently some women don't think so. My education is just beginning. Yet another advantage of working in retail.
• Realized that both Croatia and Somalia are shaped kind of like boomerangs. O Geo Challenge! Is there no end to the wisdom you bestow upon your subjects? (Peru looks like an ear, Cuba looks like an eyebrow and Nicaragua looks like something a cat threw up. Ha. Take that, Nicaragua!)
• Had tons of fun with my dad for five days straight when he visited. I'm getting so old.
• Lifted a man who weighs at least 50 pounds more than me clear off the ground. (Amazing things happen when the Crew score goals that involve Frankie Hejduk ghosting into the penalty area to connect with a sublime GBS chip. And I'm hernia free!)
• Made money. Unless I do something utterly ridiculous in the next four days, 2008 will be the first year I've actually made more money than I've spent. Perhaps my heirs will not be saddled with my debts* after all (*Heirs may still be saddled with gambling debts and losses from recent investments in Bernie Madoff's fund... after he was arrested)
• Accepted that f**ker and a**hole can actually be terms of endearment when used in the right context at the right time with the right people. Such occasions are rare, but when they come about, they must be cherished. And taken full advantage of.
• Blogged religiously at least once a week. *cough cough* Oh alright, not really.

My Ears are Blocked

Again. The same thing happened to me this time last year. It has to be the weather.

I had to get them "irrigated" back in Columbus where this brave nurse squeezed hot water into my ears using some strange rubber bulb type thing and tried not to retch when all sorts of ear wax spilled out into the bowl she was holding to my hearing devices.

But I could hear tons better.

I'm going to try to go see Dr. Angulo tomorrow. Dr. Angulo is a geriatric, senile Colombian who cured me of my bacterial infection 6 weeks ago and also:

1. Told me that every doctor I'd ever had till I came to see him was an idiot
2. Tried to explain to me that Mahatma Gandhi was the driving force behind the Partition of India (he may have been on to something there)
3. Interrupted examination and diagnosis for 10 minutes to try to remember all he could about this Persian prince named "Ahmad" that he had read about once years ago
4. Recounted an exciting story of how he discovered the tumor the size of a grapefruit in an indigent artist's testicle. (How said artist didn't realize he had a tumor the size of a grapefruit in his testicle I do not know.)
5. Nodded appreciatively at my knowledge of early 90s Colombian football players (Valderrama and Higuita was as far as I got, but it was enough)

'twas quite an interesting experience. He took his time (75 minutes) and got to know me and my issues, made a diagnosis, loaded me up with prescriptions for six different drugs, warned me of the several different ways I could die from the common cold and sent me on my way.

He reminds me of home. So back to him I go.