My appointment with her was at the end of the day, so I didn’t reach any of the recommended neurologists, but I will call first thing tomorrow.

I have to say that work and freelance work and school work feel a bit surreal at this time.

No, I have not told my mom about this yet. I want to get some actual details on a prognosis first.

I have some conflicting feelings about this incident.

First, I feel a bit stupid for having gone to the ER about it. There’s obviously nothing that they can find wrong. And I have spent a lot of money (insurance doesn’t cover quite all of it) and a lot of time that I don’t have. I was supposed to spend this whole holiday weekend doing freelance work, because I don’t have any goddamn money. Now I am behind in my freelance work, and I have more bills. This seems ridiculous.

Second, I feel a bit stupid for not having gone to the ER immediately. The nurses, techs, doctors, and my friend who was a paramedic all gasped when I told them about what happened and that I ran some more afterward and didn’t go immediately to a hospital. So given their reactions, I guess I should have had it checked out.

I don’t know. Mostly I feel headachy (sinuses and caffeine withdrawal–don’t freak out!). And really overwhelmed about the workload. And like I need a motherfucking run. Though the doc who just released me (who I just met half an hour ago) has told me not to do strenuous activity until I see my other doc. So. I don’t know.

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. And that is annoying.

But I am spending the goddamn night in the goddamn hospital.

I did enough internet reading last night to decide that I should get checked out. In fact, everything I read said that it sounded like a transient ischemic attack. And that I should have gone immediately to an emergency room instead of running another two miles. Oops.

So I got up this morning and went to an emergency room. Chris went with me. We chose a very small hospital where we’d been told that the ER is usually very empty. Yep. I was the only patient for a while. I got right in. And there were no drunk or bleeding people draped all over the chairs. Very nice.

But the nurses and doctors had plenty of time to tell me what a dumbass I was for continuing my run and not going immediately to the hospital. They have also given me every test I’ve ever heard of. I gave a of blood. I got the usual blood pressure and temp checks (over and over and over all day).

I got an EKG to see how my heart was working (fine). I got a CT to see if there was a bleed in my brain (nope). I got an echocardiogram to see in more detail how my heart was working (fine).

Finally, a doctor mentioned sort of off-handedly that I’d be staying the night. What? For observation.

Chris went and got me some food, since I hadn’t eaten before our 8 a.m. arrival, in case they needed some fasting tests. But he forgot to get me caffeine. Then he went home to work, because as I said in the last entry, we have a lot of work to do.

I started working on my own work (luckily I had brought my computer with me, in case the wait was long). And then they moved me into my own room. They made me ride there in a fucking wheelchair. Then they promptly sent some transport people in an ambulance to take me to a different hospital with an MRI machine. They strapped me to a gurney.

I really feel fine, if a bit anxious, impatient, and kind of eager to go for a walk or a bike ride or something. I do not need to be strapped to things! But they have to follow protocol. So they strapped me down and made my nurse come with us and we all trundled over to another hospital. I got the MRI (fell asleep). I got strapped back down and carted back to my room at the little hospital.

Now I am just waiting to hear from someone, anyone please, about what the MRI shows. According to Dr. Internet, it could show nothing (in which case my weird experience yesterday was a blood sugar thing maybe or just some unexplainable whatever) OR it could show some kind of fucked up thing like a brain tumor. I am not sure what to think about Dr. Internet’s shrill delivery of all information, whether it is remotely possible or not.

So the summary is that all test results that have come back are normal. It was probably nothing. If it’s the worst possible thing . . . well, I’ll know that soon, and I’ll let you know.

I took Friday off so I could have a four-day weekend, but it’s not for having much fun. Well, first, Thursday afternoon I worked on Freelance Project 1 and sent it off to the client. Then I picked up some of the crazy gourmet donuts Chris loves, because it was his birthday, and we had a friend over and played cards.

Friday I got up early and went for a run/walk (mostly a run, but I’m still babying my hamstring). Then I spent the day working on Freelance Project 2 and getting some dumb house chores done.

Today, I finished up Freelance Project 2 in the morning and then spent the afternoon reading an information architecture book for class. I managed to get a few minutes to start reading the new David Mitchell novel, which I’m supposed to have finished by Thursday’s book club meeting. It’s already brilliant. I love him so much.

But, alas, I had to leave the novel in order to go outside, since it was only 90 degrees today. Chris and I went to Town Lake for the first time in more than month.

We ran more than half of it, but then I got weirdly dizzy and kind of incoherent for a few minutes. It freaked us both out . . . is it just something like a sinus infection? I’ve gotten dizzy from those before. I don’t know. My right hand went numb at about the same time, and I was a bit confused and couldn’t say words right for a minute. But then it cleared up and I even ran some more and felt fine. But now I’m freaking myself out. It would have to be a holiday weekend when this happens. I guess I’ll go see a doctor next week and see if I’m having a stroke or some fucking shit like that. Gah.

Tomorrow and Monday will involve a lot of work on Freelance Project 3, which is massive. Chris and I are working on that one together, and it’s going to keep us busy for a few months.

Sorry this isn’t interesting. I’m tired. And possibly dying or some shit.

But until shit just gets too insane to breathe, I’m still trying to go outside occasionally. Last week I managed to ride 51 miles on my bike. That’s not a huge amount for people who ride a lot, but it’s a medium-high amount for me. I got to ride to and from work once (godDAMN it’s hot out) and go on a ride with a friend and a ride with Chris. All good.

Yesterday Chris and I rode at the Veloway, and on our fourth lap, suddenly there was a giant rattlesnake on the path. Eeeek! We steered around it and then slowed down for a closer (but not too close) look. I wish I’d had a camera with me. It was a big fucker.

I did have a camera this afternoon when I got home from work and this was right at eye level by my front door. I am not ashamed to admit that I jumped sideways a little when I first saw it. Then I bravely came back to document the moment.

Work has been a bit overwhelming again, but mostly in good ways. We’ve been needing some better internal communications for . . . ever. And I’ve had plans to turn the intranet into something more than a place to enter travel expenses. So these past few weeks I’ve been redesigning it a bit, and I just wrote an internal newsletter. The director of the center demanded “make it funny,” and that was some pressure, but I added a few fart jokes, and I think that will satisfy him.

Novel progress stalled for a few days while I retreated into listening to comedian podcasts and playing Zuma. Sometimes, the heart wants what the heart wants.

I just got back from a ride with my friend Angie. We are mostly law-abiding, but at one point we came to a stop sign at the corner of a street that’s a dead end in both directions and has very close to zero traffic. We slowed and looked around and then went through it. . . . And an old guy started trotting across his lawn, yelling, “That was a stop sign! You are supposed to STOP!”

“Sorry!” I called.

“That applies to bicycles, too!” He was still coming!

I yelled back, “Yes, sir!” and we rode on and left him waving his arms at us from the sidewalk.

Did he expect us to stop so he could yell at us? Scofflaw I may be, but I am no fool.

For the rest of our ride, Angie and I carefully braked fully at every single stop sign, but at one point I admitted, “I’m not really watching for cars. I’m looking out for old guys.”

Speaking of biking, Chris spent the evening doing some research at the UT Latin American library. He parked his car off campus, because parking on campus is impossible, and he rode his bike to the library. He just called to say he’s leaving the library on his bike, and I pointed out that IT IS FUCKING DARK OUTSIDE. I am pretty sure that the only light he has on that bike is a tiny blinking tail light. So now I’m going to go fret in the living room until he gets home safely. Then I’m going to wave my arms and yell like an angry old guy.

Then I got in my car to go home and immediately started freaking out. Is this what I really want? Extra work to do when I’m already trying to find time to write a novel? Extra work to do when I’m worn out most days after work? EXTRA WORK TO DO?

I also worried a bit about the money. Since I’m a UT employee, I get to take one class a semester free. But if I actually apply and get into the program, I will have to take more than that to make any progress. And I saw from my invoice this afternoon that one damn class is over $1600. I am certainly not going to be getting any more damn student loans. So . . . I have things to think about.

But if I leave out the money worries, actually, there’s not all that much to think about. It is extra work to do, but I think I’ll like it.

Other than that, today was generally all right. I got things done at work. And in the afternoon, one of my good friends and her daughter came to campus to go to the Blanton Museum. So I walked over and toured it with them.

I’ve been there several times, but it was funny going through it with a six-year-old who had no qualms about hurrying us through rooms full of paintings of chubby white dudes: “This is BORing.” And she had many, many questions about the reproductions of Greek and Roman naked statues—that room turned out to be her favorite. She rushed us through the special Matisse exhibit, but I saw some cool stuff there, and it was a very nice hour’s break from work.

I got home way later than usual, since I spent my after-work time hovering around that poor grad coordinator’s office. So I got in no workouts, and I ate like an idiot. But whatever. It was a day to stop and look at paintings from hundreds of years ago, and a day to think about my future as a possible student of information architecture. Dizzying, when you think of it that way.

I think maybe the problem with my American Studies experience was that I was still chasing a plan I’d made when I was in college. I fell in love with my professors, with their lives.

I went to a really small school for my undergrad degree, and the professors I met there all made efforts to know me and take care of me. They weren’t the foreboding guardians of knowledge from movies, and, very important, they weren’t much like the chaotic-living adults I grew up with. They showed me a middle ground that I didn’t know existed.

I know it sounds a little weird that I didn’t know there was a middle ground between extremely rich and mean vs. rather poor and kind of a fuck up. But really, I didn’t know it. So I grabbed onto the first middle ground option that presented itself. I’d declared myself an English major, hoping I’d get to be an extremely rich (and mean!) novelist right quick, but my glimpse into my professors’ lives made me want to be them.

Look, I didn’t know about editing, which I do for a living now. I thought editors were all people who lived in New York and were really old (and rich and mean). I certainly didn’t know about web design, back in the mid-90s, and I make my living with that now, too. I didn’t know about . . . so many things. Office work, medical insurance, think of a middle class thing and I didn’t know about it.

So I got a master’s in English, and then before I could get the PhD, my life fell apart and Chris and I fled our mess and ended up in Austin. Even though I did, with as much wonder as a gollee Gomer Pyle, get an office job at UT immediately, I still held onto to that professor dream, and I got back into grad school as soon as possible, planning to get a PhD in American Studies.

But I still had to work, and my work was good. I got better and better editing jobs. It almost felt like as soon as people heard I could write a decent sentence, they started begging me to write and edit sentences for them. I developed a freelance client list. I learned basic web design and got work doing that, too. And before I knew it, I was trying to live two completely different lives and preparing for a life as a professor that I didn’t realize I had stopped wanting.

When I limped away with my grubby second MA, feeling ashamed of myself for wasting everyone’s time, I said that I’d never go back to grad school. That dream was dead.

But . . . information architecture. It’s what I do! Sure, I’m stumbling along doing it blind and without any type of theoretical grounding, but I do it every damn day. And getting a degree in that . . . it’s not an automatic path to professorship, which I don’t want. It can inform what I do now, every day in my job. And my job can inform what I do in my school work.

So I’m taking a class this semester. Just one class. And if I like it, maybe I’ll apply to the program. And maybe I’ll get in. And maybe I’ll do all right. And maybe I’ll achieve one teeny little piece of that dream I dispensed with.

It’s the kind of day that’s necessary. All of the things I did will lead slowly to more capacity, blah blah. But it’s not the kind of day that makes me think, “Ah, I accomplished something.”

I did take part in shenanigans, however. We have to get three conference room windows frosted. The staff gets to vote on what will be on one of the windows, and pictures of our options are hanging on the window. We’re supposed to go by and sign our names on the one we like best. But they are all rather boring views of the UT tower. So one of my coworkers had the idea to hang up a photo of another coworker among the options. I made a signature page to go along with it, and voila, shenanigans. I know, it’s no whoopie cushion in the boss’s chair, but it’s pure comedy, nonetheless.

I tried a short run after work, trying to see if my hamstring tendon would allow it. It hurt after about 5 minutes, so I just walked the rest. I’m babying the damn thing, because I’m terrified it will break or something and I’ll never get to run again. But there’s a tri in October I want to do, so goddammit, it better get well soon. I did my stupid, painful PT exercises in order to encourage that.

On the way home from work, I heard an older Matisyahu song I hadn’t heard before. I am not crazy about reggae, so I don’t seek out his stuff. From the song “Chop It Down,” this lyric stood out: “From the forest itself comes the handle for the axe.”

I thought that sounded like it belonged in a Rage Against the Machine song. Doesn’t it just scream “revolution”? And it’s called “Chop It Down”! It couldn’t be more clear to me: Our culture itself creates the instrument of its own destruction, the revolutionary.

Alas, according to this guy, Matisyahu said it’s some mystical religious thing: “his forest had been the music itself, and he had found a way to use his music to chop down the forest separating his soul from Hashem.”

Bah to that! Back when I took 537 college literature courses, we argued all the time about whether the author had a right to tell us what his work meant, or whether the reader made the meaning. In this case, I win. I hold no truck with Hashem. Revolution, however, that is all that is right and good in rock n roll.

Today the teacher—who is one of my favorite people in the world, though of course she doesn’t know that because I don’t tend to tell people things like that—played a CD during class that she often plays. I have no idea what the woman on the CD is chanting, but it sounds like she’s saying “unsung water balloon.”

Today is notable for more than unsung water balloons, though! It’s my eighteenth wedding anniversary (also my mom’s birthday, Madonna’s birthday, and the day Elvis died, among other important events).

We didn’t celebrate today, since it’s just a crappy work Monday. But Saturday we pre-celebrated with a late lunch at one of our favorite Italian places, a movie (The Other Guys—funny, but most of the best parts were in the 47 different trailers I saw for it), and a nightcap at the insane gourmet donut trailer.

Tonight, not as exciting. We just had leftovers for dinner and watched tv for a while. But now! I’m going to work on my novel a little and listen to the new Dollyrots album, which comes out tomorrow but is streaming for free tonight. I really love living in the future.