I am starting to really worry about me

I am starting to worry about me. I think something's breaking in my body and am not sure what. Worse, Kaiser can't figure it out, either. The sleep thing has been weird enough, but last night something else happened to add to the chaos.

I was home most of the early afternoon, but then, because the cable company out here was showing the Redskins, not the Ravens (there was a nice Carlton Sheets infomercial instead) I went out to go watch the game. No big deal, and I had a great conversation with a woman in Minneapolis who seems to have taken a liking to me as I drove over to watch the game. After the Ravens lost stupidly, I stuck around to watch Maryland beat Boston College, then went home.

Part way home, I was suddenly massively, uncontrollably dizzy and struck by overwhelming nausea. I got off at the nearest exit, and didn't even have time to roll the window down. I shoved the passenger door open, and with the mantra "must...not...puke...in...new...car..." running through my head, I leaned across the front seats and exploded all over the snow on the far shoulder. I don't think I got any on the car, which was good, but I felt like I was falling off a cliff. After heaving for what seemed like an hour, expelling things I think I ate during the Carter Administration, I finally stopped. Rinsed my mouth out with the mouthwash I keep in the car, and then collapsed, sweating, in the passenger seat.

I have no idea what happened.

I woke up two hours later, still dizzy, and tried driving home. I got another two exits before I had to pull over again. No heaving this time, but I was incredibly tired and disoriented... I was really glad a cop didn't stop or anything, because they'd probably have (wrongly) assumed I was drunk.

I finally made it home at 5:00am, a trip interrupted by at least three other have-to-pull-over-and-rest moments.

Improbably, I actually slept through a doctor's appointment I had for this morning, and couldn't make it out of my bed without feeling dizzy until the early evening.

I'm now sitting here, mostly OK, trying to figure out what the hell could be going on. The last couple of times I've gone to Kaiser, they can't find anything, and tell me the usual lose-weight-stop-drinking-caffeine-cut-down-on-salt thing. My blood pressure is a little high, my pulse and respiration are normal, they ran a bunch of blood tests and couldn't find thyroid or other problems.

Guys in my family don't last all that long, but I'd at least like to live long enough to pay off my house, rather than have my life insurance pay it off!

OK... catching up on other things: Louisa is back from Cleveland. She was quite apologetic about forgetting to send me a phone number at which I could reach her on Friday. Hopefully we'll catch up on seeing each other this Friday, as she has suggested. Alas, while she was traveling, she saw In Her Shoes, a film we'd talked about seeing together, so I'll have to come up with another date idea.

The woman in Minnesota... she intrigues me, and seems to like me. I wrote to her profile on an online dating site I use (the site through which I met Miranda and a couple of other people over the years), and we liked each other immediately. She has a cute little house in Minneapolis, a large cat named Damian, and is both tall and cute. Tall, as in, "almost as tall as I am."

We have incredibly similar tastes in and attractions to music of all kinds. She's the only woman who's ever mentioned Charlie Walker or Ralph Stanley to me unbidden. She's 40 and never been married, and has no interest in having children, both pretty appealing things to me. And yes, she has cute calves.

We talked for almost the entire time I was driving to watch the game yesterday afternoon. She's easy to talk to and not at all put off by the fact we're about a thousand miles apart. Neither of us is crossing bridges we don't have to. I kinda like that.

Miranda sent me a note telling me more about what we're doing on New Year's Eve. It will be rather bittersweet being with this beautiful woman on New Year's Eve, knowing there really isn't anything more there. But we agreed to be with each other for the evening, and even though it may sound like I'm gritting my teeth, I am not, and won't be. It'll be just fine, and it gets me out of the house and into a tux again.