I’m not dead, really!

It’s been so long that I hardly know where to begin.

My life has changed so much, and in ways I never would’ve expected.

Have a summary:

– Fell in love. I’m still falling. Every day I’m still finding something new… something in common, something different that I can learn, something endearing, something annoying but cute anyhow (love those rose-colored glasses!), something beautiful, something painful. This is so different from anything else I’ve experienced. It’s more intense and yet more relaxed — don’t ask me to explain that one, ’cause I don’t know how.

– Italy has been postponed to the Spring (from October) so that Safe-Dancing-Guy and I can go together. I’m so excited!!! We’re planning out two-weeks in mostly non-tourist-flooded areas. We’ll spend at least some of our time there with a family who have been friends of Safe-Dancing-Guy’s family for years and years. They don’t speak English well, but we’re taking Italian classes now to hopefully bridge the communication gap.

– Had this crazy bout of bad hormone levels last month, and spent two weeks disabled by migraines. We’ve found the problem, and I’m mostly better now, but it put a crimp in teaching and going to work (not to mention being social).

– My surgery foot that was painless for a while after it healed has started hurting again. The doc thinks that the stump of my nerve (created by removing nerve tissue during the surgery) is growing a new neuroma. Ive started a course of cortisone shots to prevent the neuroma from growing in size. Unfortunately, it’s only helped a little with the pain. I go back to my doc soon for another cortisone shot, and maybe a new game plan in case the cortisone never works.

– I’m taking a sabbatical from teaching dance. It’s painful just to type that. This wonderful part of my life has become a source of great stress. Between being out for migraines, and then my foot being in pain, I’ve only been teaching sporadically. I haven’t been social dancing really at all, so as to save my foot for teaching. Until I really know what’s going on with my foot, I can’t stay committed to teaching. It’s not fair to the students, or the person I teach with who has to find replacements for me when I call in sick. I’m still doing a very small amount of teaching – I’m helping to choreograph a routine that a group of our students will be performing in August. There’s just no real way to hand that responsibility to someone else, so I’m sticking with it. Besides, if I wasn’t doing any teaching at all, I might go a little crazy.

– Saw my dad for the first time in 5 years over the 4th of July weekend. Safe-Dancing-Guy and I stayed in Tahoe and had dinner with my dad in Reno. Dad’s doing really well, and it was great to see him. It was also incredibly cool that he and Safe-Dancing-Guy got along really well.

– My mom started IM’ing me a couple of months back. We hadn’t talked in probably 3 years at least, and I haven’t seen her since 1998. Our relationship has been extremely rocky over the years. But she’s very sick now and is reaching out, and so far, IM seems to be a good communication medium for us. We’ll just have to see how this goes. It’s a nice thought that this relationship might be salvaged after so much heartache.

– Work is just plain weird. My boss has been in a good mood for the past two weeks, and that always freaks me out. ;P We’ve got a lot of new people on the team now, and they all need training. The focus of my job has shifted to training, and writing documentation. Not that I don’t still do technical work, but we have to get the newbies up to speed – it can’t be helped. My boss has also said that he wants to give me a promotion — but not until September. His reason for waiting is that he wants to make sure I still deserve in a couple of months. What an ass. Why he didn’t just wait until he was sure, I don’t know. But whatever. I’ve been through similar issues with him before, and I’ll believe in the promotion when it actually happens. Until then, it’s business as usual.

This news update was brought to you by Wow-My-Boss-Left-Early-Today — Now with more Slacking!!

🙂