I am experiencing unilateral ulnar paresthesia

I went for a bike ride with Shana tonight. We stopped at my place so I could change out of scrubs, and of course the nuclear mess that is my apartment impressed her. Not in a good way, either. She took photos to show her husband how neat she is in comparison. I think she was scandalized by it.

She was also amazed - in a good way, this time - by my postered walls, so that's another feather in my cap.

I remember I cleaned up after the last break, three months ago. Now next week is a break week again and the mess has piled up. Granted, I did make a deliberate decision to completely neglect it. Which is a decision I can at least respect, especially considering the frame of mind I was in at the time. Still, I'd be much happier with myself if I could get my shit together in this regard.

The distal extent of my left ulnar nerve is tingling. I'm not sure why this happens, but it does when I go for long bike rides. It has to do with my wrist position, since it's only the innervated region of my hand that's numb. I have a feeling I'm getting ligamental pressure onto the nerve root. I think I'll try to experiment with new positions.

I got home and realized I hadn't eaten dinner once again. When I'm busy, I don't really mind or notice being hungry. Anyway, I finished off the last few pieces of chocolate left from Silvana's baby shower as I was writing this.

And yet again, I get home too late to call people living in the eastern time zone. I gotta plan my trip to the coast next week, and make other calls.

Francis let me know that FMTM had a good show at the Note, about 160 people turning out, which was good considering Hullabalooza was in town.

And speaking of Hullabulooza, Shana and I were heading south past Grant Park on the Lake Front Path and the Park was still filled with its detritus.

The bike ride was good tonight, although I had to work on keeping the pace down for Shana to keep up. Once I dropped her off at home I hit a pretty good pace and really worked up a sweat for the two miles to my house. I know I should have changed the knobby dirt tire off my rear wheel, but I like the varying pitch as the knobs hit the pavement as I ride.

The Dreamcatcher

I was laying in bed getting to sleep, when for some reason my thoughts turned to Mike Meyer. Not the comedian, but my high school friend who shared my birthday. And from him, it was a short mental leap to his at-the-time best friend, Jeff Dobbelaere.

Which brings me to the point of this little story, something that I'd pondered on my drive home today but neglected to mention earlier, even when I talked with Trisha for half an hour.

I had some very vivid dreams last night. And the sequence is revealing in regard to my psyche.

First, I dreamt I was at some bar and met Amber (recall, the girl Id just spent a few hours talking to in real life) in the crowd. She'd taken my hand and had me follow her, but lost me when I bumped into Jason Wyrwicz.

Now, some background here: I'd known Jason since we were in 4th grade. We were friends in junior high, and then we both ended up displaced from the public school system to Catholic high school together. There, in some sense, it was geographic proximity and shared ostracism that maintained our friendship. Eventually, we both ended up at Northwestern (along with the aforementioned Mike Meyer) and our friendship was again more based on friendship than tortured high school bullshit. We were DJs together, and I did learn a lot from him. I was fucked in the head a bunch, even though I never drank at that time. Just like I had something to prove and lots of anger, but both the proof and the anger were self-directed, I think. Anyway, at some point Jason joined a frat, drank his life away, and I never saw him again except a few times on the street.

Back to my dream.

I was trailing Amber through the crowd when I bump Jason and lose her. I look up - yeah, Jason was inches taller than me - and there he is. And then Jeff showed up too, I guess because my mind placed it back at my high school reunion in June.

Dreamscape shift. Now I'm driving on a winding blacktop driveway amidst green lawns at night. And parked on these laws, all over, are cars. A parking lot for some large indeterminate gathering. And all I need to do is back off the driveway into a parking space and then I'll meet up with Amber again (don't ask, because I don't know)...and I'm unable to hit the brake. My foot cannot press the pedal. The car is going in reverse, out of control, and I scrape one of the parked cars. I require intense focus to mash my foot down on the pedal, from practically outside the car...and it slows but still moves on inexorably. Eventually I grind it down hard and it comes to rest.

The last time I had the recurring dream motif of being unable to brake was three or four years ago when I really felt like I had no control over any aspect of my life. I didn't figure that out until after they'd stopped.

For it to recur now seems to indicate a deep-seated fear of losing my emotional control. I feel like I'm still kinda fucked up in the head.

Plus, I'm so tired right now, I'm starting to feel depressed.