Stolen shamelessly from Buzzy

I took the "The Nine Muses" quiz on gURL.com
		My muse is... Calliope Calliope is the patron goddess of epic poetry. She is often depicted holding a writing tablet and wearing a golden crown, for she is the oldest of the muses and their leader. Her name means "The Fair Voiced," but Calliope inspires eloquence in writing. Read more... Who is your muse?

"No LASIK for you!"

I have been wanting to have LASIK surgery for years, but could never afford it until recently. My eye surgeon had told me a couple of years ago that my vision was within the range that would make me a good candidate for it, so I got all excited and went to see him today for a consult, only to have him tell me that there is no way I can have LASIK surgery, for a variety of reasons -- apparently, rheumatoid arthritis precludes one from having the surgery, and my other eye issues for which I had surgery last year are also a factor. Dammit.

Then he said that if I were willing to pay $8,000, there is another option. I said I'd drop $8K if it meant I could open my eyes in the morning and be able to see clearly. He said, "Okay. There is a lens implant we can do. I've never actually done it before. I took a class on it, and I've just been waiting for the right patient to come along." I think by now this guy has marked "medical freak of nature" down in my chart somewhere. Anyhow, he said that this particular surgery is not that much different from the cataract surgeries he's been performing for years -- it's just that instead of replacing the natural lens with an artificial one, he would be inserting an artificial one over my natural lens. He told his assistant to sign him up for another class on it, with the idea that I would then get to be his guinea pig.

I was a little taken aback by the fact that he's never done this particular surgery before, but I was still leaning towards doing it because I really, really want to get my vision corrected and not have to bother with glasses or contacts any more. Upon talking it over with sane people who are not blinded (no pun intended) by a burning desire to have normal eyesight, however, I've decided it would probably not be a good idea to have major eye surgery performed by someone who's never done it before. I know he's a very good eye surgeon, but this is my vision we're talking about here. I don't want to wind up blind because this guy was using me for practice.

So, I think I'm going to do some research and try to find a surgeon who is experienced with this type of surgery. I may have to have it done out of town, because my doctor is considered one of the best in Austin, and if he's never done it, chances are no one else in Austin has, either. Hopefully I can find someone in Houston or Dallas who specializes in this lens implant surgery.

Five Questions

I volunteered to have my friend Southie, of Keeping Up with the Blogses, ask me five questions of his choosing. Here they are:

1) Who is the one person not related to you who's had
the biggest affect on your life (negative or positive)
and why?

This is a really tough one to answer, since you threw in the "not related to you" part. Of course, if you hadn't included that, I would have said my brother Steve.

I guess that I will have to go with Sarah Weddington. For those who don't know who Sarah is, she is the attorney who argued and won Roe v. Wade, and I lucked into getting to know her personally. When I was working at Motorola and was absolutely miserable in my job, I decided to go back to UT for a semester. I enrolled in Sarah's class without knowing that she was teaching it -- it just happened to be at a convenient time for me, in a subject I could use towards my degree, and the topic sounded interesting -- Gender-Based Discrimination and the Law, or something like that. My jaw hit the floor on the first day of class when I realized who the professor was.

In any event, I did extremely well in her class and she was very impressed with me. Thanks to her encouragement and her letter of recommendation, I left Motorola shortly thereafter to pursue a career in the legal field, and that was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Of course, my current job is not something I'm happy with, but Sarah and I have kept in touch and she continues to encourage me to stay in the legal field, but to do something more fulfilling with it. I'm now looking into working for Planned Parenthood, or for a similar organization.

I'd always been interested in this field, but probably never would have taken the plunge had it not been for Sarah's encouragement. I'd also always been pro-choice and interested in women's issues, but Sarah really lit the fire under me to get more involved.

2) If the internet disappeared tomorrow what would you
do with the time that you now spend on the computer?

Hmmmm. I would probably do a lot of the things I used to do more of before I discovered the joys of the online world. I'd read more books and do a lot more crostic puzzles. I'd get more sleep, too. Thankfully, my internet addiction today is much less severe than it used to be, so I can honestly say that the time I spend online these days is not really taking anything away from the rest of my life.

3) Which of your pets was your favourite of all time?

Oh, I hate to choose favorites, but I'd have to say that Achilles is probably my all-time favorite, and not just because he's my current pooch. He has so much personality and is just so much fun, and I think he's bonded with me more than my other dogs did. He's a lot more interactive and playful than they were. Of course, I loved my other dogs dearly and have many wonderful memories of them, and I also love my cats, but there is just something very, very special about Achilles.

4) What is the one thing you would most like to try
that fear keeps you from trying?

I can't think of anything that fear keeps me from trying, but there are a lot of things I'd like to do that shyness and low self-confidence keep me from doing. I suppose that is a kind of fear. There are several classes I'd like to take -- ballet and martial arts, for example -- that I'm hesitant to sign up for because being in a group environment with people I don't know unnerves me. Shyness isn't the only thing that keeps me from taking such classes, though -- I think that I would be much more inclined to do something like that if I didn't work full time. I skip out on work parties and functions, happy hour with co-workers, and various other social invitations due to shyness, though.

I guess the one thing fear keeps me from doing is learning how to swim decently. I'd love to be able to swim like a fish, but I'm terrified of the water.

5) You have talked frequently about and shown many
pictures of your niece. Do you ever see yourself
having children of your own? If not, why not?
(I think you would probably make a great mom)

Why, thank you! The short answer is "probably not." I can't say that I'm positive it will never happen, but I can say that the scenario in which I could see it happening is unlikely to occur.