The good news is that I’m feeling quite a bit bett…
The good news is that I’m feeling quite a bit better. The bad news is that I’m back at work, the Land of Incompetent IT Staff, where LAN stands for “Laughable Archaic Nonsense”. My sight is pretty much restored, although things are still a bit fuzzy at night. I have to put drops in my eyes in a complex order not unlike morse code signals every hour, and I have to sleep with patches over my eyes in case I have a dream in which I am forced to watch Sailor Moon cartoons and try to rip out my own eyeballs in my sleep.
The procedure was sort of like an assembly line. Kirk and I went over to the clinic to find it full of people waiting for the operation. I was third in line, but it still took a couple of hours for them to get to me. Apparently the doctor called in to see if there was enough people there before he was willing to come in.
Kirk had brought the Chinese version of The Hobbit to read while I went under the knife. The nurse gave me her spiel about the dangers of surgery and all that, and then, after a couple of hours, they finally called my name. They escorted me into a little room where I had to put covers over my sneakers and on my head while the nurse smeared anesthetic goo around my eyes. Then I was escorted into the operation room, where one of two LASIK machines was being used. I wondered if they ever have both going, like a competition to see who gets the most patients done, or maybe it was just there as a backup in case the first machine failed. Neither possibility was all that encouraging, I thought as the nurse motioned for me to sit in a chair and watch the previous patient get zapped to the sound of classical music playing scratchily from a portable radio in the corner.
When it was my turn I got on the swiveling table and grabbed the proffered pillow underneath the calico quilt. They covered up my face and started. When the machine started making loud clicking noises the doctor said it was “measuring” my eyes, but from the smell he was either lying or having some barbeque on the side as he worked.
Afterwards Kirk walked me home, describing my state in a helpful fashion as “pathetic.” I took the medicine, covered my eyes, and lay down for a day or two of pain. A word of advice: Don’t let anyone tell you that LASIK is painless. The people that tell you that were just kept sedated for a day or two afterwards, I’ll wager.
In other news, our new desk assignments have been posted, and there has been a more-or-less permanant knot of people over in front of the bulletin boards trying to see where they will be sitting at the new office. I found my desk and looked all over for Whiny Woman’s name, but she wasn’t listed at all. It turns out that she, uh, how do I put this, won’t be making the move with us.
Hooray! No more Whiny Woman! Instead I’ll be sitting in a four-person cubicle with Chen Bochuan, a stocky, good-looking fellow from the creative department, which also means I might be able to use his Mac, and the two other seats are empty for now. I will have to make a “No Whining” sign in case anyone gets it into their heads to move people of the Whiny pursuation in there.
My desk is right next to the pool table, which could be nice, although I would rather be close to the ping-pong table. There’s also a basketball court and swimming pool, and I suspect there is also a helicopter pad but I’m not sure where exactly. Probably next to the rooftop gardens. My diet will probably go to hell, and I will also probably be spending a lot more money on food and movies since we’ll be right next door to Warner Village, but hey, I guess I can’t have everything.
