Nothing was accomplished at yesterday’s first meeting with a psychiatrist. It was just me rambling, introducing myself as a sad, depressed, lonely fuck of a middle aged loser. She seemed genuinely nice. It looks like I’ll finally get what I was looking for all these years. A one on one relationship with a professional. Until now every attempt I made to find this was intercepted by requirements that I go to group meetings akin to AA, which I just do not need or want.
Most of yesterday was just me rambling, getting as much crap out as I could. I was late. Tardiness is not among my many character flaws. I wrote down the wrong address. I thought she said 10 West 34th street, which would have been in the Empire State Building. Alas, no such address exists, although the side of the ESB facing 34th Street had the numbers “2-20” on the side, indicating that the building occupied what would be addresses 2 through 20. but the ESB does not actually own those addresses. A pleasant doorman of the ESB explained this.
So I called the doctor and said I had the wrong address. She called back maybe 15 minutes later with the proper address. I felt stupid. I am never late for anything.
She seemed especially piqued when I said that I am a classical pianist. That happened with the woman at Bellevue. She totally lit up when I said I played piano. In the case of the Bellevue woman I realized later that her interest was from the Music Therapy perspetive, where playing an instrument is considered to be good for your mind and body. I don’t know why this new therapist heaped such adoration on my piano playing. It would annoy me but why bother with irritability? As I left she asked “Were you intoxicated when you recorded your voicemail greeting?” That made me laugh. My voicemail greeting, I was reminded by her question, is me saying the name “SORABJI” in a gruff kind of voice. I meant to change that a long time ago. She thought she had dialed the wrong number. I explained to her that Sorabji is the name of an obscure composer whose music I sometimes play, and she should look him up if classical music is her thing. People who know me already would recognize “Sorabji” as my online identity/persona since time immemorial, but first time callers might find it confusing. She seemed pleased with this response.
A doctor’s visit the day before was interesting. My BP when I got there was 160/90, which is quite high. By the time I left it was 130/90, which is almost normal except that the 90 is too high. He drew some blood, which might have lowered the BP somewhat, but nothing other than anxiety and nerves seemed to be fueling my higher BP on arrival. The doctor said to take my BP first thing in the morning, which I would have thought was a cheap, nearly cheating way of doing it. I did that today and got 127/72, which is good but still higher than what I’ve been at for most of my life until the last several years. I seem to remember readings in the 100/60 range being common for me.
Sitting at a bar sipping coffee. Bartender friend of mine is entirely cranky today, sharing TMI about things I don’t need to hear about. He just said he drank 7 beers and 3 bottles of wine last night, and is probably still drunk. He just spilled a tall glass of ice coffee, nearly hitting my precious keyboard and tablet with the splatter.
