THE MOVEMENT YOU NEED IS ON YOUR SHOULDER: Now that Donna's home from rehab and starting to walk with her new hip—she's climbing the stairs from the living room to her bedroom fairly regularly now—she's had the time to go see Dr. Struhl, the surgeon who did her shoulder replacements nearly a decade ago, to investigate why she's once again been experiencing pain and reduced range of motion in her right shoulder. (She was planning to do so last summer, but Stuff Happened.) Dr. Struhl is now pursuing the possibility that she has a torn rotator cuff. If that turns out to be the case, it would be a relief, since treating such an injury does not entail total joint replacement. I'm told it can be done as arthroscopic surgery, which is minimally invasive. Diagnosis is not conclusive yet, though, and will await the use of MRIs and other diagnostic tools.

COMPLETE PHYSICAL BREAKDOWN SINCE TURNING 40...uh...50...uh...: I went to see my optometrist in late March, for an annual exam and also to ask about the areas of blurriness that have been appearing intermittently in my right eye's field of vision for a couple of months. After a fairly thorough set of tests, he said that nothing was obviously wrong, but that it's not unusual at my age for the vitreous humor (the transparent gelatinous substance filling up the inside of the eyeball from lens to retina) to liquefy and settle somewhat. Typically this will resolve in a matter of weeks or months. (In some unfortunate cases, part of the retina may stick to the vitreous humor as it settles, and peel off the back of the eyeball—but that doesn't seem to be happening here [knock eye chart].) If I start seeing flashes of light that aren't there, I need to get back there immediately.

     Just to add some more annoyance to my life, a lower right molar took the opportunity to die last month, necessitating some root-canal work. I've had similar things happen to me in the past—more times than I'd like to admit—and my experience has been that the pain associated with the process is mostly prior to the start of the procedure, as the bacteria feasting on the decaying interior of the tooth generate waste gases that build up and produce pressure. Hence when I went to the dental surgeon's office on 16 April, I anticipated that I'd be relieved of the pain (not to mention a lot of the contents of my bank account) within a day or two. This did not happen. Well, the pain relief did not happen. I was still in pain when I went for the second visit on 22 April, and in even more by the time he was through. Things subsided after another week or so, to the point that I could eat something besides oatmeal and soup, but I still couldn't chew on the right side. As of 4 May, the opinion of the D.D.S. is that there's still, or again, some infection in the tooth; he's got me taking antibiotics to deal with it. He also says there's gum and bone damage around the tooth that will necessitate further surgery soon. Joy.

      I'm due at my PCP for an annual checkup about now, but I'm going to hold off until this is resolved.

MON FILS IRA AU CAMEROUN: After fifteen months' wait, Ethan finally heard from the Peace Corps the last week of April: he'll be off to bring the benefits of American technology to the Third World come 3 June. At first they only told him that it would be in "Francophone Africa," a region that encompasses about 20 countries, but now we know he's going to Cameroon—which I can find on a map, but don't really know much about (thank the ghods for the 'Net). Donna and I are trying to wrap our heads around the idea that he'll really be away for 27 months, perhaps without interruption (furlough policies aren't yet clear to us, and airfare would be out of his or our pockets).

GONE TO FREDERICK, EVERYONE: The news was spread late last month that John and Perdita Boardman, after about 50 years in New York (over 40 of them in the same Victorian house in Brooklyn's Kensington neighborhood), are moving to an assisted-living facility in Maryland, near their daughters. Their recent health problems have made this necessary, but we'll miss their conversation and hospitality (they must have opened their home to the fannish public over a hundred times just in First Saturday gatherings).

Comments on APA-NYU, Volume 8, #4 (e-APA-NYU #72)

ICONOCLAST (Joel Nelson):

(¢self) "There is also war between the greens and the readers." Are you referring to dead trees used for printing substrate? The rising popularity of e-readers and online editions of periodicals suggests a basis for an armistice. /*/ (¢Blackman) "Is Anti Monkey Butt powder also back in the day and I only recently heard about it?" The company's Web site <www.antimonkeybutt.com> implies that the product's only been on the market since 2003. I'd never heard of it until I saw it on Tom's shelf. (He's good at finding obscure products with interesting names. The kitchen has a bottle of "The Hottest Fuckin' Sauce." I haven't tried it. I haven't tried the Anti-Monkey-Butt Powder either, come to think of it.) /*/ "I decided to change my hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays to the 7:30 through 3:30 that it seems everyone else in the known universe works." Not the known universe that I work in. But hey, if it works for you, enjoy. /*/ "It appears to me that both the morning ride, and now this evening ride, were just given me without my seeking them." Well, it could be karmic payback for your having been such a decent and generous fellow in the past, or it could be a karmic advance for which payment will be exacted later, but either way, it doesn't seem that you're doing anyone any harm by accepting it, so why not?

JAMISON, TAKE E-LETTER (Mark L. Blackman):

"Wednesday, we hit the Strand bookstore, lunched at a Ukrainian restaurant, so that Ed [Meškys] could have potato pancakes (latkes), and finished up at a West Village tea/coffee importer's." There's no shortage of Ukrainian and Polish places in the East Village—formerly the immigrant-filled Lower East Side—but not too many of them in the West. /*/ (¢Nelson) "I since reloaded Word. The laptop came back with WordPad & Notepad; and, as a stopgap, I loaded a clone, AbiWord." Did you use AbiWord to any great extent? How well did you find it worked? /*/ "My father referred to 'Decoration Day' & 'Armistice Day' and to a local gas station as 'Socony Mobil'." My father pointed out that Socony was an acronym for Standard Oil Company of New York. He also remembered when Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith was Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane. /*/ "To most NY'ers, Ave. of the Americas is still '6th Ave.'" And the city finally acknowledged that with dual signage a decade or two ago. /*/ (¢Cinii) "Closing Broadway to car traffic also closed it to bus traffic, rerouting the Broadway buses ... a fact which has yet to be depicted on the MTA's Manhattan Bus Maps." The map found online at the MTA's Web site shows no buses on Broadway between Columbus Circle and Union Square. I hope they'll print out paper editions reflecting this change soon. /*/ (¢me) "I thought that flu was virus + fever." Flu is a virus that causes fever, but not all viruses that cause fever are flu.

SEX* YADDA, YADDA, YADDA (Ariel Cinii):

"HAPPY KHAAJVÉ 1456.... How that particular word came to be adopted into the humanoid language has yet to be revealed to me, so we must assume it means something roughly equivlent to 'Growing by Gossip'." So you celebrate your new year by gossiping? And why limit it to then? /*/ "The eastern half of the park-including the area where we normally meet--has been closed for renovation." Yeowch! Okay, now that the weather's getting nice and school is about to be out, some contingency plans are in order here. I say we meet on the benches that are as close as possible to the accustomed location; that would be the ones against or near the fence that blocks access to the construction area. /*/ "Could [the viral illness of mid-February and mid-March] have been something you were exposed to during the hospital adventure? Researchers are finding some validity in that old joke, 'I avoid hospitals; they're full of sick people.'" I hadn't thought of that, but given the sheer number of hospitals and rehab centers I've taken Donna to and visited her in over the past year or ten, not only does it seem plausible, but I begin to be surprised that I haven't been sicker oftener. If, ghods forbid, there are more hospital visits in our future, I should consider wearing a filter mask when I go.

I guess that'll be all for May. Enjoy the (mostly) nice weather, have a good Shavuos and Memorial Day, and may we all live in uninteresting times.

>Portions of the preceding had a clever closing line to put here, but can't remember it now.<

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