"Basically, Emma, you need to stop talking," said Dr. Hung to me early Friday evening. I looked to both PA's who nodded in agreement. Sigh. I had orginally gone to the ENT because I can only properly breathe out of one side of my nose. This caused discomfort over the summer when I was training for a triathlon because the water was only coming out of one side during my swims. You can actually see that my septum is deviated, so I figured that was causing the problems. When I finished explaining the nose issues to the doctor, he looked at me and asked "Has your voice always been like  this?" Assuming he was refering to the raspy hoarseness, I replied "Well, since I was sixteen."

Good god, that's an entire decade. I feel old.

"It started to get raspy when I taught Splashercise," I explained.

"Splashercise?" he asked.

"It's water aerobics. I used to teach it in high school and college. It's not some easy old-lady water aerobics if that is what you're thinking," I clarified.

"I can't imagine you would teach anything less than difficult," said my doctor. Good answer. I may like this guy afterall.

"I think it got worse in college...the going out..." I speculated.

"Do you go out a lot now?" he asked. Is this a trick question? Because I'm guilty of a level of compliant transference with doctors. I start out explaining my symptoms as truthfully as I can, but as the visit progresses I find myself saying what the M.D. wants to hear. It's a redirection of feelings unconciously retained from childhood...transference, I mean. So should I lie and say I don't go out very often. If I lie, will he even believe me? I have a sinking feeling that I just look like a person who goes out a lot.

I pause to mentally recap my week to date. Tuesday night I stayed out until 3:30 in the morning. Wednesday night I had a volunteer event, then met up with friends, had shot of Tequila at a very late dinner, and got home minutes before I turned into a pumpkin. Thursday night, I made a cameo at my friend's work happy hour. He works for the Yankees and you know how rowdy those sporty types are, so there was another shot of tequila involved, which I had no business taking particularly in front of people I had just met, but I did it anyway. Don't act surprised. And proceeded to talk incessently about little George Komo - the world's cutest baby. You may be slightly crazy if you are showing pictures of someone else's baby to complete strangers at the bar. Luckily, I had a captive audience (Hiiiiiiiiiiii Ryan! Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii Jesse!), and hopefully they won't hold it against me. In conclusion, all three nights involved an elevated level of voice strain.

And this is my regular life.

I'm wondering if, in my eternal quest to live in the moment, I may actually being doing more damage than good. If so, that sucks.

"Well, I go out, but not more than average," I lie. Is that a lie? What exactly is average? "But also, I just talk a lot in general." Once, I was on a date with someone who would interrupt me in the middle of my story-telling and say, "Are you done yet?" Um, rude. And no I'm not done. Plus, if I were even remotely interested in you I would be asking you questions to learn about you rather than talking incessantly about myself. Take a hint. 

"You have to stop talking so much, Emma. And it's probably a good idea to see a speech therapist, so you can learn to speak from your abdomen rather than from your throat."

"What about my NOSE!" I insisted, iritated that they had sprayed all of this burning shit in my nose, stuck a mini camera inside my nose, and hadn't mentioned that diagnosis.

"Oh, you'll have to have surgery to fix your septum. It's mildly deviated, which is causing the breathing issues," he replied candidly.

"So I have to stop talking and get like seventy feet of cotton stuffed into my nose?" I asked.

"Basically, yes."

"But I get drugs?" I said in an on-the-brightside tone.

"Yes." Did he roll his eyes? "And inthemeantime, I'm giving you some steroid spray. You need to spray this in your nose twice daily."

"STEROID SPRAY?" I said, picturing myself strangling my roommate in a fit of roid rage.

"It won't go into your blood stream, Emma. It's fine."

"Okay because I already have a bit of temper," I confessed. He faked a laugh, shook my hand, and walked out of the room.

I spent the next two hours on the phone with all four parents telling them that I wasn't supposed to talk. Then I called my two best friends and told them. Then I told Cricket, my neighbor, and the guy I had been out with  the previous evening. Then I spent the remainder of my night conversing with my brother and his friends and talking animatedly on the phone to my godson's mom.

I got a text message from my dad a few hours later that said, "Shut Up."

I'm not really supposed to be talking, so I'm going to have to leave you with this emmadilemma update:

Recently, I found out that the second gentlemen referred to in the blogpoast Deal or No Deal (AKA BOF) lived in a room with another dude after college (he was 25!), and they had bunkbeds. No, you read correctly. BUNKBEDS. He would bring unsuspecting girls home to the bunkbeds. They were not warned. But surprisingly, they never left. They were possibly drunk, but some were actually repeat offenders who apparently liked the bunkbed...or just the guy. The worst part: His was the top bunk. The even worse worst part: His bunkmate (?) was 27. Unacceptable. 

He did recently purchase shelves, but his bed remains on the floor.  Someone else I know is seeing a guy whose bed is on the floor, but he's Euro.  Euro dudes can get away with such idiosyncrisies because of their innate infallible romanticism. I don't think American men can make a bed on the floor sexy. Of course, you're more than welcome to try, darling.

I have to stop talking now kids.