Stop Winking at Me!

Ok, I'm not really winking at you. I have a spastic eye muscle (blepharospasm) and it's driving me crazy! I've read all of the advice and been to the Ophthalmologist. Here are the most common causes given:

1. Stress
2. Dry eyes
3. Fatigue
4. Lack of sleep
5. Prolonged staring at a computer screen or television
6. Nervous system disorders

Number one is a given, it comes with the gig I do. Number two isn't it. I drenched my eyes with drops for weeks several times a day, no change. Numbers three and four are out. I get plenty of sleep. It's one of my favorite past-times. Number five, uh-huh. Ding, ding, ding. If I'm not on a computer or reading, I'm probably staring at a TV. We actually have Five TV's in our house, plus the one on my computer, Six. Can you believe it? Just think, I can probably cause my eyes to twitch faster by watching TV on my computer!

I went to the Ophthalmologist and she gave me a clean bill of (eyeballs?) health. No glaucoma, moisture levels are nice and average, no nerve or blood vessel damage. Lasik surgery seven years ago, not an issue. Bonus! They have a new way of testing for glauc. No more puffs of air aimed at your eye that make you jump a mile, and cause your eye muscles to twitch!

Ultimately it boils down to they have no idea why it happens. She told me the nerves just go wacky, and it can last up to 6 months. *Ugh!* Oh well, it's better than having to give up TV on my computer. That would be a sad day. So, if you see me winking at you, let's go with I like you, a lot.

Why am I called MT?

Why am I called MT? Actually it's my kids and their friends who call me MT. It stands for Mother Theresa. I have this way of being a care taker so it was a pretty natural fit. I've been called it a lot in my life. That and the obvious... it's my name and I am a mom.

So what's in a name? Growing up my family used to call me TC for Top Cat. Not really sure how that came about. I can't for the life of me figure out how I related to the cartoon character of a cat who hung out in garbage cans. Maybe it was a premonition because my initials did become TC when I married and my co-workers in high tech always called me TC or just T. My first work IM name was Tester T.

So I went from TC, to TR, to TC again. Then TB or just T. The T is probably laziness on my part. Who wants to type Theresa all the time? Nobody can ever spell it anyway.

Most people are sticklers for making people spell their names correctly. Not me. When I give my name to someone who's writing it down, I just go with what they repeat back to me. I don't bother correcting them. It's fun to see how many different ways my name comes across in junk mail.

Thanks to the government my original middle name got replaced with my maiden name. I never could get it straightened out with all the places that mattered so when I remarried I changed my name legally to reflect it. Years later I still can't get everyone on the same page. I guess it's due to my apathy about spelling my name so I'll just go ahead and chock it up to Karmic Kismet.

First Things First

Since this is my first blog, I think it only natural I should list some possible blogging topics:

• Is the ability to multi-task a benefit or hindrance?


• Why am I called MT?


• Why does my eye still twitch when the Ophthalmologist says I'm fine?


• Why do dogs eat rotten stuff?


• Is it really 'mind over matter'?


• Do I want to blog on politics?


• Should one vent about work in public?


• What other blogs do you have T?


• What's with that photo anyway?

As you can tell, my mind follows a natural train of thought. NOT. In fact, it is so far from orderly I amaze myself sometimes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I can multi-task like crazy, which I love. At times it's comical. I get a lot of stuff done in a day. I will jump from doing one thing to the next at home. A good day is when I actually finish all of the things I've started. Luckily I usually catch myself after starting around 4 or more things and make a conscientious effort to finish them all before heaping anything else on the task pile.

I do this at work too. I'll start the day jumping from one thing to the next on my computer. By the middle of the day I have 6 or more things open on my desktop. The trick here is to get them all handled in between meetings. Thankfully MS Office has tasks! I highly recommend using tasks if you too multi-task. I'll include the help link here for your convenience: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/CH100744081033.aspx

I wonder if this is boredom or ADD? I really like change and I don't have a problem concentrating when it's really necessary. So I will chalk this up to liking variety. As they say, variety is the spice of life!