My first (introductory) post is going to be hastily written during lunch, and not all that well thought out. What's on my mind particularly today is my impending hip surgery tomorrow morning. In my spare time I'm a competitve distance runner, and I've developed a condition known as "femoroacetabular impingement." Quite the mouthful! Basically, it means my hip joints aren't shaped right, and create abnormal friction on the labrum, creating a tear and fraying, which needs to be repaired. In addition to the repairing of the labrum, they are going to re-shape the femoral head of the hip joint so that it doesn't continue to damage the labrum. Fun stuff! I should be in the hospital for one night, and on crutches anywhere from 3-8 weeks depending on how much bone needs to be removed during re-shaping. If all goes well, I should begin to resume "normal" activities by late July or so.

As much as I'm NOT looking forward to the surgery, I'm lucky in that this very new procedure was not available until the last few years, so had I developed this problem years ago, I'd have had to suck it up for years until time came for a total hip replacement. And at 45, I'm still young enough to heal from surgery relatively quickly. Also, my insurance coverage, which I've cursed for it's high co-pays for doctor visits, and high prescription prices, is actually great for surgery. This cutting edge procedure is only going to set me back with a $100 co-pay! Can't complain about that!

Apart from that, I'm an avid Salon.com reader, and Obama supporter. Hopefully I'll hear some good election news before I go into surgery first thing in the morning!

ps--One thing that I noticed right away is that the spellcheck function (underlining misspelled words in red as I type) that works great when typing Salon "letters" comments, does not seem to be functional when typing a blog entry here.