him:  I sense stressing.
me:   overwhelming
him:  Let's scrap the dinner issue.
me:   the funny thing is...
me:   i've been actively trying to REDUCE my stress levels.
him:  Yeah, I know.
him:  You suck at that.
me:   I DO!
him:  LOL
me:   I really do!
him:  You do.
him:  Immensely.

Today we all decided on the Old Spaghetti Factory to celebrate Megan's birthday.

Okay, we didn't decide, really. Megan decided for us, as a communal dinner sort of thing. Good times, especially the cheese with spaghetti topping I had. Yum.

I don't know how old Megan is, but if I had to guess, 27. Yeah, maybe 28, but don't tell her I thought that.

And it wasn't even my fault.

As I was driving back from the train station today, I drove onto the 85 from the Evelyn onramp. This particular onramp goes straight into the El Camino Real North offramp, with dashed lines indicating the freeway from the on-now-off-ramp.

As I was accelerating along the on-ramp, I came up to a semi in the middle lane. 85 is a three lane freeway at that point, so there was an open lane between us. However, I didn't want to merge next to the semi, in case it didn't know I was there, and chose to continue accelerating, so that I could merge near the front of the semi where, presumably, the driver could see me.

So, I continued accelerating.

Just as I was reaching for my turn signal, I saw a car approach from my left side out of the corner of my eye, reminiscent of right of way ponderings. I figured this person HAD to be in front of me, and figured, eh, okay.

I lifted up on the gas pedal JUST as I heard this HUGE SQUEAL of brakes and plumbs of smoke came billowing up from under the truck, and he disappeared behind me.

Turns out, he was trying to get IN FRONT of me FOR THE EXIT LANE.

Now, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. As a matter of fact, I was going to let him pass me and slide in behind him.

I do, however, have a problem with what the guy did. For the record, if I'm going to exit a freeway (you know, SLOW DOWN) and another car is entering the freeway (you know, SPEEDING UP), I am going to slow down enough to get behind the car entering the freeway. He's trying to accelerate. By speeding up, jumping in front of the other car, then SLAMMING on my brakes so that I don't ram the car in front of me who is also SLOWING DOWN, I introduce a high risk for an accident. MUCH better to just ease in behind the person accelerating on the on-ramp, and exit. Saves gas. Reduces stress AND wear on my brake pads.

So, yeah, that truck driver was a moron. He should have never tried to out accelerate a car who was accelerating to enter the freeway.

Billowing brake pad smoke. Increased wear on his tires. A seriously HUGE risk of being rear-ended when he slammed on his brakes. His retardation put everyone around him at risk. If his truck had fishtailed into the semi or into my car, I suspect one of us might have been dead at the speed we were going.

And he probably thinks that I'M the jerk.

I went to a doctor appointment this morning. In particular, it was a gyno appointment. I've wanted to find a new gynecologist for a while now, but waiting two months for an appointment with ANY of the gynecologists at the same medical facility as my primary-care doctor wasn't particularly an option. I've been having pains in one of my breasts, pains which have become so bad that, well, I was willing to take an appointment on a day the doctor was on-call.

I arrived pretty much on time, maybe a minute late or so (as Kris says, within acceptable parameters), checked in, paid my copay, then waited. And waited. And waited. Before I started waiting, I was told the doctor, though on-call, wasn't actually called in, so would be in "any minute now." I didn't mind waiting, though, as I had brought plenty of activities (read: my computer, the power supply to said computer, and a cellphone with a bluetooth-enabled modem), and was content to sit and work.

The doctor showed up about 35 minutes late, and I was called into the back, to sit on a cold table in the always fashionable, front opening, blue paper gown. Brrrrrr.... five minutes in the gown, freezing my ass.

Fun.

When the doctor came in, she asked me what my concerns were. I explained the throbbing pain in my breast, and my concern about an inconsistent menstruation a few months ago. I wanted to ask her how the negative PAP smear from last September was followed by a positive PAP smear from a different doctor and different lab, and how about talking to me?

Instead, I listened to her tell me, "Well, you know, sometimes you have pain. It's a fact of life."

I looked at her dumbfounded. I couldn't think of a single thing to say. I wish I had thought to mention that, oh, hey, pain is the body's way of SAYING SOMETHING'S WRONG, and that maybe I should, oh, CHECK IT OUT?

Instead, I waited as she did the usual breast exam. She did a few other checks, but was quite distracted and not very helpful. She handed me a paper for a mammogram and an ultrasound. When I asked for a breast MRI instead of a mammogram, she asked me why. When I explained both my age, the density of my breasts, the risks of excessive radiation exposure from too many mammograms before 40, and just the plain, freakin' pain of the thing, she told me, no, the mammogram was the best option. Once again, she dismissed my concerns, pretty much without listening to me.

From start to finish in the appointment was fewer than ten minutes.

I've been trying to figure out exactly why I'm so annoyed with this doctor. I have a good relationship with my primary care doctor, so why do I fail so badly with this doctor?

I think the reason I can't deal with this doctor is because she treats me like a second class citizen. Every yearly example, we have the same conversation:

"What birth control do you use?"

"None."

"Do you want to get pregnant?"

"No."

"What would you do if you get pregnant?"

"Have the kid."

"But you don't want children?"

"No."

Every time, EVERY TIME, we have this conversation. You'd think after eight years, she'd figure out that I don't want kids.

Well, I think that she finally has figured it out. And, in the figuring it out, decided that I wasn't worth her time. She's probably thrilled by the idea of having children, and helping other women have children. Given that I don't want them, she's given up on me, and deals with me only when she has to, and as little as possible at that.

I guess, for some women who have kids, women without kids are second class citizens.

Time for a new gynecologist.

I'm open to suggestions. My only requirement is that she respect my decision not to have children.

For the fifth time in a week, I needed to give out my social security number. This happened to be to an insurance company so that I could purchase insurance on a house of mine. Despite having a policy with this insurance company, on that has been in force for over seven years, I needed to give my social security number for them to actually insure me. The agent refused to insure me without the number.

This annoys me BEYOND belief. I have an account with the company. I have a history with the company. The agent could look up the account and see, hey, there have been exactly ZERO claims made on this account, maybe I'm just fine as a credit risk.

No.

This was after I had to provide my account with two other agents with other companies where I didn't have a history with. Them I could understand.

So, in the car, on the way to Velocity with Kris, I complained about the need to provide the number and, more importantly, the lack of protection for that number once I had given it out.

Instead, I told Kris, there should be a system in place where I control who can access my credit information, but without access to my number directly. The access would be, Instead, with a proxy number, one that I generate.

Here's what I propose. Here's what I would pay a large sum of money yearly to have in place.

A company (hell, a bastard, f---ing credit agency, for all I care) sets up a system where I have access to my SSN, and ONLY I have access to that SSN. If I wish to have someone review my credit, say, because I wish to obtain a loan from this someone, or prove my credit-worthiness to an insurance company so that they will insure a property of mine, I log into the company's system (probably via a web interface), and provide the requestor's information. I am then given a proxy number from the company.

I take this proxy number, and give it to the someone wishing to access my credit history.

Now, the person who wants to see my credit history uses this proxy number in the request for my credit history to the company (recall, this is the credit agency - yeah, the one who never seems to get my information correct DESPITE several letters informing them of the errors - no, I have NEVER lived in Washington, look at the zipcode, even my dog can see the typo in the zipcode). The company / credit agency knows that this request is going to be made, because I provided the requestor's information. The company looks to see if the proxy number matches the requestor. If it doesn't, the history is denied. If it does, the credit history is provided.

This process removes the need to share my social security number.

This process gives ME control on who can access my information.

This process checks that the person / company looking at my information has been authorized by me to look at my history.

That history is MY property, not the credit agency's property, a distinction that many people don't make. They're selling my information without my permission. This process puts that access back into MY hands, where it belonged in the first place.

I would pay a service fee to credit agencies to enable this permission proxy system on my information.

After telling Kris about this idea, he tried to poke holes in it. The only difficulties he could see with it were standards adoption and implementation costs. It'll cost money and money to implement, but only money and time, as there are no technology hurdles overcome. First to market could define the standards of requestor naming and matching issues. Really, though, neither of those is a deal breaker.

I might need to start a company to implement this.