I say the pickled cauliflower was weirdest. And that's what he KEPT.

Last night I went over to Ryter's. He's been doing increasingly poorly the longer he has to deal with the tic and the pain, which really sucks. I'm trying to just be there for him, there's not much else I can do, and he can't really do anything either until he sees the neurologist except handle the pain as best he can.

Today, randomly, I started cleaning his fridge. I don't really know why I did it, but I was feeding Jesus the Lizard for him and instead of putting Jesus' veggies back I started pulling out the old veggies and dumping them out in the compost bin. But it was an experience, certainly. There was clumpy milk and gray cheese, pumpkin beer over a year old and a hot dog that was completely solid. He had a liquefied squash and something we couldn't identify in a plastic bag, and the V8 had a fuzzy white thing floating on it. But now his fridge is clean, so if he feels up to it and goes to see his dad tomorrow (for laundry and a Costco trip), he can put the things he buys somewhere. Plus I won't go to pull out Jesus' blueberries and almost put my hand in a strange off-white substance with a green shimmer that has pooled at the bottom of the fruit drawer.

Boys.

I also did all his dishes, but that's mostly because I'm the one who asks that we use them-- he just eats with his hands or disposable packages half the time, and reuses dishes many times before cleaning them-- and his OCD means he has issues letting things soak, because of the dirty standing water. I don't mind doing that sort of thing-- Ryter's always worried that I'm going to get sick of dealing with that stuff and break up with him because of it, but I mean, come on. I'm hardly going to fault the guy for a liquefied squash and a few dishes, especially not when he's got all this other crap to deal with (and cleaning fridges is actually kind of fun, sort of like how I imagine forensic scientists might enjoy their job. I always like seeing what weird things people put in their fridges and forget about). Part of the dishes was giving him one less thing to have to deal with-- at least he'll have something to clean to eat off of if he needs to and he won't have a whole pile of dirty dishes laying around getting in his way.

I'd clean his whole apartment if I thought it would improve his mood, but I think the only thing that would do that is going to the neurologist and having them say, "Oh, we know exactly what is causing every single one of your problems. Take this one pill once a day for six weeks and then you'll be cured of all these problems for the rest of your life, and be happy and productive until you're 80."

And then he comes home, and wins the lottery.

Oh well. Things will get better, at least, if the neurologist can handle the tic and help with the pain. Which seems very likely.

He told me when he dropped me off that he didn't want me to worry about him. I replied, "I'm your girlfriend and you're suffering, of course I'm going to worry. But I won't drive myself crazy over it, I promise." He settled for that.

One and a half weeks until he can see the neurologist. Only one and a half weeks...