unrhymed anniverse

Anyone who knows me at all could tell you that the idea of being in a romantic relationship with me is enough to cause one's very heart, brain, liver, or other organ of choice to shrivel into a raisin and die on a sidewalk somewhere. Cases in point include every relationship I've ever had (mostly thrown into catastrophic ruination by yours truly); every non-relationship I've ever had (mostly with douchebags and inhabitant-developers of Ass Way or the Ass Way Marketplace); every date I've gone on ("Has anyone ever told you you're terrible with men?"); and most friendly acquaintances ("You could be so happy if you'd just be... nicer! And not wear sneakers! And... do something with yourself!").

Which makes it all the more unbelievable that The Bay, much-wronged hero, San Francisco native, Young Person, Artist of Film, has apparently completed one year of (almost) unscathed horrible, heart-shriveling misery in the company of yours truly. How The Bay has endured twelve months of such agony, I simply cannot say. This morning while I was trying to sleep he got up and danced/sang a simultaneously terrifying and confusing version of C+C Music Factory's "Everybody Dance Now" -- which was playing approximately nowhere -- before collecting two enormous water bottles out of the refrigerator, putting on the same clothes he has been wearing for two? three? four? days now (some things never change), clambering undecorously onto the bed (my arm shrieked with fear, as The Bay has a propensity to merrily fling himself upon it by accident), declaring himself happy, and departing for work. If that's not an unscathed individual, I don't know what is. I'd love to know his secret.

Yesterday we went on a small, aimless trip in the car, which mostly resulted in a lot of really greasy, delicious food, a lot of really gray, cold weather, bookstores, licorice eaten in the car, over one thousand annoying songs performed by The Bay despite a supposed Song Moratorium (twelve minutes into the Moratorium, actual selections from Aladdin were performed), and finally, after coming back to San Francisco because my dress was too small for the weather (and, let's be frank, for the monument-sized load that constitutes my unappealing corpus), Crohn's-prohibited dessert for dinner.

I don't understand why I was allowed to benefit so handsomely from The Bay's lucky break at having survived an entire torturous year in my presence, but somehow, I was. Both my arm and I declared it The Best Day Ever, though we (my arm in particular, which by night had turned black from the exertions of the day) had done nothing to deserve it. This morning after The Bay went to work my arm and I -- we have become constant companions, you see -- had a serious conversation about it. We decided that maybe we just got lucky. I think we got pretty lucky indeed.

groove armada, or, the unwelcome arm puns continue

It is hot here in San Francisco -- mightily, oppressively hot -- and my arm is not sure what to do about it, except maybe slowly and creepily leak some light blue fluid out of its pores. Look, we all cope in our own way: Some of us moan, some of us (hipsters, I'm looking at you) strip down to fashionable bits of expensive rope and hemp or whatever, and some of us, like my arm, decide to spontaneously star in a scene from Battlestar Galactica. I woke up in the middle of the night on the floor, where I had stationed myself (heat rises, friends, and when you're as topographically intense as I am -- see previous entries about my formidable girth -- even lying down, almost anywhere is too high for comfort). I was covered in sweat, which was not remarkable, considering I'm pumped to the gills with prednisone and it's about six million degrees outside. What was remarkable was my hand, glowing in the dark, beads of something blue and translucent on it. It has been better in recent days -- not all better, but improved -- but it was enormous and pulsing like something was trying to escape from it. Whatever was trying to escape was light blue, and glowed in the god damned dark. Can't wait to hear what the plastic surgeon says about this. My money is on an alien nation living inside there, captained by Oksana Baiul. Triple lutz, baby.

My arm and I have been trying to go out a little more. Staying in the Fort like this isn't good for morale, and it's true that your health isn't worth anything if you don't use it. I don't want the arm to get, you know, down. I've been so wrapped up in this you-can't-use-your-arm-for-a-year-and-you're-getting-a-brain-infection business that I forgot that I have to go to a wedding a week from today, and that I have nothing to wear. Priorities, Crohns. That's right, the invalid is traveling. I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to go -- the two-week trip involves a plane to DC, a car ride alone to Pittsburgh and back, and then a Herculean work-related voyage to North Dakota for a week for our man Obama -- but I want to see my friends get married, and to pet my dog, and regarding North Dakota, frankly, I want that money. (Although I do not want to fly in the pantheon of 13-passenger planes it's going to take to get me there.) Once I decided I was going, I realized I had nothing to wear -- including my own face, which is now roughly the size of Dewey Beach. So my arm and I went out and looked for a dress.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten a few key things:
1) I have no money to spend on a dress. None. Zero.
2) I can't do up zippers by myself with my left hand.
3) If Freddy Krueger were wearing a dress, he would look no nicer at a wedding than if he were wearing the chainsaw and facemask.

Oh, screw the dress. Who cares. Freddy would just go with his weird sinewed face and razor claws, probably wearing a jaunty hat, so I guess I'll either do the same or steal something out of my sister's closet. (Hi, Ari! Hope you left something for me to steal! Preferably something with a huge arm hole!) There are other considerations abreast now that I'm leaving in four days. Like, how will I carry my suitcase? What happens if my arm starts sweating blue fluid on the plane? Or in the airport in Grand Forks? Or somewhere on the 76, driving my brother's car? What if I pass out on the border? What if I have to leave my arm behind for animals, as a gift to their animal nation? All these questions and more will be answered in the upcoming show "When Housebound Persons Inadvisably Travel."

the continued adventures of the one-armed bandit

The plastic surgery department, if you succeed in finding it, sports artistic framed photos of 1970s-era Barbie dolls on the walls. Hilario! Clearly they either have a real sense of humor there, or they're so beyond the pale they forgot what department they're in. I immediately began looking around for some stray boobs. The cupboard, so bare, Crohns. What are they doing over there if not sitting around like elves, spitting out ton after ton of boobs? Other things, apparently.

So, my right arm cannot be used for at least three days. I cannot leave the house, move it, or type with it. It is beside me, large, immobile, and stacked above my head, collecting some cute hematomas that look like Punky Brewster dagguerrotypes. No tubes or needles can go in or out of it for six months. Is there muscle damage? Interesting, I didn't know there were muscles in my arm! But I guess there might be. It will get better, they say, but it may be "different." (Special?) Yesterday and this morning I worked on my book with my left hand only. Pecky McPeckerson. It's a different kind of writing than my usual blabbery, to be sure -- you'd better really want that word there, because it's gonna take you a looooong time to type it in. Then again, I have nothing but time now.

Monday I signed the paperwork to start the Tysabri infusions in the coming weeks, and already the CDTouch center, faceless Tysabri administrators, have phoned to assign me a case manager and make my first appointment. I had to listen to a recorded message while I was on hold; the same one on the forms I signed and that the doctor and the web site are required to say: How little they know about this drug, except that one in a thousand people gets a fatal opportunistic brain infection from the treatment. If you get it, they explain warmly, alas, you have no choice but to die. I can't decide whether 1 in 1000 is a small percentage or a large one. Whether it is or it isn't is not my problem anymore, though, now that I signed my name fifteen times in the right places.

On the phone, my case manager seemed excited, in a sort of are you ready for some football way.
"I'm ready," I said cheerfully, when he asked me if I was ready to get better. But what I'm not ready for is the responsibility of having initialed all those lines, left-handed, chosen this (although, in fairness, since I've run out all the other treatments, no other choices were left), maybe then just to neurologically deteriorate and dumbly die almost immediately. If it were to just happen, like an accident, it would be different somehow. But I signed my name. I said yes. But to what, exactly? I'm worth more to other people -- my family, I mean -- than I am to myself, and therefore my responsibility is to them. It's hard to know how to make the right decisions when you know your decisions could change things for someone other than just you.

I will write this book button by button with my left hand if that is what it takes. (And I'm totally going to get a third boob out of it, too.)

in which i journey into the 1987 film "mannequin" via my mri accident

My great dream is transpiring! I am going to plastic surgery! I live in LA! I'm blond and buxom, and my husband is ninety years old! I have a swimming pool! Not really, but apparently I am going to "plastics," which in case you were wondering appears to be a real hospital department.

Whatever they did to my arm during the MRI accident on Friday was apparently not normal, and now that it's Day 5 and the thing is still balloon-sized and black-and-blue, apparently I am being sent to "plastics" (Kim Cattrall in Mannequin, is that you?) to figure out what, if anything, is wrong with it. I have never been to a plastic surgery department. What do you think it's like there? I envision -- and this is based on my having seen the logo for Nip/Tuck, but, since I don't have a TV, never having seen the show -- a lot of square-jawed doctors in masks wielding scalpels, a lot of botoxed expressions, and a lot of boobs. Who would like a boob? I'll see if I can get one for you while there.

back to school

I think my former students are nervous about going back to school or something. There has been a flurry of strange e-mailerie recently, much of it pertaining to "last-minute tips" on how to pass a class they failed while taking it with me. (Tip: Uh, go to class? Turn shit in?) One student wants to know, because he has obviously read the course catalog really carefully, whether I will be teaching any fiction workshops this fall, and do I have any room left in my workshop. Yeah, man, my workshop's wiiiide open. Meet me at the hospital, we'll do it up.

Today is the first day back and, clearly, I am not there. This is supposed to be a Good Thing. Since I can't open doors by myself, sleep, stay awake, keep food down, or stave off a fever without 2000 mg of daily antibiotic assistance, it's probably better that I'm not being trusted with the education of fifty to a hundred university students (even though I have a feeling -- and you didn't hear this from me -- that some of those who are being trusted with that education, who are patently not sick, are probably doing a way worse job than I would, even in my current state. Sorry, somebody had to say it). Still, one can't help but let that old niggling feeling back in: Maybe I'm sick because I can't do it, not that I can't do it because I'm sick.

When I was about 9, my very nice parents sent me to tennis lessons one day a week after school. I was fat and unathletic; my shorts rode way up into my crotch because they were too small; I was always slowest and last; pretty girls were in my class and I hated them. Often, I did not want to go. I started making up this limp so I wouldn't have to. And my very nice parents? They bought it. Soon the limp felt real, though. It did actually hurt, or so I thought. And after that, my fake limp started making me tired all the time. After a few months I couldn't eat. I had very high fevers. I was vomiting all the time. By the fall I had Crohn's Disease and I was hooked up to a bunch of machines in Children's Hospital. Could I not do it because I was sick, or did I make myself sick to hide the fact that I couldn't do it?

Any reasonable person knows you can't give yourself Crohn's Disease. They know it was all coincidental: I faked a limp to get out of a sports class I didn't want to go to, but then I got Crohn's Disease, too. And there was no reason for it. Right?

Eighteen years later, I wish I could be sure. I see my friends, their great jobs -- the jobs I could do. Their happy weekends, their hikes and climbs and runs, their trips, their drinks out, their books and awards, their marriages and houses and dogs, their tans, their clean faces, and I'm sometimes glad for my excuse -- for being sick -- because I suspect that even if I weren't, something else would prohibit me from their beauty and their happiness and their success.

Supposedly my job right now is supposed to be "getting better." But that's not enough for me. I have always thought that an "excuse" like mine is meant to raise your expectations for yourself, not to lower them. How can I do more right now while seeming to do less? How can I fulfill the potential of someone I'm not? If I am really smart enough, if I am as smart as all my healthy friends, this is something I will figure out, and it will be seamless, and I will make it look easy.

the arm

Holy moly, it's big. I don't know what they did in there yesterday, but my hand, wrist, and forearm are swollen up to the size of a palm tree. You can feel the nodes in the vein where it's hardened; the wrist bends about five degrees. My fingers are enormous! The Bay and I made a sling out of an old scarf of mine and I wore it around today. He drove me to the beach and through the Richmond while I cried and cried. I tried eating with my left hand. He showed me the outsides of his favorite cafes where I'd never been. He tried to walk me around a lake. We watched part of a movie. I ate a piece of sushi off of a boat. Eminently pleasant to be around, I cried more. Somehow, by the time he took me home, I declared I had had a very nice day. I did.

on being part of a fire drill in the middle of your mri

When the fire alarm went off at the medical center in downtown San Francisco this morning, I was wearing the hospital clothes they'd given me, had a tourniquet around my arm and a needle poised at the crook, and had just consumed two large bottles of contrast fluid that had been presented to be as a "morning rise-and-shine cocktail." (As in, rise and shine, drink this and don't throw it up so we can see your intestines!) The fire alarm startled the nurse, who accidentally popped my vein and then sent me outside with a piece of gauze for the fire drill to end.

On the sidewalk in my hospital pants and hospital robe, I was regarded with a lot of amusement by the young, hip, nicely dressed professionals who had just gotten to work. Most of them held their designer coffees and chatted with one another. One group of them openly laughed at me.
"Oh man," said one guy.
"Yep," I said. "Yep. Yep. Let it all out."
"You sure drew the short stick this morning," he said.
"If I'm not mistaken," I corrected him, "you're at work and I'm not."

Back in the IV center of the medical building, the fire drill concluded, the nurse successfully got an IV started in a tiny vein in my wrist. Enough time had elapsed, however, that I had to drink more cocktail to ensure a clear picture.
"If I drink too much more of this I may lose it all," I warned them. They sent me back out to the waiting room to drink, my IV tube taped up against my arm and the gauze from the popped vein turning steadily redder. All the healthy people in the waiting room, waiting for their friends and family to finish, moved neatly away from me as I drank.

Finally it was time for the MRI-E. It's not too bad, having those MRI-Es. This was my fifth one this year. They stick you on the table, feed you into a little tube, and then make you hold your breath for various amounts of time. Toward the end, the fun begins.

A nurse comes in and greets that IV you got earlier. Then she puts some solution into it that slows down, or stops, depending on which technician you talk to, your intestines. It also makes you extremely nauseous. A bedpan appeared at my head.
"Don't worry," I announced. "I'm not going to throw up. I'm a champ."
Uh-huh. Let's see about that, champ. Let's see what a champ you are in about five minutes.

Whereupon in five minutes everyone left the room and a machine was instructed to deliver my IV contrast. I don't know if any of you are allergic to contrast, like at a CT scan. I am, but I'm not allergic to this contrast usually. When you're allergic your vein burns like a chariot of fire and then hardens into a mass you can't bend for weeks. When I felt this burn I screamed and pressed the emergency button, because a) I've had five of these this year, and I've never felt that before, so I thought maybe the solution was leaking into my arm, and b) apparently I'm not a champ.

The technician came in, but too late: The contrast, which is, let's just say, not good for you, had already been released, and they'd missed the picture they needed. A few phone calls later, they decided to do it again: Double the contrast and another dose down the fire vein, to get the picture.
"Okay, champ?" they said.
I wasn't sure if they were making fun of me but I vowed not to make a peep this time.

I don't know why things hurt less when you know they are supposed to, but they do. They got the picture and, embarrassed to have complained, I didn't make a fucking peep. But, as I left the center four hours after my arrival with a calcified wrist vein, a popped vein in the same arm, and pumped double-full of contrast, I was, let's just say, not feeling my best. I saw one of the dudes from the morning fire drill on the sidewalk, having a cigarette.

"Hey," I said. "I got sprung!" Without my hospital clothes on, he didn't recognize me.

happy 18th birthday, crohn's disease!

It's my Crohn'siversary. This month, at about this time, my Crohn's Disease turns 18 years old. That's right, it's all grown up. I was thinking about enlisting it in the army. How do you think it would do in boot camp? It can vote now, too. I sure hope it's liberal because I made it a cake.

Gee, 18 years seems like kind of a long time, doesn't it? People get born and grow up and become "adults" in that time. They grow up and have kids of their own. What did I do for 18 years? Anything? I know I was doing things, that I did things, but it sort of feels like I've been sitting here waiting.

I'm throwing a birthday party for the Crohn's Disease. Streamers, of course. You can't see them. They're, you know, thought-that-counts streamers. Purple. Crepe. There's a horn, of course, like on New Year's Eve -- just the one, since we're the only two guests, the Crohn's and I, and its mouth is kind of busy right now feeding on some delicious intestines. There are party hats. They say hip hop hooray in different colors and fonts. I'm pretty sure the Crohn's put one on because something feels a lot like a party hat in there right now. I got it a gift, of course -- or, really, an IOU for one. I told it it can pick out whatever it wants -- a juicy ulcer, perhaps? -- and have it to keep, though I think it's already redeemed its gift in advance: Kids will be kids. And the cake, of course! I made it a cake. I mashed up some prednisone and cipro and flagyl and made a beautiful 3-layer cake with candles. I lit 18 candles, don't ask me how I got them all on there. I sang and carried the cake out to the table. It doesn't usually eat at the table, mind you -- it eats in my intestines -- but I thought the gesture was nice.
"Happy birthday, Crohn's Disease," I said. "Make a wish!"
Do you know what it wished for?
I do.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Cheerful things I was told today at the doctor's office and/or clinic:

1. Good afternoon.
2. We'll be right with you.
3. [regarding my T-shirt] Did you go to Cal? Great school! No?... Oh.
4. I see you have a lot of Cheerios there in your backpack.
5. You clearly do come from hearty stock. [Agreement with my explanation as to why I've only lost 7 pounds in the past two weeks.]
6. Here, have an apple juice.
7. Great weather we're having!

Uncheerful things I was told today at the doctor's office and/or clinic:

1. Your medicine isn't working.
2. We're going to give you lots of prednisone, cipro, and flagyl until we can start you on IV infusions.
3. Those IV infusions could give you a fatal brain infection. But don't worry, it's just as risky as the risk of lymphoma you had taking your shots! And the lymphoma people basically all die too! (I actually informed them at this point that this statement was "uncheerful.")
4. This particular test should just take two vein sticks, one in each arm... unless we miss!
5. Oops, we missed! Why is it... uh-oh... I think we lacerated your vein.
6. Oh shit! What are we supposed to do now! Help! Blood is everywhere! (I think the blood lab clinician was new.)

As you can see, the cheerful items outweigh the uncheerful items. Overall I feel it was a cheerful day at the doctor's office. Now that I'm going to start steroids and antibiotics again, I should start feeling better, even if it isn't solving the problem. And even if this new IV infusion seems a little dangerous, it's pretty dangerous to have untreated Crohn's Disease too. Frankly, I'll do whatever they say. I can't be this sick anymore. I can't do my job(s). I can't go out. Heck, I can't even make it through a day at a nudist spring. My instructions are basically to wait in my Fort, eating "things you could eat if you didn't have teeth" (my response: "But what if you had extremely strong gums?") and sleeping until the rest of my tests this week. And that sounds just great to me.

adventures of nevernude at the nude springs

You could see the butts from the parking lot. Surprisingly, it was The Bay and not I who was made most uncomfortable by this sudden proliferation of butts. He hemmed and hawed nervously all the way to the co-ed "changing room," the very existence of which I found really hilarious. (If everyone's naked, why do you need privacy to get naked?)

I quickly discovered that, as Ashley had promised me, there was seriously no one in the entire place with clothes on. And likewise I discovered that if you did have your clothes on, you would receive strange looks, rather as though you had decided to go au natural to the local mall. I made a quick decision: I was in Rome. I would sort of do as the Romans did. I put on my tankini bottoms only. I was ready to go.

Meanwhile, The Bay, horrified by the nonchalance with which I had changed in front of some "greasy man," as he called him, who had been washing up at the sink, donned the most enormous pair of black basketball shorts mankind has ever seen and declared himself ready to go. He made a few impassioned statements about freedom of choice and freedom from judgment, all regarding the enormous basketball shorts. Somewhere in China, whoever made those should feel really proud right now at the sentiments their product is stirring up. There were a few women there who, like me, were wearing their bikini bottoms, but no men but The Bay wearing anything at all. People did look at him a little weirdly. Let's just say I had to get over my innate fear of the human penis immediately. I thought of BW, whose most jubilant hobby is taunting me about the penis and finding ways to trick me into seeing penises on the Internet. He would have been pleased.

It was hot as crap and the only places to sit or lie down were the cement or the pools. We went into a pool shaped like a heart. It was lukewarm and felt like pee to me. You weren't supposed to talk in there. The people across from us in the pool were openly having sex. I leaned over to The Bay.
"It feels like pee in here."
The Bay, who I expected to uprightly defend the pool and its minerals, just nodded gravely in agreement.
I got out.

At this time, my fever was starting to make me dizzy. I spent a minute or two in the cold pool and then got out. I sat on one piece of cement. Then another. There was nothing to do. It was uncomfortable on the cement. I regarded the springs. The penises were everywhere. I made a mental note that while this was obviously supposed to be restorative in some way, I was not to come back here again.

As we were driving back to the city that afternoon, The Bay expressed his simultaneous jubilance and distaste at all the nudity we'd seen.
"It's not a big deal," I said. (That's right, that was said by me to a Californian.)
The Bay was, on the one hand, delighted that he had seen such a proliferation of boobs in one day. On the other hand, he felt like it was kind of gross. He expressed his continuing surprise that I'd taken my top off in front of dozens of strangers.
"Nothing to see there," I reasoned, which is true.

We decided that next time we go to a mineral spring, we will go to the nice kind where people are clothed and you can have a towel and sit on a chair. That night, my fever got so high I had trouble seeing. I guess bathing in pee is not restorative.

nevernude

The Bay receives about one week off a year, and that week is occurring now. We'd talked about going on vacation, but who are we kidding? We're both broke and I've had a 101-degree fever for six weeks now. Plus I leave for Detroit for work in a week, so wherever we went, we couldn't go too far.

Thus was birthed the idea of a day trip. We couldn't go anywhere drinking-oriented -- a popular Bay-area favorite -- since I don't fare well with the alcohol these days. We couldn't go anywhere where I was going to have to hike, canoe, run, or do any of the other healthy, positive, outdoor-oriented things that my healthy, positive, outdoor-oriented friends do. Then The Bay came up with this idea to go to a hot springs.

This is something The Bay and his mother, San Francisco natives, used to do all the time, and apparently found very relaxing. The idea is to go to some springs, observe them, get in them, get out of them, and get in them. Then get out of them. At first I was dubious.
"I'm not good at hard-core relaxing," I said. But The Bay convinced me I'd like it.

After some research, The Bay suggested a springs that, unlike our other options, seemed cheap. It was not deluxe; it did not offer you towels or robes or water or anything like that; but it offered you a chance to observe springs and then get in and out of them amongst hearts, hippies, chakras, and other things that are usually difficult for me to abide by. But cheapness is a powerful guiding light, and so we agreed we would go to the cheap springs, as befitted our status.

Today at lunch with Ashley, I mentioned that The Bay and I were going to this particular springs. She was delighted -- she had just been there days ago with her friends! And did I know it was a nudist springs?

Imagine, because you, too, love a good cliche where one is needed, a needle skipping the groove on a record.

I did not know.

Ashley described in detail to me the nudist experience, careful to assure me that I could wear clothes if I wanted to, but I'd likely be the only one. What Ashley does not know is that much like Tobias on Arrested Development, I am basically a nevernude.



So tonight at home I excavated a seldom-opened drawer, upending hurricanes of sawdust, mothballs, elephants, and other items, to uncover my two bathing suits. One is sort of a bikini -- what the young people call tankini -- and the other is a matronly one-piece. Both are a joyless, urgent black. One by one I tried them on in front of the mirror. I was surprised that the mirror did not crack, having to see such a sight, rather like a whale had consumed a whale-stomach-sized portion of foie gras terrines and then vomited them up onto the shore. Nobly, it held its IKEA-made ground.

Ultimately I decided that since I was likely to scare the other springs-goers whether naked; in the tankini; in the one-piece; fully clothed; or clothed complete with parka, balaclava, wading boots, oven mitts, and a mouthguard; I would wear the tankini so that if it seemed they would be less disturbed by me topless (how that would be, I cannot fathom) I could take off the tankini top and give them a good look at where the magic happens, by which I mean the fish-white square that covers my dubitable intestines.

What is the purpose of going to the springs? To have fun! To relax! To be nourished by the springs! This should be interesting, as when I think of fun, relax, and nourished, I don't know about you, but I'm the first person who pops into my head.

wherein the whole "necrophilia" thing reaches new heights

You know how fruit flies are attracted to organic materials that are fermenting or decaying? That banana you left out on the counter too long, say, or an apple that's -- whoops -- beginning to mold. You'll see one fruit fly on the offending item, and then when you go to lift it -- probably to throw it away -- a whole cascade of fruit flies scurries out, like whoa, this is much more gross than you thought.

Except the fruit flies in my house seem to be attracted to something else. Hold on to your Captain Metaphor Sailor Caps: The fruit flies appear to want nothing but me. They land on me in droves. To test this, I set out a rotting banana for them in the kitchen. They were like, Thanks, maybe for dessert? I guess there's no better way to find out if you're a rotting, fermenting corpse than to have a fruit-fly infestation.

At first this metaphor absolutely terrified me. I began to scream feebly and, as though Wes Craven himself were there directing the whole thing, a fruit fly flew in. (Kara 1, Fruit Fly 0.) Now get this: I set out my Humira syringe last night to warm up so I could inject. (Public service announcement: If you're not letting your Humira come to room temperature before you inject, you're doing yourself a major disservice. Know how it feels like the icy hands of Thor are reaching into your abdomen with cruel, icy knives while you push down the plunger? Okay, now imagine if the room-temperature hands of Thor were reaching into your abdomen with cruel, room-temperature knives. Much better, no?) The fruit flies paid no attention, because it was sealed. Instead they continued their Kara feast. Then I opened the cap.

Good God in heaven, do these fruit flies want their TNF-alphas blocked! Buzzing in an incorrigible swarm, they nearly shrieked aloud, Shut down our tiny immune systems, pleeeeease! Delicious nectar! Sweet, tumor necrosis factor nectar! In fear, I put the syringe back into the refrigerator. My instincts tell me it's not a good idea to inject yourself while insects are competing for the fluid. I figured it could wait 12 hours. Instead I set up a little DIY fruit fly trap by putting some apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap in the bottom of a jam jar, covering it with tight plastic wrap and a rubber band, and poking some tiny holes in it. The idea was the fruit flies would go in to get the apple cider vinegar, get poisoned by the soap, and not be able to get out. Meanwhile I went to bed clad in head-to-toe Roman-soldier-meets-sled-driver garb, complete with spear, shield, and balaclava.

And what do you know? This morning they all appear to be dead at the bottom of the apple-cider sea. Excuse me: I have an injection to take.

mister sandman, bring me a dream

Greetings once again from your resident necrophiliac. Bring out your dead! Long gone seem the days when I first mixed up the words necrophilia and narcolepsy, but apparently old habits die hard, and I just jokingly commented to an employer over the phone that, barring my necrophilia, all was well here, and thanks again for thinking of me to copyedit the manuscript. Only after I had hung up the phone did I realize that once again I had informed someone that I engage in sexual relations with dead people -- this time, someone who employs me. That is just solid gold professionalism right there, Kara. Solid gold. Her response?
"Oh man, that sucks. I hope you feel better soon."

I have been sleeping an average of about sixteen to eighteen hours a day. Within an hour of waking, I tend to pass out, whereupon I sleep for an unknown period of time and then awake, confused, and sleep more. In between I work on the stories and copyedit things. I have been babysitting relatively little, for obvious reasons. On Monday I pulled out all the stops and went with some out-of-town family, who are visiting from Ohio, up to Napa for a day, where I sadly spit out a lot of wine. Even without swallowing any wine, I had an immediate hangover and proceeded to be a fantastic hostess by sleeping in the way-back of their minivan while they walked around St. Helena. They had friends with them, too -- friends who did not know me -- and I hope that those friends just assumed that my exhausting girth had made it difficult for me to spend another moment not sleeping in the back of a rented minivan while on a glorious day trip. I am proud to report that although I was the only one with Crohn's on that trip, I was also the only one too heavy to be lifted by a WWE wrestler. Breaking stereotypes since 1991.

Meanwhile, the Fort has fruit flies and ants. The fruit flies, I think, are because of an onion that molded while I was in Buffalo for work. The ants I have no explanation for, except I want them gone, immediately. My initial response would probably be to fire-hose the entire building, leaving only a steamy, ashy pile in its wake. I'm sure there must be a better way, though. The Internet, blessed be He, tells me I should get some ant traps to "lure the scouts toward the delicious nectar/poison solution" whereupon they will "carry the delicious nectar/poison back to their busy den." Hello? Voldemort? Have you taken up copywriting while I was away? Cru-el though this may seem, I can't find any other way to rid the Fort of these ants, so I'm off today -- should I successfully traverse the one block it takes to get to the Walgreens -- to get a trap for them. Filled with "delicious nectar/poison." Why don't they have these traps for people?

a brief and impartial history of proxies

I am very afraid of mice. No, afraid is the wrong word. I am very unhappy to see mice where they appear, unless I am at a friendly remove, like when I am waiting for the 1 train on the platform at 99th Street and they, the mice, are down below on the tracks.

The Bay, on the other hand, thinks he likes mice. When we watched Ratatouille this spring, he cried. (I cry at sports movies, so at least we've got all the stereotypes covered between us.) A few months ago, Abby sent me a package full of small stuffed puppets -- an oxen, a buffalo, a bear, and, amongst other animals, a rat. I was terrified of the rat puppet and hid it safely behind all the other animal puppets. The Bay, therefore, did not know it was there.

Which might explain why, on Wednesday night, he presented me with a "gift" -- already I was recoiling in terror, based on previous gifts -- that he unwrapped from its plastic bag in front of me. It was a small white stuffed mouse with IKEA tags as long as its tail, which swished violently as he maneuvered it toward me. I screamed in terror.
"You love it!" he exclaimed. "Mus, mus, mus," because this was the name IKEA had, Scandanavianly, assigned it.
"Not in the house!" I said. "Put its tail away!"
I wrapped it in a blanket and put it to the side.
"Thank you, I love it," I said, maybe a touch too late. Yes, I know it's stuffed, but it's still terrifying. The idea of the mouse was, because I am traveling so much, the mouse could come with me and be "like [The Bay]" in some way. This idea is extremely sweet, of course. I just don't understand why it had to come in the form of one of the most terrifying animals of household history. Many, many things remind me of The Bay, but thankfully, mice are not one of them.

Items such as these are ill-fated, it seems. When I was in Maryland I discovered that the first item of this kind I received, a pink candle in a sort of green glass sconce, all of which smelled like cinnamon, gifted to me in a similar spirit by my first boyfriend when I was maybe fifteen ("Whenever I am not with you, light this candle!" And being me, I never lit it because I was scandalized by the thought of what would happen when it had burned away -- now I realize that the continuation of that metaphor would mean burning it away = marriage or limb melding or something, which I probably would have loooooved at that time), had been summarily chucked away like so many mouse droppings during the transition from "Kara's bedroom" to "floral guestroom." (Actually, the thirteen-year-old cinnamon candle might have gone nicely in the new digs.)

The boyfriend after that gave me a packet of McDonald's coupons (wow, true love) that I ended up ritually burning on Deal Hill after I found out in an everyday Spanish class conversacion with a classmate that she was going out with my boyfriend, too -- or, more accurately, instead of me.

Me: Tienes un novio?
Her: Si, tengo un nuevo novio!
Me: Ah! Que bueno! Como se llama el?
Her: Se llama Kareem!
Me: Uh... Kareem? Cual es su escuela?
Her: Kareem va a escuela aqui!

By the time we got to last names, I was about the color of the white IKEA Mus.

Bay, maybe you could just come in my suitcase with me instead.