For my birthday, Michelle and Nate gave me The Writer's Complete Crime Reference Book, copyright 1993. The word CRIME is in enormous font on the jacket. CRIME, people, CRIME! The beginning of the blurb?
"You're about to commit a crime -- on paper that is." Oh, how true. How true that is.
I decided this was a perfect book for me, since I am definitely going to jail at some point, although I'm not sure yet for what. "This will help me decide on a crime to commit, and how!" I announced cheerfully. They explained that the idea was that if I ever wrote about a crime, I could look inside and use the book as a reference. How will I ever get to jail now?
I am supposed to be in Maryland at this very moment, imminently on my way to Virginia to C & P's wedding. But where am I? At the Fort. All of my friends are going to C & P's wedding. Am I going? No. I am not going. Now that I am definitely not going, I have begun to convince myself that maybe, if I had gone, I could have lain in the grass beside the ceremony and watched from the grass; and I probably could have stayed up for a whole night, especially if I didn't eat or drink anything too challenging, and maybe I could have napped in the bathroom!; and I'm sure I could have driven from Maryland to Charlottesville -- I could just park and nap by the roadside... I'm sure I could have napped by the roadside...
What a douche I am. I am just not going, huh. Maybe I could go to jail for that! Things are looking up.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
we're not allowed to cross the street, OR happy birthday, meatloaf and lesser (l'il) wayne
Hi. It's my birthday. I'm not allowed to go outside by myself. It's my twenty-eighth birthday and I'm not allowed to go outside by myself. Clearly, I am making progress through the decades.
On the real progress front, Juan came here yesterday. That's right, she came here to the Fort. Immediately, improvements. Yesterday, a full month or so ahead of schedule, I ate not one (1) but two (2) soft-boiled eggs that were, to be fair, basically liquid, but nonetheless I ate them and they did not come up or otherwise out for a considerable amount of time. I have not had any more high fevers. Today I have even gained a pound. (Keep it to yourselves, I know what you're thinking.) I guess Juan, MD is a pretty good doctor.
Today we are going to see if I can leave my house. Maybe on a two-block walk. Not alone, of course! I'm not old enough for that yet. Maybe when I'm twenty-nine.
On the real progress front, Juan came here yesterday. That's right, she came here to the Fort. Immediately, improvements. Yesterday, a full month or so ahead of schedule, I ate not one (1) but two (2) soft-boiled eggs that were, to be fair, basically liquid, but nonetheless I ate them and they did not come up or otherwise out for a considerable amount of time. I have not had any more high fevers. Today I have even gained a pound. (Keep it to yourselves, I know what you're thinking.) I guess Juan, MD is a pretty good doctor.
Today we are going to see if I can leave my house. Maybe on a two-block walk. Not alone, of course! I'm not old enough for that yet. Maybe when I'm twenty-nine.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
the continued adventures of Me, MD
I'm tired. Aren't you tired? I'm so tired.
The doctors appear to be satisfied not to know what's wrong with me, now that we've gotten my fever under control, and I appear to have successfully begged off the hospital wholesale. Here's the thing about the hospital: It's not a place you go to feel better, it's a place you go to get better. And if I'm not going to get better -- which I guess is the consensus? -- I'd rather do it here in the Fort closet drinking my own Gatorade and playing Minesweeper without a tube in my arm, thank-you-very-much.
Visiting Pittsburgh-area hero Loring came by this morning and helped me on a mission to do some photocopying and post-office errands. For some reason I was obsessed with sending in this residency application on time. We all know I'm not going to get the residency and that even if I did, I might not even be able to go. But sending it felt good, like I was being responsible. And hanging out with Loring felt good. So I think it was worth it.
I can't eat anything. I mean I can't have solid food. Not for a while, anyway. I tried breaking the rules as usual -- just one little egg, surely, couldn't hurt! -- but was then quickly reminded why breaking the rules is not behavior befitting Me, MD, who is becoming my primary doctor. Here is another reminder of why we ought not to eat the things we ought not to eat. Word, Cookie, and I'm sure someday you'll learn about the subjunctive.
The doctors appear to be satisfied not to know what's wrong with me, now that we've gotten my fever under control, and I appear to have successfully begged off the hospital wholesale. Here's the thing about the hospital: It's not a place you go to feel better, it's a place you go to get better. And if I'm not going to get better -- which I guess is the consensus? -- I'd rather do it here in the Fort closet drinking my own Gatorade and playing Minesweeper without a tube in my arm, thank-you-very-much.
Visiting Pittsburgh-area hero Loring came by this morning and helped me on a mission to do some photocopying and post-office errands. For some reason I was obsessed with sending in this residency application on time. We all know I'm not going to get the residency and that even if I did, I might not even be able to go. But sending it felt good, like I was being responsible. And hanging out with Loring felt good. So I think it was worth it.
I can't eat anything. I mean I can't have solid food. Not for a while, anyway. I tried breaking the rules as usual -- just one little egg, surely, couldn't hurt! -- but was then quickly reminded why breaking the rules is not behavior befitting Me, MD, who is becoming my primary doctor. Here is another reminder of why we ought not to eat the things we ought not to eat. Word, Cookie, and I'm sure someday you'll learn about the subjunctive.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
happy bought-time day!
At the doctor's office this morning, I was given two options: Check into the hospital or don't check into the hospital. I had waited to go to the doctor instead of going to the emergency room last night, even though my fever went into emergency-room range. I hate, hate, triple-hate the emergency room. It is the dumbest place on earth, and the most expensive.
"Well, what's wrong with me?" I asked. They did not know.
"Well, what would happen in the hospital?" I asked. Nothing much, they admitted; I would be monitored.
"Then, I guess don't check into the hospital?" I said. "Is my answer?"
More blood was taken, some X-rays, some cultures and samples.
"But if you're not feeling better by tomorrow, you're going into the hospital," they said.
How could I possibly be feeling better by tomorrow? Way to delay the inevitable, champ.
Dear Hashem, Hi, it's me, Kara. I think I may be in the hospital for Yom Kippur. Please do not take major offense; it's not about you. Look: I'm even going to spend my birthday in the hospital! Doesn't that prove it's totally no thing against you? Please inscribe me in the Book of Life and try not to add all the parts about constantly being in the hospital. Also leave out the parts with douchebaggy colleagues. Actually you can leave in the colleagues if you take out the hospital. Thanks again, love, Kara.
"Well, what's wrong with me?" I asked. They did not know.
"Well, what would happen in the hospital?" I asked. Nothing much, they admitted; I would be monitored.
"Then, I guess don't check into the hospital?" I said. "Is my answer?"
More blood was taken, some X-rays, some cultures and samples.
"But if you're not feeling better by tomorrow, you're going into the hospital," they said.
How could I possibly be feeling better by tomorrow? Way to delay the inevitable, champ.
Dear Hashem, Hi, it's me, Kara. I think I may be in the hospital for Yom Kippur. Please do not take major offense; it's not about you. Look: I'm even going to spend my birthday in the hospital! Doesn't that prove it's totally no thing against you? Please inscribe me in the Book of Life and try not to add all the parts about constantly being in the hospital. Also leave out the parts with douchebaggy colleagues. Actually you can leave in the colleagues if you take out the hospital. Thanks again, love, Kara.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
tysabri update
Have spent the day barely able to lift head. Some fey vomiting occurred. Crawled around. Fever: 103. Managed to avoid passing out by emptying a packet of sugar onto my tongue and sticking my head into a bucket. After four hours of trying to get a hold of a doctor, got a hold. Watching temperature. If it goes up, I'm a-goin' to the ER, Maw.
Tysabri, I trusted you. You said you loved me for me! But you're just like all the others.
Tysabri, I trusted you. You said you loved me for me! But you're just like all the others.
Monday, September 21, 2009
tysabri!
11:30 am: Arrive at infusion center, loaded down with computer, computer charger, three novels, notebook, ultimately unusable camera, and purse. What do I think I'm going to do in there, write the entire New York Times book review section? This is more baggage -- probably literal or metaphorical -- than the combined wares of everyone else there. On the other hand, almost everyone else has a companion with them, which in a helicopter-losing-gas scenario would trump my bags in a list of things to be tossed overboard. Feel better.
11:40 am: Sit in waiting room literally squeezed between two ladies who both look like they might throw up. Feel like I might throw up. Drink three 12-oz glasses of freezing water in a row to avoid imminent IV mishap.
11:50 am: Taken to "vitals" area. Blood pressure, oxygen intake measured. Height and weight measured. Apparently I have gained six pounds since morning. Assistant comments on what an "awfully big girl I am." I am all out of patience. "And you," I say to her sweetly, "are awfully devoid of tact." Ice-out for the rest of the vitals, including my temperature-taking, which yields a result of ninety-four degrees. Ice, ice baby. Inwardly pleased at the poetry of this, even though I know this is just because I drank that freezing water.
12:00 pm: Led past room after room of infusion chairs where people are getting all kinds of treatments. Some are sleeping, some are vomiting, some are reading. In my room two men are talking about Remicade. The others are just sitting there. One is asleep. From context I count three other Crohns in my room, but no one getting Tysabri except for me.
12:10 pm: My nurse comes in to quietly remind me, per her legal obligations, that I am going to get PML and die. "Sounds like a plan," I say. She takes out a tray of needles and begins to survey my left arm. She begins rubbing it furiously with alcohol. I believe myself to be keeping perfectly calm until she manually opens my fist and tells me to relax. I have made such a tight fist that I have drawn blood from my palm with my nails and it is starting to gather.
12:15 pm: The IV tube is in an impossibly deep vein in the middle of my arm. I frankly do not know how this nurse gets it in there. It takes ten minutes to suction a tube of blood out of it, however, because it is not "acquiescing." During this time my heart rate goes through the roof and I am asked if I have ever heard of a drug called Xanax. My palms get taped up. Once the nurse leaves for a minute I start to cry, with no noise. I am not sure what I am terrified of here, but I am terrified. I think I am mainly terrified of losing use of my other arm. No one sees me but the other Crohns, who look away.
12:30 pm: After some time of saline, the Tysabri begins. Several glass bottles of "emergency medications" and an inhaler are placed by my chair in case of, you know, whatever. The gregarious Crohn next to me, a North Indian gentleman in his early 60s, begins to talk to me. He is getting his first infusion of Remicade. He has had Crohn's for three years. I tell him I used to take Remicade, too, that I have had Crohn's for eighteen years. He tells me he thinks he is a different person now. He tells me the worst part of having Crohn's is that his friends and family are satisfied when he tells them he has a happy life.
"I don't have a happy life now," he says. "But it is a secret. Not because I want it to be, but because it has to be. But when I say I am happy, that's all they need to know. They don't really want the truth." I nod. He is exactly right.
"Tell me something," he says. "Do you have any advice after eighteen years?"
"Well," I say, watching his Remicade drip into his line, my Tysabri into mine, "you've lived a lot longer than I have."
"I'm beginning to think that isn't true," he says.
1:15 pm: My neighbor, with whom I have been having a conversation all this time, sends his son out for a chicken parm sub, and when it returns -- replete with a basket of fries -- all of the Crohns pretend not to look at one another in abject confusion. My neighbor offers me half, and when I decline, he proceeds to eat most of the offering. The whole infusion room smells like chicken parm and somebody retches. My neighbor is nonplussed.
"I used to be" -- he makes a gesture across his leg about three palms wide -- "big, strong, full of muscles. Now I am just a tiny thing, like a child. When I look in the mirror I hate what I see. I don't know myself."
"I am from hearty stock," I say, about five minutes before my eyes apparently roll back in my head.
1:25 pm: I am eating a force-fed saltine.
1:30 pm: Tysabri complete! Now, for an hour, I will be observed.
"Like a lion," I say, suddenly in better spirits, but none of the Crohns nor the nurse laughs.
1:45 pm: The saline hurts worse than the Tysabri. I am trying not to look at the IV site but good god that mother runs deep. The palms don't look so great either. Maybe I really do need Xanax. My next-door neighbor leaves, and when he departs, all the cancer patients in the room who had been pretending to sleep open their eyes and exclaim things like, "Thank God!" and "What a chatterbox!" I think they are smarter than we are. One of them asks another what deli she thinks that chicken parm came from.
"That deli is on my shit list," she says.
2:30 pm: IV comes out and a large, bright red bandage gets roped around my forearm, like I am some kind of South American revolutionary. "All set, bye!" they say, and then I realize that I have to get myself and all my untouched baggage home. Am suddenly wishing I brought a horse or other vehicle.
3:45 pm: Home. Feeling fine! Bake a pie. That's right, I baked a pie.
4:30 pm: Did I say I was feeling fine? Lie on kitchen floor with face on cool, dirty tile. Tile so nice, so nice.
5:00 pm: Vomiting, fever, and wiped out. Pretty sure this is Crohn's, not Tysabri.
5:30 pm: Trying to write. Can't remember name of protagonist. Oh God, I have PML already. I'm dying! I'm dying! O, Camille!
5:31 pm: Remember name of protagonist. Um, never mind.
6:00 pm: Assure parents that I am totally fine. Don't mention pie.
Final verdict: First Tysabri infusion a total and complete success!
I have a happy life.
11:40 am: Sit in waiting room literally squeezed between two ladies who both look like they might throw up. Feel like I might throw up. Drink three 12-oz glasses of freezing water in a row to avoid imminent IV mishap.
11:50 am: Taken to "vitals" area. Blood pressure, oxygen intake measured. Height and weight measured. Apparently I have gained six pounds since morning. Assistant comments on what an "awfully big girl I am." I am all out of patience. "And you," I say to her sweetly, "are awfully devoid of tact." Ice-out for the rest of the vitals, including my temperature-taking, which yields a result of ninety-four degrees. Ice, ice baby. Inwardly pleased at the poetry of this, even though I know this is just because I drank that freezing water.
12:00 pm: Led past room after room of infusion chairs where people are getting all kinds of treatments. Some are sleeping, some are vomiting, some are reading. In my room two men are talking about Remicade. The others are just sitting there. One is asleep. From context I count three other Crohns in my room, but no one getting Tysabri except for me.
12:10 pm: My nurse comes in to quietly remind me, per her legal obligations, that I am going to get PML and die. "Sounds like a plan," I say. She takes out a tray of needles and begins to survey my left arm. She begins rubbing it furiously with alcohol. I believe myself to be keeping perfectly calm until she manually opens my fist and tells me to relax. I have made such a tight fist that I have drawn blood from my palm with my nails and it is starting to gather.
12:15 pm: The IV tube is in an impossibly deep vein in the middle of my arm. I frankly do not know how this nurse gets it in there. It takes ten minutes to suction a tube of blood out of it, however, because it is not "acquiescing." During this time my heart rate goes through the roof and I am asked if I have ever heard of a drug called Xanax. My palms get taped up. Once the nurse leaves for a minute I start to cry, with no noise. I am not sure what I am terrified of here, but I am terrified. I think I am mainly terrified of losing use of my other arm. No one sees me but the other Crohns, who look away.
12:30 pm: After some time of saline, the Tysabri begins. Several glass bottles of "emergency medications" and an inhaler are placed by my chair in case of, you know, whatever. The gregarious Crohn next to me, a North Indian gentleman in his early 60s, begins to talk to me. He is getting his first infusion of Remicade. He has had Crohn's for three years. I tell him I used to take Remicade, too, that I have had Crohn's for eighteen years. He tells me he thinks he is a different person now. He tells me the worst part of having Crohn's is that his friends and family are satisfied when he tells them he has a happy life.
"I don't have a happy life now," he says. "But it is a secret. Not because I want it to be, but because it has to be. But when I say I am happy, that's all they need to know. They don't really want the truth." I nod. He is exactly right.
"Tell me something," he says. "Do you have any advice after eighteen years?"
"Well," I say, watching his Remicade drip into his line, my Tysabri into mine, "you've lived a lot longer than I have."
"I'm beginning to think that isn't true," he says.
1:15 pm: My neighbor, with whom I have been having a conversation all this time, sends his son out for a chicken parm sub, and when it returns -- replete with a basket of fries -- all of the Crohns pretend not to look at one another in abject confusion. My neighbor offers me half, and when I decline, he proceeds to eat most of the offering. The whole infusion room smells like chicken parm and somebody retches. My neighbor is nonplussed.
"I used to be" -- he makes a gesture across his leg about three palms wide -- "big, strong, full of muscles. Now I am just a tiny thing, like a child. When I look in the mirror I hate what I see. I don't know myself."
"I am from hearty stock," I say, about five minutes before my eyes apparently roll back in my head.
1:25 pm: I am eating a force-fed saltine.
1:30 pm: Tysabri complete! Now, for an hour, I will be observed.
"Like a lion," I say, suddenly in better spirits, but none of the Crohns nor the nurse laughs.
1:45 pm: The saline hurts worse than the Tysabri. I am trying not to look at the IV site but good god that mother runs deep. The palms don't look so great either. Maybe I really do need Xanax. My next-door neighbor leaves, and when he departs, all the cancer patients in the room who had been pretending to sleep open their eyes and exclaim things like, "Thank God!" and "What a chatterbox!" I think they are smarter than we are. One of them asks another what deli she thinks that chicken parm came from.
"That deli is on my shit list," she says.
2:30 pm: IV comes out and a large, bright red bandage gets roped around my forearm, like I am some kind of South American revolutionary. "All set, bye!" they say, and then I realize that I have to get myself and all my untouched baggage home. Am suddenly wishing I brought a horse or other vehicle.
3:45 pm: Home. Feeling fine! Bake a pie. That's right, I baked a pie.
4:30 pm: Did I say I was feeling fine? Lie on kitchen floor with face on cool, dirty tile. Tile so nice, so nice.
5:00 pm: Vomiting, fever, and wiped out. Pretty sure this is Crohn's, not Tysabri.
5:30 pm: Trying to write. Can't remember name of protagonist. Oh God, I have PML already. I'm dying! I'm dying! O, Camille!
5:31 pm: Remember name of protagonist. Um, never mind.
6:00 pm: Assure parents that I am totally fine. Don't mention pie.
Final verdict: First Tysabri infusion a total and complete success!
I have a happy life.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
24 hours to Tysabri, or Why I Should Be Incarcerated
Ground control to Major Tom. In approximately 24 hours, I am going to get my first infusion of the dreaded/much-awaited/bless-ed/a-feared Tysabri. The countdown be on.
I'm not that scared anymore, and I'll tell you why. Options scare me. Honestly, I think I would be the most incredible high-security jail prisoner ever, seeing as I hate options and I absolutely hate not following directions to a tee and/or breaking rules. I don't look so great in orange, but frankly, I challenge you to find a color that I do look good in. Don't say paper-bag.
But my options appear to be down to just one. When I thought that I had the option -- dubious though it may have been -- of just staying on prednisone until the Powers That Be came up with a safer treatment, it seemed scarier to take the Tysabri. Sure, prednisone doesn't stop the progression of the disease; it just manages the symptoms. But surely it couldn't be too long before somewhere in a beep-boop-bopping scientific cave, probably underground or in Menlo Park or something, somebody called out, "Eureka!" and offered up a big plate of No-Crohn's on a golden platter. Out of a the cave would shoot the disembodied shoulders and vocal organs of KISS! They would break into song! We would all dance! Um, I mean... right?
Except for the first time in eighteen years, Prednisone, my BFF (FFFF), isn't working. The symptoms are back, and bad. We're talking blood on the BART -- serious blood; clothes-soaking sweats in the middle of 70-degree afternoon weather; the cuts (where do they come from? where is the rototiller?); and, most interestingly, a total body shutdown after 10 pm. (That's Pacific Standard Time for once, thank God.) More mysteriously, the Prednisone actually seems to be causing some harm: Heart palpitations, panic attacks, acne (okay, fine, one tiny, barely visible acne, but this is coming from someone who didn't even blink an eye through the Oxystride moments of her peers' adolescence), and of course The Face That Nearly Detached Itself From Its Body and, Balloonlike, Flew Away Into The Atmosphere. Not that The Face is harm, per se. I mean, hell, The Face is Prednisone's job, am I wrong?
If the only option -- really the only, only, only option -- is Tysabri, then I want it. And tomorrow, after another visit to see the hand doctor, I am going to be one lucky girl, because I'm going to get it. I don't use the word "lucky" sarcastically.
If it is allowed, I will try to get a photo tour for you of Getting Tysabri. Frankly, I don't think this photo tour is going to be much different than the tour for Getting Remicade or Getting Saline, but you never know, there may -- may, no promises -- be a troupe of dancing gnomes. Or they may unmoor my exacerbated head from its bodily prison and let it rise up, up, up to the ceiling tiles, where it will bobble about confusedly for the duration of the treatment. In which case, lucky Crohns, we will all get a bird's-eye view.
I'm not that scared anymore, and I'll tell you why. Options scare me. Honestly, I think I would be the most incredible high-security jail prisoner ever, seeing as I hate options and I absolutely hate not following directions to a tee and/or breaking rules. I don't look so great in orange, but frankly, I challenge you to find a color that I do look good in. Don't say paper-bag.
But my options appear to be down to just one. When I thought that I had the option -- dubious though it may have been -- of just staying on prednisone until the Powers That Be came up with a safer treatment, it seemed scarier to take the Tysabri. Sure, prednisone doesn't stop the progression of the disease; it just manages the symptoms. But surely it couldn't be too long before somewhere in a beep-boop-bopping scientific cave, probably underground or in Menlo Park or something, somebody called out, "Eureka!" and offered up a big plate of No-Crohn's on a golden platter. Out of a the cave would shoot the disembodied shoulders and vocal organs of KISS! They would break into song! We would all dance! Um, I mean... right?
Except for the first time in eighteen years, Prednisone, my BFF (FFFF), isn't working. The symptoms are back, and bad. We're talking blood on the BART -- serious blood; clothes-soaking sweats in the middle of 70-degree afternoon weather; the cuts (where do they come from? where is the rototiller?); and, most interestingly, a total body shutdown after 10 pm. (That's Pacific Standard Time for once, thank God.) More mysteriously, the Prednisone actually seems to be causing some harm: Heart palpitations, panic attacks, acne (okay, fine, one tiny, barely visible acne, but this is coming from someone who didn't even blink an eye through the Oxystride moments of her peers' adolescence), and of course The Face That Nearly Detached Itself From Its Body and, Balloonlike, Flew Away Into The Atmosphere. Not that The Face is harm, per se. I mean, hell, The Face is Prednisone's job, am I wrong?
If the only option -- really the only, only, only option -- is Tysabri, then I want it. And tomorrow, after another visit to see the hand doctor, I am going to be one lucky girl, because I'm going to get it. I don't use the word "lucky" sarcastically.
If it is allowed, I will try to get a photo tour for you of Getting Tysabri. Frankly, I don't think this photo tour is going to be much different than the tour for Getting Remicade or Getting Saline, but you never know, there may -- may, no promises -- be a troupe of dancing gnomes. Or they may unmoor my exacerbated head from its bodily prison and let it rise up, up, up to the ceiling tiles, where it will bobble about confusedly for the duration of the treatment. In which case, lucky Crohns, we will all get a bird's-eye view.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
if only I didn't read so much
On our second to last day in North Dakota, yesterday, I was reading during slow traffic when there was no data to collect. One of the CBP officers sauntered up to me.
Officer: What are you doing -- reading?
Me: Yes.
Officer: What are you reading -- like, a romance novel?
Me: No, just a regular novel.
Officer: Yeah, right. Women only read romance novels.
Me: Then it must be a romance novel.
Officer: Well, what is it?
Me: It's called Cloud Atlas. It's by this guy David Mitchell.
Officer: What's it about?
Me: It's kind of like linked stories, like a book inside a book.
Officer: Well, that's fucking retarded, isn't it?
Me: Not really.
Officer: Are you one of those girls who just reads all the time?
Me: I guess so.
Officer: Don't do nothing but read?
Me: And some other stuff.
Officer: See? And where did it get you? You're standing there writing numbers on a clipboard! Maybe if you didn't read so much, you would've gotten farther in life!
Indeed, sir. Indeed.
Good to see you again, San Francisco.
Officer: What are you doing -- reading?
Me: Yes.
Officer: What are you reading -- like, a romance novel?
Me: No, just a regular novel.
Officer: Yeah, right. Women only read romance novels.
Me: Then it must be a romance novel.
Officer: Well, what is it?
Me: It's called Cloud Atlas. It's by this guy David Mitchell.
Officer: What's it about?
Me: It's kind of like linked stories, like a book inside a book.
Officer: Well, that's fucking retarded, isn't it?
Me: Not really.
Officer: Are you one of those girls who just reads all the time?
Me: I guess so.
Officer: Don't do nothing but read?
Me: And some other stuff.
Officer: See? And where did it get you? You're standing there writing numbers on a clipboard! Maybe if you didn't read so much, you would've gotten farther in life!
Indeed, sir. Indeed.
Good to see you again, San Francisco.
Monday, September 14, 2009
tyrranosaurus audio
Good evening once again from picturesque North Dakota, where I appear to have stress-eaten myself into a dilly of a Crohn's pickle. Perhaps tomorrow I will be reborn as a dolphin, a gleeful, braying dolphin, whose appropriate relationship to small edible fish and its "work" environs make it gnash its delicate scissorteeth in amusement. The only drawback to being a dolphin tomorrow: If I'm still in North Dakota as a dolphin, in all likelihood I'll be beached as crap, and therefore dead. And I will still be in North Dakota tomorrow; that I can assure you.
The Internet, which has already been sullied by so many boobs, bad rabbi jokes, Wikipedia entries that end up in student citations, and so on, now has another terrifying item: My weird voice, online, reading a story about dinosaurs. This has happened because the very supportive editors at Narrative are incredibly nice to me (and maybe because they like people with Crohn's Disease? because the story mentions it by name). In the picture on the webpage, I look like more of a douche than I perhaps ever have, but they kept pressing me for different pictures -- "more candid pictures" -- until I concluded that what they really wanted was a picture of me looking like a douche. And behold! Out of options, I sent along a picture of me looking like a douchebag, and what do you know, I was right. Because they stuck it right up there. There is a preview you can listen to in which I stutter like Screech from Saved By The Bell. Imagine me also pulling up my pants with one hand, avoiding the eyes of the National Book Award winners in the front row of whom I was terrified, and swallowing blood. Total. Class. A week after the reading, I was in the hospital. But you wouldn't know it from the douche picture.
If you'd like, you can listen here.
The Internet, which has already been sullied by so many boobs, bad rabbi jokes, Wikipedia entries that end up in student citations, and so on, now has another terrifying item: My weird voice, online, reading a story about dinosaurs. This has happened because the very supportive editors at Narrative are incredibly nice to me (and maybe because they like people with Crohn's Disease? because the story mentions it by name). In the picture on the webpage, I look like more of a douche than I perhaps ever have, but they kept pressing me for different pictures -- "more candid pictures" -- until I concluded that what they really wanted was a picture of me looking like a douche. And behold! Out of options, I sent along a picture of me looking like a douchebag, and what do you know, I was right. Because they stuck it right up there. There is a preview you can listen to in which I stutter like Screech from Saved By The Bell. Imagine me also pulling up my pants with one hand, avoiding the eyes of the National Book Award winners in the front row of whom I was terrified, and swallowing blood. Total. Class. A week after the reading, I was in the hospital. But you wouldn't know it from the douche picture.
If you'd like, you can listen here.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
the wrong basket
I took pictures of North Dakota, which I think is probably The Most Beautiful United State, but I can't post them here because I don't have a camera cord. I took them all in the car during the two-hour daily commute that my one remaining colleague here and I have. I know "one remaining" sounds bad, like I've eaten the third colleague -- and I probably look like I have; thanks again, Prednisone, and cue the Godzilla music -- but he went home after two days here, as he was scheduled to. My best friend in North Dakota, besides the state itself, is the US Open on TV and the six-pack of Activia Light yogurt that lives in my room for dinner consumption. Yeah, man, I'm like that. I just come home from work and rip open a six-pack. Of Activia.
I would like to tell you all I've learned about bear hunting, deer hunting, veterans of Iraq, sugarbeet season here in central ND, and canned soup, but I'm too tired. It's not been a good few days for the L. family. I don't want to go into detail here, but there have been a couple of reasonably serious accidents. Everyone's okay, more or less, which is lucky. Silly as this may sound, I feel guilty that these accidents didn't happen to me instead of the people they happened to. Of course it's a worthless thing to spend brainpower on, but it doesn't seem at all fair that anything bad should happen to any of the rest of them. If the fates were smart, they'd put all their rotten eggs in one Prednisone-enlarged basket. Moses and his staff know that basket is big enough to carry them! (Re-cue Godzilla music.) It is terrifying to me that I am powerless to prevent these things from redirecting themselves to the appropriate party. Because I am here in North Dakota with no car and no free will, and therefore I have basically no power at all, and bad things are happening to my family and I am able to eat food, and that unnatural state of affairs is not, not, not okay.
My Tysabri case manager has informed me, reprise no power, that they are ready to start infusing me tomorrow. Except: Too bad! I'm in North Dakota. I think my first infusion will indeed be next week. This is happening very quickly, is it not? I am already losing blood in felicitous anticipation, not on purpose. Sometimes this happens when I get anxious. I have been pussyfooting (yeah, I said pussyfooting; tee-hee it out) around the question of whether I am going to have a central line put into my chest (or worse -- hide your delicate eyes -- neck! oh-em-geeee!) at that time, and no one seems to know the answer. Needless to say, I don't want one terribly badly, though it would probably be the only protrusion resembling boniness on my body, besides the large carbuncle that is my heart, a surly, tentacled thing that roars out of its cage at inopportune moments and jabs douchebags in the throat.
North Dakota, you are so beautiful. I am sorry I have sullied you with my bad attitude. I will try harder on days 7, 8, and 9 to live to up to your splendor.
I would like to tell you all I've learned about bear hunting, deer hunting, veterans of Iraq, sugarbeet season here in central ND, and canned soup, but I'm too tired. It's not been a good few days for the L. family. I don't want to go into detail here, but there have been a couple of reasonably serious accidents. Everyone's okay, more or less, which is lucky. Silly as this may sound, I feel guilty that these accidents didn't happen to me instead of the people they happened to. Of course it's a worthless thing to spend brainpower on, but it doesn't seem at all fair that anything bad should happen to any of the rest of them. If the fates were smart, they'd put all their rotten eggs in one Prednisone-enlarged basket. Moses and his staff know that basket is big enough to carry them! (Re-cue Godzilla music.) It is terrifying to me that I am powerless to prevent these things from redirecting themselves to the appropriate party. Because I am here in North Dakota with no car and no free will, and therefore I have basically no power at all, and bad things are happening to my family and I am able to eat food, and that unnatural state of affairs is not, not, not okay.
My Tysabri case manager has informed me, reprise no power, that they are ready to start infusing me tomorrow. Except: Too bad! I'm in North Dakota. I think my first infusion will indeed be next week. This is happening very quickly, is it not? I am already losing blood in felicitous anticipation, not on purpose. Sometimes this happens when I get anxious. I have been pussyfooting (yeah, I said pussyfooting; tee-hee it out) around the question of whether I am going to have a central line put into my chest (or worse -- hide your delicate eyes -- neck! oh-em-geeee!) at that time, and no one seems to know the answer. Needless to say, I don't want one terribly badly, though it would probably be the only protrusion resembling boniness on my body, besides the large carbuncle that is my heart, a surly, tentacled thing that roars out of its cage at inopportune moments and jabs douchebags in the throat.
North Dakota, you are so beautiful. I am sorry I have sullied you with my bad attitude. I will try harder on days 7, 8, and 9 to live to up to your splendor.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
daily highlights: sugar
Maybe it's just traveling my body doesn't like, or maybe it's working, but already the 101-degree fevers are back. This morning in the dark, maybe around 4:30 -- which was only about half an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off -- the train came by the window of the hotel screaming. On the drive up every morning, in the dark, you can see these very firm plumes of sugar smoke coming from the sugarbeet factory, even though it's not yet the season. That's pretty much the best part of the day.
We found out today that the only establishment in town at the border, an extremely decrepit bar that serves you whatever they happen to have made, is apparently some kind of drug ring. Never mind anyway, as we've determined we're just going to eat our grocery store food for the rest of the trip, since it appears to be basically the only other option. Good thing I got candy corn at the grocery store. I'm just saying.
We found out today that the only establishment in town at the border, an extremely decrepit bar that serves you whatever they happen to have made, is apparently some kind of drug ring. Never mind anyway, as we've determined we're just going to eat our grocery store food for the rest of the trip, since it appears to be basically the only other option. Good thing I got candy corn at the grocery store. I'm just saying.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
from the north dakota annals: day one
Three planes later, here I am in Grand Forks, ND, my nightly waystation before heading up to the borders daytime, 1.5 hours north. I am here with two male colleagues who I have never met before, a gray Chevy Malibu that I am not authorized to drive, uncomfortable shoes, and a lot of buffalo. On the way to the car rental place from the airport (a room, one gate), I espied a billboard advertising God's Stimulus Act and bearing a picture of four ebullient babies sitting in a cardboard box, not unlike a box one might use to move documents hither and thither across a large copy room. Don't think about this too long. Soon thereafter, a sign for buffalo meat for sale, and then the buffalo. I learned from the dude driving us, a rather old dude in a trucker hat and wearing two hearing aids, that touring the buffalo zone, for lack of a better word, is the fourth most popular activity in Grand Forks.
"What about eating the buffalo?" I asked.
No response.
My colleagues have been here before, and reported to me that they remembered a restaurant, sort of like a midwestern Applebee's, where the year previous they had encountered a waitress of such extreme hotness that you could "die in her eyes." The only other choices were fast food, anyway, and it has quickly become apparent to me that my role on this nine-day work extravaganza will be to be as easygoing as possible and just do what I'm told. A quick look around the restaurant did not yield the eye-killer. When our waitress, a college-age girl, came to our table, both of my colleagues asked her where the eye-killer was: Where was the girl with "special eyes"? She responded, quite reasonably I thought, that she was not in the practice of gazing into the eyes of other waitresses, but this response was deemed totally unfriendly by my colleagues.
"If you want her bad enough, you'll find her," I declared, and this too was deemed unfriendly. You can't win.
Tomorrow at 7 a.m. we journey up to the borders for our first day of work. I am told there will be sunflowers on the way. And buffalo.
"What about eating the buffalo?" I asked.
No response.
My colleagues have been here before, and reported to me that they remembered a restaurant, sort of like a midwestern Applebee's, where the year previous they had encountered a waitress of such extreme hotness that you could "die in her eyes." The only other choices were fast food, anyway, and it has quickly become apparent to me that my role on this nine-day work extravaganza will be to be as easygoing as possible and just do what I'm told. A quick look around the restaurant did not yield the eye-killer. When our waitress, a college-age girl, came to our table, both of my colleagues asked her where the eye-killer was: Where was the girl with "special eyes"? She responded, quite reasonably I thought, that she was not in the practice of gazing into the eyes of other waitresses, but this response was deemed totally unfriendly by my colleagues.
"If you want her bad enough, you'll find her," I declared, and this too was deemed unfriendly. You can't win.
Tomorrow at 7 a.m. we journey up to the borders for our first day of work. I am told there will be sunflowers on the way. And buffalo.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
the biggest state
Good morning, east coast! One red-eye later, I am back where I belong: namely, the Big MD, which I am pleased to report seems unchanged since my departure six weeks earlier. Bis'l the Crohn's Dog, in a near frenzy of excitement, leaped directly onto my right arm and commenced a barkathon of important proportions. It is beginning to sink in that I only got about three hours of sleep last night -- the kind of sleep one gets while intermittently waking up to look at the icon of the plane hovering dubiously over a map of Kansas -- but I am hoping that the delicate soils of the Big MD will keep me awake for a while longer since I have to investigate the fact that my former employer fucked up my insurance of which I apparently now have none.
Yes, you read that right: That University Where I Used To Teach, although mysteriously continuing to pay me (?), has somehow failed to submit my Cobra paperwork properly -- a fact that I discovered yesterday when trying to fill prescriptions before my flight. I guess today's work is cut out for me. If need be, I will hold the phone up to Bis'l and just get her to bark down the line.
Yes, you read that right: That University Where I Used To Teach, although mysteriously continuing to pay me (?), has somehow failed to submit my Cobra paperwork properly -- a fact that I discovered yesterday when trying to fill prescriptions before my flight. I guess today's work is cut out for me. If need be, I will hold the phone up to Bis'l and just get her to bark down the line.
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