badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books

bear with me...

So boring! Sorry!

article on gastritis and peptic ulcers

I think i'm going to stay on the aciphex but also add tagamet back in. Aciphex is a proton pump inhibitor and tagamet is an H2 (histamine) blocker. So that makes sense.... (And Dr. Obnoxious prescribing me two different proton pump drugs at once, I think, did not make sense.) I don't see anything against it (though I'll keep looking).

Also -- from reading a bunch of stuff online and in harrison's it seems fairly clear that gastritis / ulcers don't get better very fast and I should not be expecting to feel better in just 2 weeks. (Which no one made clear.)

I realize that I didn't really say anything about taking a lot of NSAIDs ... on and off for many years but often very heavy use... er, why did i not mention it?

It might not be unreasonable to try the food allergy elimination diet plan, but it is so tedious. And it has to be done right (i.e. scientific and consistent) or it is pointless. But in the meantime no sources can agree on what "easily digestible" foods ARE. and... I assume it is a bit like asthma ... if I'm already irritated then the slightest thing sets it off but then when I'm more or less better I can wear hair gel or use smelly soap and it doesn't bother the asthma. It could be similar with food.

Okay I am going to make a huge effort to stop talking about all this. I have promised everyone that I will rest a lot, make room for naps while at my conference, will eat carefully as I can, and... basically will NOT "run on adrenaline" full speed ahead and then come home and collapse. So, take it for granted that I am boringly agonizing about what to eat, and what not, and whether I'm doing something to damage myself, and wishing I weren't in pain, wondering if I'm crazy: and that I have made an attitude adjustment that for the next few weeks I am slowing myself down etc etc etc.

And yes, I am paranoid that I will "rest" too much and exacerbate other health problems - it is best for me if I keep up as high of a level of physical activity as possible. So though I will be resting or whatver I will try to take a 20-30 minute walk or a bike ride every day. and THEN nap. that's the plan, anyway...you can stop laughing now... Really no one should be laughing as you consider the way I have been springing lightly to the top of long staircases on purpose and ignoring elevators after years of feeble breathless limping.

Instead you should feel sorry for whatever is making my stomach hurt because I'm going to KICK ITS ASS.

the other part of my day

I got up early, slipped out to Copymat, and finished my translation zine before 10am. There's parts of it I'm not happy with, but it's not bad. Tomorrow I'll fold and staple a bunch of them to take to the conference.

I wish I had just had the pages be white instead of cream-colored... it looks kind of stupid. Oh well!

I had to redo the cover - a drag - I didn't have time to make it nice - so it's very zineish and crappity.

And did you know that 8.5 x 14 paper is going the way of the dinosaur? Just try to find any nice paper in that size - I dare you.

Anyway now I've had some soup and some jello. I'm lying down. I'm not so lightheaded. Soon I'll pass out again.

space case

I'm very spaced out and sort of trembly. I slept all afternoon. Dazed. Weird dreams about falling asleep and then people waking me up and making me go somewhere else, where I'd fall asleep again.

So nothing very conclusive from the endoscopy but "gastritis" and they took some biopsies to try to figure out the cause of it, I guess.

i put on a cowboy shirt and hat to go to Moomin's halloween party, and went, but 15 minutes later was desperate to go home, my legs are all wobbly and i think my mouth was hanging open. All I wanted to do was put my head in Jo's lap and close my eyes. Rook drove me home. I'll eat some soup and go back to sleep.

I was very scared of the endoscopy but either it wasn't too bad or else I just forgot the entire thing. My mind is a blank after the floaty-feeling hit, but I know I must have been conscious and cooperating the whole time, like a zombie. This freaks me out and seems sad, like being in a science fiction story where you split into two people and then have to merge personalities again which means that one of the divergant personalities dies. Since none of us remember everything anyway, this happens all the time. But it's freakier when you're on a gurney.

Oh yeah and I had one of the most incompetent IV-putter-inners in the history of the world. I could hear her in the next curtained partition before me, saying "oops!" cheerily and "your veins are just all dried UP!" to her hapless victim. When she got to me I showed her how my veins are plump and juicy and a phlebotomist's dream. Despite her chirpy act she had no sense of humor and looked at me as if I were insane! And then she stabbed around in the back of my hand for like 5 minutes going, "it's THERE, but it's like, curling AWAY from me every time I... Oops!" So I ended up with the catheter in the crook of my elbow, she made it hurt like a bitch...

Oh yeah, I remember telling Molly the much nicer nurse in the "procedure room" that I was unduly terrified... and chirpy-bitch stuck her head in to say "You're gonna love it, the drugs are great" and then Molly said some comforting things and assured me she would narrate everything. "There is no such thing as too much information, just tell me everything even if I'm a zombie please." She said she would. And then she said if I had a ring in my eyebrow surely I could deal with endoscopy and I said "Hahaha, sure, I gave birth with no anesthesia so how hard could this be?" and blacked out.

you, too, could see my ampulla of vater!

Soooo... does anyone without children in tow want to drive me to Blatherton and pick me up? 11:30am tomorrow and... I just want someone who is a calming sort of person, without children, to be there to hold my hand or whatever while I come out of anesthesia. It's kind of heavy duty and might last a couple of hours for me to come round enough to leave, but the actual procedure is supposed to take only 10-15 minutes.

anyone? email me...

Images of the ... ew!!!!

Atlas of the Gastrointestinal Tract

Ew, ew, ew. Slimy. Gross.

driveby hooting

A while ago on the way back from dropping Moomin off at his play date at Zian's house... We saw Jo outside the church and slowed down. I hooted "heeeeyyyy baby!" out the window and considered yelling "I hear Unitarian chicks are eaaasy!" but as some blue-haired ladies were already recoiling in horror... we just drove off.

Oh the scandal!

I was telling Cally, Zian's mom, about the green jellyfish alien in the Dr. Who episode about the Whore of Fang Rock and how the alien was going, I will CONQUER EARTH" or whatever, and she blurted out, "Oh my GOD! That's IT! Bush is secretly a green slimy glowing jellyfish alien." And then Zian crawled beneath a pile of fiberglass insulation that was ready to be hauled to the dump and she was like, "UM. yeah. hahahaha. Honey, would you mind covering up the pots of nuclear waste we have in the back yard?" We bantered in a lively manner about the pirahna petting zoo and alien invaders. They're really nice!

Now I am listening to a giant CD of stuff C. made for me and downloading more stuff by anyone who takes my fancy. You really should buy Millie Jackson's album "Live and Uncensored" if only to hear her sing "Lick it Before You Stick It" and "I had to say it". Very amusing! If you have a low sense of humor like I do.

cosy, teetering, mystery novels

I had a cosy evening... it improved my mood a lot to dress Rook up like Joan Jett and send him off to Madeline's Dead Rock Stars party. I mean who would not cheer up at getting to use one's little-known skills -- If anyone knows how to put on slutty stoner chick eyeliner like it's 1982, it's me -- I was not one, but I learned from a master. (Thanks Julie.)

Chula came over to watch dr. who and blake's 7. alas that last episode of blake's 7 was incredibly dumb!!! It was the one with the pink-haired chick and her pink-haired samurai space pirate dad! GAH. Oh Avon, how low you have fallen in my esteem. I will always remember you the other way, with the understated sneering of a criminal mastermind, instead of the smirk of a grotesque poser!

After going back to the city on the train C. called me at 1:30am to say she had been hit by a van, a hit and run, but she is okay except for bruising I guess and the cop was brutal and stupid and accusatory, treating her like a lying crack-addled hooker. she went to the ER, they said she would be okay but stiff and bruised etc. and i hope they catch that hit and run fuckhead, who was probably drunk, and i hope the cop catches some hell also for being an asshole and traumatizing her...

Moomin woke up about every half hour all night and came to ask me random questions like "Do otters eat only fish?" and "Will you cuddle me?" I could not figure out what the hell was up with him. His allergies were super bad, so possibly he just kept waking up with a stuffy nose.

I ate a cookie and some warm milk... I feel almost normal! Except anything warm or cold that I eat hurts a lot. The other pain has calmed down ... Maybe that means it's all ulcers and it's getting better.

Yesterday afternoon I cried all over Rook ... I freaked out a little bit on-blog but what I was really feeling was a million times worse. I suddenly felt that I had no one to tell the depth of the horribleness. And was like "Rook, I am actually a pathetic loser. And you are totally deluded. And I'm just probably making myself sick in some mysterious neurotic way, because I was happy and must always sabotage my own happiness and success before i actually accomplish anything, because I'm fucked up. " He reassured me this was not true, and later I also confessed this terrible feeling to C. who mentioned that she and Rook are both quite intelligent and I should trust their judgement that I'm actually nice, sane, and loveable. This was even more reassuring. And then I kind of remembered that every single time I'm sick, even just with a cold or a mild sore throat that might be a cold or might be post-nasal drip, I skate around the edge of this very same tailspin of self-doubt and loathing. But, that doesn't mean that SOMEDAY IT MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE TRUE. Also, I realize on some level that my believing that I can magically think myself into being not-sick, is a symptom of my monstrous ego in that I think I am the center of the entire universe and can control it. Ha...

Then I read this novel by Denise Mina - and I loved "Garnethill" very much - but I did not love "Deception" since all the people in it were assholes and the main plot "twist" was OMG THEY'RE LESBIANS. Don't you hate that? Like in "psion" or was it the other Joan Vinge novel where the thing that lets the hero know that the villain is the villain is that... *gasp* she has some leather s/m sex toys under her bed, so... obviously she is an evil sadist capable of the worst crimes against humanity? And in Deception it's all about the "I never in a million years would have guessed she was an evil/foolish lesbian!" Er. How dull! I could sort of follow the double identity plot but it was sprung without much warning right near the end... and it was lame.

I'm going to have some soup... Moomin has a playdate... maybe I can go to kinkos and finish my translation magazine layout and then go to the nice independent copy store to print it... I need 200 copies minimum. I only have maybe 50 left from the first issue which was 400 copies.

frustration

I had a nice day lying around and pottering but I can't even begin to express my bitterness that I have not been able to do the things I want to be doing. I am missing tagcamp, not working on my thesis, not ready for my conference, translations I wanted to read are unfinished, poems that are rocketing around in my head are unwritten. Stuff is happening all around and I am not part of it. I am coming unhinged. I keep thinking maybe today will be different and then it isn't. Monday I will be having gross endoscopy and will feel like crap. Tues. I hope I will recover from that and I still have the vague dream that I might get my translation of Perlongher together somehow (tomorrow??) AND finish composite #2 which I guess should be the priority. Since I can read some other perlongher or some of my other translation at the conference. Which suddenly feels like a huge waste of time and money anyway. and all the joy is sucked out of getting to gallivant around montreal if I can't even gallivant properly but instead will be shuffling around drearily and collapsing into armchairs trying not to look ill.

Meanwhile, half of me is still convinced that by sheer effort of will I could feel better if only I would cheer up.

yay magic lesbians!

The latest Tamora Pierce fantasy novel, "The Will of the Empress" has teenage lesbians.   Oh, so deliciously mary-sue-ish in all the best ways! 

It's like Andre Norton, but with good writing!  Magic teenagers who are so powerful with a new kind of magic that no one understands them! Rah! Most other people have some boring kind of magic but they have Ambient Magic, and draw power from their surroundings, like Brian Eno. They earned their magic PhDs at age 13, and people just keep underestimating them. Will people ever learn? 

The red-haired fat nerdy bookreading one with weather magic and scrying and lightning in her braid... and her own miniature, slightly naughty glass dragon as her pet...
The black one who is a smith and a gypsy sort-of-outcast and she can like, send her consciousness into volcanoes, and has a hand made of "living metal" and is totally lesbonic...
The perky petulant snub-nosed blond one who is noble and an heiress and has "thread magic" and keeps making her enemies' clothes fall off...
And the token boy who used to be a "street urchin" who has plant magic and has a telepathic pet bonsai tree that's also his magic power battery and flowers love him and he has vine tattooes all over his hands and arms...

When they stand together nothing can stop them!

Oh yeah - and they all have Magic PTSD.  And there is a Feminist Message.

Ahahahaha!   Juicylicious!  I hope Tamora Pierce lives forever!

Thanks for lending it to me, Cyn...  Now I have an excuse go back and read the other ones in the "Circle of Magic" series.

muffins

I ate bread and cheese last night - and this morning, corn muffins.  A lot of nausea, some pain, still exhausted --  but really --- not as much pain.  maybe the ulcer meds are working?? 
getting better? Hmmm!

and the lights go on...

So my mom is now back, with her parents in tow... and they just got a call from their condo that the electricity came back on.  Which is good - as all the papers were saying it was going to be a week at the least, possibly a month.  But bad - because now people might feel like they went to all this effort for nothing.   So, also, good, because now I think they will be able to go back and live there and be kind of okay for a while longer as long as they get someone to fix their car.   

Since there was no way to tell how long phone, electricity, gas, etc. would be out, I think that we were right to hustle them out of there!  Even if in retrospect it would have been okay.

(Though technically they are not okay - they are barely managing.)

(But as long as they are barely managing, they are going to keep doing that until there is some other crisis.)

local politics

Instead of sending people out with glossy flyers explaining why they should be in office and how they understand their constituency...  what if all those Democrat volunteers went out door to door and just asked people what they would like to see happen differently in their neighborhood or town - in detail - and took notes.   Then compile it all up in various reports and <i>hand it back out</i> to all those same people and say "here's what we heard our constituents say..." and "here is what we will try to do about it..."

Couldn't this work on a large scale too?  At least for state politics if not higher?

Can you tell i'm sick of door to door people and phone calls and junk mail flyers?

Hmmph.

overdoing it

Okay... I got a little cocky... I had real food 2 days in a row... and a little coffee this morning. So I spent the morning at Kinko's doing the layout for my tiny translation zine!   It's almost done - but I got horribly exhausted. Then I ate 1 falafel - 1 dolma - and some hummus and tabbouleh figuring WHAT THE HELL...  and Doss showed up to drop off her car etc.  We had to get her a taxi since I was too tired to drive her to the airport.    

now i'm bone-tired... hurting a lot... nauseous.....   thank god Rook is home so I can go to bed.

It was good to do something and feel productive.   now for a nap.

misread

Jo and I misread this bumper sticker the other day to say:

Hurling after abortion? Call 888-XXX-XXXX.

Then... Oh! "Hurting! hurting..... not hurling... "
"hahaha yeah of course you're hurling. Hey, hurling BEFORE abortion, too..."
"hahaha!"

Don't tell my ex-g who had somethign like 5 illegal abortions and almost died... and knew all these other people who died. She gets mad whenever I have a bitter-humor moment and considers it impossible to joke about. She is right - and yet I can't help it.

knitted digestive system

Severin sent me this... i think via boingboing: Knitted Digestive System.

Wow! It's totally amazing.

Has anyone knitted a brain?

or ... the Enterprise?

what a mess!

I am feeling so morbid today. I am fretting at the immediate prospect of mom dealing with this by herself, but underneath it I am fretting worse at the prospect of her now stuck with her parents in her house for some indefinite chaotic period and no one caring at the destruction of her own way of life and peace of mind and her pleasant obsessions with riding lessons and interior decoration. She'll efface herself with effortless speed and no one will notice, and she will seethe with resentment while feeling dutiful... While she has to care for people she loves and also hates so much she will have to shield herself by disassociating so hard that she will turn into a sort of zombie stranger. She's so skilled at making that wall, it's scary. It makes me cry. I don't want them to die in misery either. Of course. (though I think of her voice saying "you don't want him to die in JAIL... a sick old man..." and I did, kind of, but that was 20 years ago.) But it is more her misery I care about, which I didn't realize fully till today... Really everyone has been waiting for one of them to die to figure out what happens next, and that's just unspeakable. I can see this and all I can hope for is that it does not last too long or that it's temporary and there is a reprieve before the real hideous mess begins.

novels

Duncan's book about the Macleans -- flawed in some small ways, but it still gave me chills!

A little too transparent and single-stranded in its themes which were mentioned too often... heavy-handedly...

Now for the other one.

successful kicking, or coddling

Moomin is off to carve pumpkins with Minnie, and I'm in bed with 2 new Jane Duncan books from the library. I have the Macleans one and the Sashie one. Perfect!

I'm eating olive toast with cheese. All afternoon with no food and only water, and it still hurt, so what the hell, I might as well eat something good.

It's SO YUMMY.

how I kick my own ass

You have to imagine my whiny self as sort of a drooping earth-mama hippie, a loquacious, overemotional, moony twit who gazes at the stars dreamily like Madeline Bassett, and the ass-kicking self as a slouchy, bitchy eyerolling teenager with way too much makeup on. It goes sort of like this:

Self-pitying Maudlin Badger: It's some kind of gross cancer and I'm going to die.

Bitchy Badger: Oh, whatEVERRRRRRRRR. You don't KNOW that's true.

SPMB: You don't know it's NOT true.

BB: Snap out of it.

SPMB: And Moomin won't even remember me.

BB: Oh so what. You enjoyed him. He'll have some vague memory. And he won't be able to avoid you the rest of his fucking life anyway. You've left your dirty footprints all over the place. And that's not the point of life anyway.

SPMB: But but but but.... and he'll miss me... and everyone else will miss me...

BB: It's okay. They'll miss you. Once a year they'll have a special laptop-toting blogging sex party overlooking the beach and a lot of sexy, muscley surfers. Your zines will get donated to the library.

SPMB: It's not okay! I'll be dead ...

BB: You'll be dead sometime anyway. So what??? You could get hit by a car tomorrow.

SPMB: Er yeah good point. But I haven't written anything worthwhile! I never finish! I never send out the stuff I do finish! I've never proved myself doing anything!

BB: Gah! So what if you did, no one will give a fuck 50 years from now! Or, like, 2 people will rediscover you and some teenage girl reading your long-faded archived crappy zines will burst into tears of the recognition of your kindred-spiritness! That's what you want anyway isn't it?

SPMB: Hmmm, so true...

BB: Well then!

SPMB: And what if I'm not dying but I'm going to be miserable for the rest of my life... and have no energy... and all the fun best parts are already over and I didn't properly appreciate them...

BB: Well then you will just have to learn to get off on being all noble about it then won't you?!

SPMB: Ow! You're a total bitch!

BB: Yup. At least you'll have time to burn those diaries!

SPMB: OMFG where are the matches?

Moomin: Mommy, where is my macaroni and cheese? Could you hurry up? Is it almost done? Is it almost done? Mommy are you almost done cooking my macaroni and cheese? Mommy, is it now? Is it done NOW? NOW is it done?

SPMB: SHUT UP, um, PLEASE, er, dammit, er, SORRY IT'S NOT DONE AND please stop asking and I'll bring it to you when it's done!!!! ARGH!

BB: *snicker*

this day sucks

I was just on the phone with the endoscopy people, Moomin started yammering and yelling at the top of his lungs about how he is thirsty and I finally just yelled SHUT UP PLEASE!!!! in a super mean way while still on the phone. Er, whoops. At least I said "please".

A horrible day of pain and nausea. I had 2 (3??) chocolate chip oatmeal cookies last night and woke up a brazilian times in the night wanting to throw up. I had toast for breakfast. (dry.) and some coffee with nonfat milk --- very, very weak coffee. All day with that vomity feeling and vomity taste in the back of my mouth. And the pain very nasty. half a can of chicken soup for lunch... lukewarm. Fuck this noise! I hate it! Hello, universe, I'm a HEDONIST, remember? Remember the "lapsed" part in "Lapsed Stoic"?

I deep-watered the garden just in case I get sicker and forget to do it and no one else remembers, or, you know, in case I die, maybe the plants will hang in there until the rainy season starts.

I keep thinking that if I am going to die of some hideous disgusting stomach-rotting cancer which is probably sending its metastatizing tentacles through my body AT THIS VERY MOMENT I should be enjoying the nice things about life, being appreciative of everyone I love, trying to be sort of intense, maybe finishing some writing project or preparing for my conference ... but fuck it's not working too well. Instead I'm on the floor playing chutes and ladders and trying to hide my bad temper - not successfully. Then shoveling Moomin in front of the TV to watch muppets while I hide in bed. Intellectual distraction works for a while and then I'm staring into space again trying not to cry. It is kind of a relief to have to put on a cheery or at least "functional" facade for Moomin.

I'm very bored with this whole thought chain and with feeling nasty and sorry for myself and my impending doom. I yank my brain out of that gutter about ten thousand times a day lately. It's worn into a rut. Oh, so boring. I don't believe any of it any more, I don't believe I'm sick, I don't believe I'm okay, I'm just tired of all this, I'm not feeling brave or anything. I just yelled at Moomin again very unfairly... I cannot possibly deal... thank god that Minnie is coming over soon to take him to zombiegrrl's pumpkin-carving party...

I will deny ever writing this, later... it must have been my evil twin.

en garde!

My mom is CHARGING LIKE A TINY RHINO to Miami to rescue my grandparents. She is scared to do this, but her sisters are being morons. So she is taking responsibility and flying out there today! she arrives after curfew and just realized that means that she will be stuck sitting in the airport all night. will she be able to rent a car or get a shuttle? she is on the phone trying to figure that out. Meanwhile I am trying to figure out the "situation report" on the ground at the airport and in Boca. Traffic lights aren't working yet, for example. Just how bad is it? They fly out (in theory) Friday. She got the airline to promise them wheelchairs. G & G could not possibly stand in the security line... they are frail and confused... apparently they got lost in the boston airport on the way down to Florida, and my Gma got stuck in a bathroom stall. (Please imagine her fierce and sturdy as a snorting horse all her life, bossy and bitchy; now come to this.)

I love my mom! She makes me think of Reepicheep in Narnia! Yes - a tiny gallant mouse with an elegant rapier!

starry-eyed

I have a mad crush on Patrick Fitzgerald. That thoughtful gaze! With a hint of steely resolve behind it! *swoon*

legitimizing bits of l33t

I was thinking about the word "teh" - I like it, it's useful, I adopted it on purpose just like "y'all" -- and then looked it up.  Here's a nifty article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teh.

I think it is not just "sarcastic" or "a parody of a certain stereotype of Internet user" but it connotes a mildly self-conscious or ironic enthusiasm.  As if one is too excited & vigorous to fix the typo or even notice it.

In the rat's mouth

My valium-snarfing aunt put her parents on a plane to south florida a day before the hurricane - she was supposed to go with them, but didn't "because I don't want to get stuck there with no electricity." Oh, imagine my mom's bitterness as she told me this... I thought I had not a shred of expectation or respect for Aunt Percocet, but there must have been one, because I felt a pale echo of pain stabbing at me as I thought fleetingly of how I idolized her when I was 10. Oh, mom... she had more than a shred of respect, somehow (but only because she is selectively blind & amnesiac, and wants a nice relative.)

What a pathetic excuse for a human being my aunt is! You can't stand being in no electricity, so, send your droolingly senile parents off into Hell alone. For fuck's sake!

Meanwhile, in Boca. The whole area has no phone. They have a cell that someone bought them, but they don't understand it. They didn't get it that it's going to run out of battery. "But it's plugged in right now, and it works..." they both brayed like idiots. The Miami online papers say that the cell phone towers are going to go out quite soon because they're on backup power.

Their car is sort of smushed with its windshield broken but I don't think anyone has tried to call AAA to get it fixed.

My Gma: "He's complaining about having to always eat bread and jelly."
My mom: "Well, what about peanut butter? Do you have that?"
Gma: "Oh. Maybe... oh, yes, I believe I do."
My mom: "What about canned fruit? Do you have that?"
Gma: "Oh! Yes. Good idea. Canned fruit!"

You get the idea? Fucking hopeless.

My mom made them plane reservations. But then they refused to go to the airport. Someone is probably going to have to go and try to get them.

I begged my mom last week not to let them go back right when the hurricane was going to hit, and she tried... but Auntie Darvon shoveled them on the plane and they insisted they'd be fine. I feel bad now that I didn't call them myself, but I am cowardly about dealing with them. So much that I have only heard second hand reports of how very confused and incompetent they have gotten this year.

I picture myself flying to Atlanta, renting a car, filling up a bunch of gas cans, and going to rescue them... I could do it, even sick. M. also confesses to this fantasy of rescuing them, which makes me feel less dumb... Meanwhile, who knows how many days of bread and jelly they have? Is the tap water safe? (Probably.) Mom hopes that the other people in the condo will be all helping each other; I would hope that, but I'm a bit more cynical. Possibly we could make a list of food they should ask a neighbor to get for them? But what food, and from where, as the grocery stores are thinning out and don't have power either?

Untitled

Testing the posting function from Flock...

"in bed" meme

From black_pearl:

If you woke up and I was in bed with you, what would be your first thought?

Reply here, then post the above line in your own journal.

some short asides about gynecologists

- Any gynecologist who wants to drape a sheet over you so that you can pretend someone isn't looking up your coochie: that's just bad news. There is no reason to depersonalize the process. I prefer someone who can make eye contact with me and have a normal conversation. The whole "sheet" thing is like a special pap smear glory hole. It's all about encouraging shame!

So: refuse the sheet!

- There is no reason to take off all your clothes unless they're like, inspecting you for skin cancer!

- Always wear leg warmers when you get a pap smear.

real humanity

The gastro dr. was a real human being, smart, listened, talked, explained, had a plan... She kicks ass! She also got on the phone to figure out when she could do an endoscopy on me - and got on the phone in front of me, which i respect... In my other dr. office, for sure they would just be like, "an appointment nurse will call you. sometime. maybe."

Anyway, Dr. Butch rocks. She said gallstones are not ruled out, but she suspects a duodenal ulcer and possibly something else going on. She explained endoscopy and said there woudl be major IV tranquilizers and some kind of throat-numbing spray so you don't gag so much. basically I will deep-throat a pencil-sized hose with a camera and a laser thing on it. So they project the video of it on a big wall-sized screen and I will get to see my esophagus, stomach, and small intestine, which is a good experience for a poet, much like going into outer space or the bottom of Lake Baikal in a bathysphere, and it will only take 10 minutes, probably. If they see anything bleeding, they cauterize it right then, and if they see anything freakin' odd, they take a biopsy of it. This will happen next monday. If they don't see anything at all and it's a huge mystery, then: CAT scan. If there is still nothing, then they figure out something from there.

There was also some feedback I appreciated from her, validating, like, "Yeah, that's not okay if you suddenly can't eat without pain and the pain wakes you up at night; And, your dr. was so wrong about irritable bowel, and, also, she was wrong with prescribing you both aciphex and prilosec, just pick one, and maybe it will help and maybe not, but it sounds like it's not helping as much as it should be if this were simply ulcers."

We also talked about diet. She said to experiment, since we don't know what is going on anyway.

I had an extremely weak non-fat lukewarm latte. (It is noticably VERY painful to eat anything hot or cold...) Then recklessly, around noon, I had some tuna casserole. This is not really hurting more than the saltines and non-fat yogurt... though I think it is hurting for a longer time.

Well, I'm comforted and relieved that she was such a good human being. I lucked out too and got this sort of butchy dykey matter of fact person who, to me, just "felt" like a normal person I could relate to. Like, wearing formal black jeans and ... I can't explain... without "hairstyle" or a lot of jewelery if you know what I mean. Certain people just seem like aliens to me, and they are more likely to see me as a scary, irritating junkie....but Dr. Butchina was just like someone I might be normally friends with.

There was no "office nonsense" of forms and nurses asking a million questions and databases which no one ever looks at again. You know what I mean? That was a very good sign. I hate when you fill out all these medical history forms, then you take off all your clothes (which - I never do that anymore no matter what....!) the nurse examines you and writes down your blood pressure and askes questions, then half an hour later the dr. comes in for under 5 minutes... You know that whole routine? This was different. We sat like normal people talking in her office, which was full of obviously-often-consulted reference books and specialty magazines. Perhaps that just means "very expensive doctor not being pressured by PPO" ...?? But to me it means that the dr. has respect for the patient as a person - and that she is smart and a reading/researchy person.

As there was no reason for me to take off all my clothes, this dr. just yanked up my shirt and poked around a bit. So... SANITY. She can stick her camera down my throat all she wants.

I am scared I will not get to go to my conference, but i am trying to believe maybe I will get to go. But I am not going to go out this weekend. Alas, I will miss the halloween queen of heaven party, and many other good things.

Just having lunch, getting the oil in my car changed, and walking next door to the camping store to buy some new thermal undies ---- this exhausted me. Completely bone-tired. Rest... and a real nap.

OMG the thermal undies are PERFECT. Silk is good, but I like them smooth and not "pointelle" which snags annoyingly on my hangnails. So - they had "microfleece" tight long undies - very perfect - they fit perfectly, not too long (rare because I'm short) and fit under my jeans. Yay! The old ones are baggy as I wore them all through pregnancy and beyond. I will be toasty warm all winter.

What, I can't eat my usual morning razor blade?

Hmmm, maybe coffee would not be so dumb. I don't know what to eat at this point. Ulcer-friendly? Or gallbladder-friendly? The "ulcer" philosophy says nothing acidic, but fatty is okay. The Way of Bile is sort of the opposite and they all say to eat a lot of veggies, vitamin c, coffee and pickles. Mmmm. Pickles. Coffee.

Maybe if I follow my "usual" plan which is get up, no breakfast, coffee, work a lot, maybe a cracker or cookie... then have a late lunch.

The thing is, I never obsess about food, I hate all that, I've never been on a diet... I never think about it! Gah!

What to do! I will have plenty of time to experiment on myself.

oh frabjous ultrasound!

I just called the nurse ... "Great news! Your ultrasound is perfectly normal! You're fine! You're healthy!"

I'm not joking... that's what Nurse Perky said to me.

"Um, I'm actually not healthy and fine. Sorry."

"But it looks perfect and healthy. What was the problem? pain? Maybe it's something you're eating?"

(I explain the problem again, briefly)

"You know WHAT, I bet you have irritable bowel!"

"Er, my bowels are fine. In fact, surprisingly so, given the diet of rice, potatoes, and Mylanta."

"Well, I'm sure it'll end up being Irritable bowel!!!" (said with 150 watt cheer)

hahahah... I am amazed...

Maybe I'll just pretend and believe hard enough and the problem will go away!

As I suspected, there was no "And so let's figure out what might be going on..." or further appointment suggested... but a deep, cheerful, battering ram of "YOU ARE PERFECTLY HEALTHY EXCEPT FOR BEING NEUROTIC." You know what? Maybe I'm just "doing this to get attention"! Gosh!

I'll go have a hamburger now. Thanks, Nurse!

I'm grinding my teeth with rage. If you couldn't tell through the computer.

tacky tacky!

Jo is making me laugh so hard it hurts... we were mocking the mom-club mailing list requests for (and resulting summary of) "holiday decorators". Yes, some dorkwad is going to hire someone to decorate their house for the holidays! What I'm imagining is quite horrible... that kind of magazine house gives me the heebie jeebies! I'm sure it's all very "tasteful"... hahahaha! omg!

I want to declare a contest on that list and see what happens... and then give mean prizes like 'most pathetic' "tackiest" etc. And photograph the straggledy tinsel and paper snowflakes put on the wall with obvious tape, which is what we will have if I muster up the energy.

I am having a hilarious memory of my old piano teacher in Houston and her xmas tree which had these fake birds, and blue-orange bows that matched the bluebirds with orange bellies, and sort of ... fake sheaves of hay. the same pattern repeated on the tree, like horrible wallpaper! equally horrible - it all matched the drapes and carpet and sofa, somehow.

continuing saga

The ultrasound tech wouldn't tell me anything except "the radiologist will look at it and call your doctor." She poked around to look at my gb, liver, pancreas, and spleen. (spleen??)

How long do you think that will take? for their person to look at it, and write a report, and then that report gets faxed over to my doctor's office, and then someone might get it to my doctor... Can't people pick up the phone? You know how happy it would make me just to have waited there in the hospital even for a couple of hours, and then be there to speak with the radiologist who might be speaking to my doctor, all at the same time? But that would be SENSIBLE.

I miss the U. of Chicago hospital... they were reasonable people...

Another day will crawl by while I wait and nibble on boiled potatoes, nauseated, in pain. I'm depressed and exhausted. At least I am no longer in the car being jolted around painfully.

I demanded a referral to a gastroenterologist and - miraculously - got an appointment with one at 9am tomorrow. One hopes for an intelligent person who will listen to the whole problem before making up her mind. Will she try to figure out what's going on, or just diss me and send me off somewhere...

Thinking about Caroline

A few years ago I did some reading about Laura Ingalls' life... And i've been saying for a while now that I want to blog as her mom, Caroline... As I was idly surfing tonight I found these interesting pages: Frontier Girl A-Z. Which I would be happier if there were good footnotes, but hey, it's still a respectable source in itself. I figure for Caro's blog I'll throw in a couple of miscarriages in the first years of her marriage (Mary wasn't born until year 5.) My whole generation grew up watching the vile TV show, which I never saw... I used to turn it right off as it seemed ALL WRONG even from the opening credits. But Caro's blog will start right at the beginning of the books, which I'm going to set in 1873 during their second stay in Lake Pepin.

Er, that is, I'm going to do that in a few months after my thesis is done. Never fear!

It's so awfully tempting though.

And think of how nice it would be to write the footnotes to those books and release them in a scholarly edition! Why hasn't anyone done it? If you have any real memory of the books you know it would be an amazing project.

crappy doctor...

My doctor's appointment was appointless... It went kind of like this:

"So, I'm in pain whenever I eat, and the pain gets really bad in my side, and goes around to the back. "
"But your blood tests are completely normal. So you should not be having this much pain."
"It's bad pain. It lasts for a long time usually, and the more I eat, the worse it is and the longer it lasts. It only goes away if I don't eat for maybe 5 or 6 hours, or more. Not overeating - just like, half a very plain sandwich, is too much and hurts more than I can deal with."
"Your liver is completely normal and your blood tests don't show any sign of infection. So, cannot be gallstones."
"Well, what can it be then, because... it's been a really long time."
"Is ulcers, and it will take you up to 12 weeks to feel better. Take double the Aciphex."
"Meanwhile, not eating? Or what? I'm trying to deal with the pain, but it's hard to just keep going."
"Here is vicodin prescription. The ultrasound person will call me. Ask them to call me right away."

She was so hostile, and clearly she thinks I am after the pain meds. Or she would write me a scrip for the Aciphex rather than giving me a week's free samples. If it's going to take 12 weeks to get better why do I not have a prescription for something to get it better? But instead, a scrip for vicodin? I shoudl have tore it right up.

She didn't remember the h. pylori blood test till I made her get up and look for it. it was in a big pile of unprocessed forms... the nurse finally found it in the stack. I don't have h. pylori exposure according to the blood test.

She also kept saying "You don't fit the PROFILE for gallstones." Fine, then, fucking think of something else it might BE. (and.. the "profile" is "female, fat, and 40." Okay, i've got the first part down cold. I WAS fat until I started losing weight like crazy because it hurt to eat. I'm 36. Again, WTF on her profile?

Then, asking if I have diarrhea and acting puzzled and more hostile that I don't. Fine, BE puzzled. Is it my fault??

But anyway she is retarded to think that you can tell if it's gallstones from the blood test - if that were true, they wouldn't have all these other tests. Also, it has been getting worse over the last week, and what can you tell about THAT from last week's blood test? nothing.

So somehow I walked out of there with no info, and no referral, no prescription. I am going to look into different doctors right now. I mean if the ultrasound shows us some gallstones then fine, everyone's all set and they can more or less fix it. If it doesn't then I am going to have to find a decent doctor who will try to figure out what it IS. because i am not making this up... It hurts after I eat, really bad, so bad that I'm SCARED TO EAT. WTF is so hard to understand about that?

I'm so upset... I'm going to go to whole foods and buy some yogurt...

I hate it when doctors decide you're lying and then aren't honest with you... I should have called her on it, and refused her vicodin scrip...

in bed

I'm going to stay in bed as much as possible today, to rest. last night was bad even through the painkillers. You know what, I'm going to rest sensibly and eat some soup. Tomorrow is the ultrasound.

food is bad; also, all about huge boobies

eaten today:

- half a thing of non-fat yogurt (ow!)
- water (not enough)
- half a turkey sandwich, plain bread, turkey and iceberg lettuce (really, really ow)
- half a small jar of starbucks latte from the gas station (OW! nearly vomited...)
- half a plain baked potato, a couple of pieces of carrot
- most of a cup of lentil soup (ouch)

finally around 7:30pm in the car i took half a vicodin... I just couldn't stand it anymore. My ipod batteries ran out and it was too dark to read. Plus, I could not stand being grouchy to Rook and Moomin. I cheered up briefly with the caffeine. Rook told me "you're strong and brave!" in a cheering, commanding way at "dinner".

We visited his friend the writer and director... after the sandwich I could not stand to sit down. So Moomin was sequestered in his bedroom with a mutant ninja turtle movie while they watched Rafe's new horror movie which is not quite horror, but a takeoff on jekyll & hyde. Rafe wants my feminist perspective but i will probably not watch it. I watched his short clip called "Mood Boobs" which was very silly and stupid (meant to be) about a girl in L.A. wishing accidentally on a magic crystal that she had giant boobs that would grow when she clapped or coughed and would make her have insane orgasms. Many "over the top" (er???) scenes of her breasts getting so gigantic she was terrified and yet because it was part of the wish, turned on and also fantasizing madly about how "hunky Steve in marketing" would now want to have sex with her. then her friend comes over to help her un-wish it, but instead takes sadistic glee in making her have enormous breasts and orgasms, and then takes the crystal & wishes to have total control over anyone in the world's body parts (tasteful fade to black as they stumble into the bedroom moaning and holding up their breasts, which were bigger than my entire body). I liked the touch of the "balloon blowing up" sound effects whenever the boobs started inflating. It managed to be super fluffy, funny, and yet oddly disturbing - on purpose.

So -- obviously I watched the short boobies movie, but during the long horror movie I left to go walking down the street to a used bookstore. It turned out to be excellent, huge, rambling, disorganized, full of strangely alluring things like the complete plays of Lady Gregory, and a book I nearly bought which was quite old and titled (in an attractive font, stamped in gold) "Injurious Insects".

I found a very early edition of Kristin Lavransdottir, in norwegian... priced so low I brought it to the counter and told the guy to go look it up on the net and please sell it on there to someone who is probably desperate for it...

Rook drove all the way home - he's my hero!

Opinion-o-matic, and the Iceland strike

Pam Spaulding, who is newly blogging over at Pandagon, has a great story about a bad story: Cookie-cutter Bush propaganda editorials. Surprise - a bunch of local small-town Republican newspapers run the same editorial modified slightly. It's like they learned to re-use their term papers and carried it right over to op-ed journalism!

More cheering news: an article from Pinko Feminist Hellcat on the Iceland Women's General Strike or "The Long Friday". They're going to do it again. I wonder how that's going to go? And I liked the idea better of doing it all day - rather than just leaving at 2:08pm.

This idea of a strike resonates with me because I'm sick of the idea of being the great societal scapegoat. Middle-class and work? You're selfish! You should be looking for a man and get to breeding, or if you've done that, quit because only an evil harpy would allow someone else to raise her child. You're the reason why all is wrong with the world. Are you a woman with a kid and on public assistance? Then you're a bloodsucking loafer and should get a job right away! Get someone else to raise your child, and if you can't afford it, tough luck. Get another job. Do you work a job that's low-paying? Well, it's probably not worth very much. Like, say, teaching.

I like those, but I can think of other reasons for striking, too! Like... a paycheck!

What would a real women's strike look like? Not too pretty.

food, yay!

Later when the vicodin wears off, I'm going to regret eating all the fish out of a fish taco...

For now, it's all spaceships and laughtracks! Hot-tubbing and bed-bouncing! We're all pretending to be bats.

Ignore the mortality attack from earlier today. What drivel!

how it goes with quotes

How annoying, the article where they quoted me pulled all the teeth of what I said. they might as well have interviewed someone utterly brainless. i had pithy things to say about exile and race. they took all that out! duuuuude. thanks, Advocate! Oh well, i always figure anything said to reporters is likely to come out the other end sounding like it was said by someone else...

in which I barely keep my head together

We had a nice day at the park but I'm feeling shaky and panicky. I went on a balloon ride while Rook and Moomin walked all over hell and back. They fed giraffes!

Around 2pm i realized i had to eat something or keel over. I swear there was no way I could bring myself to do it. I got a small steamed milk. It took me half an hour at least to force it down. That hurt like hell. Walking was painful.... At 5 in the car on the way back to the hotel I had a handful of no-fat bran cereal. At this point I could eat an entire herd of endangered lesbian rhinos! Raw!!!!! But the tiny handful of cereal made me want to faint from pain. The jolting of the car... what a bad idea. Then I confess I got a little bit panicked and ended up in this bad mental place saying to myself over and over, I don't want to die like Geethi... I am scared of surgery. It's creepy to go to sleep like that and not know what will happen. I'm scared of an "easy" laparoscopy but because I have already had 2 abdominal laproscopies there might be scar tissue ("adhesions") and then it would be major surgery. So then I'm just crying with a) fear b) frustration that I can't eat and I'm very hungry c) shame that I can't keep it together though I did for most of all this time d) maudlin self-pity as I imagine writing sappy "I'm dead, but...." letters to Moomin. At this point i want to crawl into a hole and be alone with my own misery.

Er, then Rook told me to read a book and snap out of it. That was helpful! He knows me well. Whoosh, I snorfled back my tears while I transported myself to Cetaganda. Yay! He brought me a hot pillow. I don't know what Moomin thinks; he's busy with Legos.

I'm going to take an entire vicodin this time, and will try not to eat too much though I can't tell if it makes any diffference. If the handful of cereal hurts just as much as the plateful of food, should I just go for it? I have no idea? Will the plateful make it hurt for longer? I think it does... it goes on for hours. I might as well be eating nails.

At the park I learned that female northern white rhinos need a "special girlfriend" before they will go into estrus (or maybe before they'll conceive) as it helps them feel secure. They mate with the other female rhino for life, or at least for a good long while (I take any claims of animal monogamy with a grain of salt). Then they have babies and raise them together! The monorail conductor/guide mentioned it and always pointed out the pairs of female rhinos hanging out together. It took the zoo many years to figure this out. She never said "bisexual" or "lesbian" but that's what it is! Yay lesbian rhinos!

After the balloon ride I sat in the australian rainforest watching some hornbills preen themselves. Then in front of gorillas for a very long time. there were a lot of gorillas stripping the bark off of twigs in a methodical way.

In the balloon itself I was narrating it all to myself in super outdated language and wanting to blurt out things about how it was a Most Curious Sensation. I thought of civil war observation balloons and wondered when exactly mongolfier was? but anyway, overcome by the feeling of gratitude that I get to have an experience so many people longed to have, to be flying.... the balloon was beautiful. we were tethered... 400 feet up.

bland diet

i have not had coffee, chocolate, soda, any kind of acidic or spicy anything since sunday. and have been on tagamet and zantac for weeks and since sunday, prilosec & mylanta and since monday, aciphex too. i am now wondering if it is the greasy things that are the problem. or just "hard to digest" in some way I am not fathoming. because the ER doctor and "my" doctor both thought that a bland diet was going to be just fine for me. i am not sure about the milk, even. bread is not "easy"... well, nothing is. how can i get this across to them? quickly? shouldn't I be getting better? they both thought my blood tests said that it was most likely NOT gallstones. but maybe it is. the pain going around to my back maybe indicates that it is. it hurts realy bad in my side under my ribs. I'm freaking a little that something worse is wrong. what if I have some kind of horrible thing wrong that they can't fix, and food will never be enjoyable again, and I will always be in pain, hungry, and cranky? what if my liver is somehow fucked up? i had this weird dream the other night that i was having some kind of test and it's like when i had the ectopic pregnany and was in all that pain and the ER nurse was ultrasounding all over my uterus and saying "it's just not THERE..." and yet she could not find it in my tubes either. they sent me home and a week later my tube exploded. so in my dream, the ultrasound person was looking for my liver and couldn't find it and no one could understand, since livers are huge and I would be dead without it. A horrible dream!

What if I have to have gallbladder surgery!? oh great another laprosocopy scar in my navel. it can keep the others company.

What if something is so wrong with my stomach that they have to like, remove my stomach? What if I have some kind of hideous cancer? And it's all my fault, too, for doing something dumb, like, I've stupidly broken myself by not following the instructions of something?

This is the way I have a hypochondriac freakout, and I'm sorry for Rook who is trapped in a hotel room with me.

dinner = satan

Horrible pain. It is hitting me even through the vicodin. Why did I eat that caesar salad? it was very light on the dressing... the chicken was so divine... I'm still so hungry. i could eat for a week... i ate all the chicken and half the salad... (over a couple of hours, not all at once, i couldn't.)

it's more painful lying down sometimes. and i'm so tired. i'm typing this standing up. it's going around my ribs now. to my back. does that mean it might be more the gall bladder? or can't it all refer pain to the same places? (ulcer, reflux, gallstone...) i found many of the symptoms contradicted all over the web in different places... that is why they have to do tests i guess...

i will have to go through the whole process of pestering my doctor's office for an immediate appointment... they will dotheir usual crap of giving me a 4:30 appointment with someone random so that it's like starting from square one, and will be too late for any lab tests to happen that day. maybe the ER will be better option (on monday or sunday night).

ow ow ow ow ow.

birds, our secret life

Birds today everywhere as spies in the heart of the city, in the un-heart of the theme park. Little crumb-sparrows. Pelicans everywhere soaring in lines and I'm sorry if it's vain but I remember my own poems on them from long hours of distilling the watching of pelicans. Cormorants. Egrets as bold pests in the park but pests no one should mind (as if I'd shoo away a wild egret because I'm intending to feed a dolphin? For fuck's sake, feed the egret.)

So I read "The Wall" by Marlen Haushofer - either I ordered it myself during some sleeping-pill-induced haze late at night and forgot about it - or someone sent it to me as a surprise. How disturbing and wonderful. I was gacking at all the unreliable moments or at least uncertain and at the ... well, the unreliable philosophy. the way that her philosophy would change from moment to moment, writing, about how it was best to live and whether or not to remember the past and the dead and the illogic of not digging out, of not seeing how high it went. Did the birds go over? Oh, who knows! The golden moments of discussion of motherhood and of education - how she did not know anything really, the names and uses of plants and how to make a door. How many times I've worried about those same things! A marvellous book. Debbie, I will make you read 3 Trapped Tigers if you like that sort of thing, and I will give you my cheat sheets.

Also I re-read "Komarr". I admire Bujold more and more. I started taking notes and marking up the book. Komarr does some amazing stuff. (All seen as commentary on gender war, being a housewife, and narrative.) I read so much because Rook drove most of the way and I have been checking out of reality a lot b/c of pain; reading is my way to deal with it; plus, no internet. Also, "Nine Princes in Amber". Tonight, maybe another Bujold re-read.

I also devoured "My Friend the Swallow" and oh my. Please do not go and order all those books online because you will only drive the price up for when I want to buy them. Once is not enough to read them. Extended thoughts on women's family/social obligations, decisions, the placement of attention, time, and energy. I could paperclip this whole book up and make Jo read every other page as a Must-Read. It's like she was writing straight to... not to me, somehow, though a little bit since I am always looking for wisdom of this sort and I love it, but I think she is writing directly to my friend the Spanglemonkey! But back to the book -- I love the playing with names that happens at the end. I love how she loves the Swallow. It's pretty interesting to think about race and what she does with that in the book; maybe I'll post more about that later, i could write about it for hours.

vacation's purpose

One wonders suddenly why one became crazed with the desire to leave the comfortable environment of home and go somewhere else? Just to Go Somewhere that is not visiting family... but pointless spending of a lot of money... Is it fun yet? Did we do this right? Are we having fun properly??? (Have you ever felt that anxious feeling? I got it several times today and then told myself to shut up and not be so neurotic about it.)

The hotel we are in is nice! Our room is 100% handicap-accessible to the point where you could wheelchair yourself into the shower complete with all the fanciest stuff. The front desk called us to see if we needed anything. we went out to the pool and hot tub (great, hot, gorgeous, nice garden... right next to the beach...) in our fancy hotel bathrobes. there are slippers somewhere too. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing! Yes! Someone just came to "turn down our beds" which I didn't let her, because the room looks like our suitcases and a lot of take-out food exploded all over, but I sure as hell took the fancy chocolates and the weather report. Now I know a cool thing to do when someone comes to stay with me from out of town... give them a neatly printed weather report complete with the tide tables.

Moomin liked the hot tub. Rook pretended to be Shamu for our hand signals.

Need I mention the joy of "free" wireless internet? Our frazzled nerves are soothed.

About Sea World. It is our dystopian future -- in the future we will always be in places like that, standing in line for 2 choices of lunch...with gross music and advertisements inescapable... we will live there and never be able to leave. They search you at the gate to make sure you don't bring your own food, there's nowhere to experience unmediated "reality". Never ever! You thin you've found a quiet spot and some fool starts yammering with a canned "interaction experience" right into your ear! The best moment were when the auditorium would empty out. Seriously... the "show" woudl be over and everyone would leave on cue, even though Shamu was still leaping just the same (but without the loud Interaction Experience.) Then the microphones would go off. About 5 or 6 people would linger down by the front to continue watching. We talked with the trainer of the blind walrus after everyone else had left. But how eerie! They all left because it was The End. Narrative trains people.

exhibitionists

And now we're going to see these magnificent creatures exhibiting their natural behaviors in their very own hotel room with a Garden View two steps from the Ocean as they recover from the fucked-upness that is Sea World! Give us a big hand, folks, and get ready for an amazing show!

***

I'm surviving on nibbles of bread (chewed rather a lot), bananas, some lovely non-greasy non-spicy thai food.... and bottled water. Tap water is nasty here. Dinner, then a tiny bit of vicodin.

I had gotten cheap hotel rooms half a block from the beach, a suite with 2 rooms and a kitchenette. But they messed it up so it was only one tiny room. So ... a long dull saga but we ended up in a nicer hotel for not much more money right across the street and closer to the beach! But only 1 room and no bathtub.

Moomin loved Sea World. More amusing details later. For me, the highlight of Sea World was when I was standing in line at the espresso cart to get some steamed milk, and noticed the guy next to me had big fat shoelaces that said, "CRACK IS WHACK" printed on them. Leaping dolphins and fat orcas barely cut through my dyspeptic haze.

All worth it for Moomin burbling insanely about the Trip Being Much Better Than He Thought It Would Be. I took that as a compliment!

friendly neighborhood vicodin

I'm thinking vicodin... I also think i have to be really strict about NOT eating close to bed time. when I say "close" i mean like... 5 hours beforehand or maybe more... it is taking that long for it to stop hurting.

Also, I think that reflux is going on because sitting or lying down hurts in a whole different way (not the sharp pain or the dull horrible constant pain but a new sour yukky heartburn-vomity way.)

the sharp pain... they said that gallstones ususally "radiate" pain around to the back. so if it wasn't doing that and I don't have a fever, not to worry. How much pain is enough to "worry" about? fuck! Why didn't they just lay some e-mycin on me? The prilosec and ahexiphi, or aphihex, or whatever it is, not doing jack shit... still drinking mylanta... urgh... I ate some eggs and milk... I know they don't look "aggressively" if you are young (am I young??) and yet, I did tell them I've been on tagamet and zantac for weeks and it's only gotten worse so you'd think... well, something.

Anyway, painkillers. I wish they'd given me some of that belladonna stuff.

I guess if I had not been going on vacation I woudl be calmer about this, and would just go to bed for a few days and drink only broth. Instead I'm whining for an instant fix which is likely impossible!

taxonomies and anthologies

Terry's post on open vs. closed categorization systems is really good. I kind of agree about hierachies, but I like editing as a potential. Instead of all those hierarchical directories I'm sure Yahoo will move more towards tagging up the whole web instead of their old model of sticking it in unwieldy "trees". Oh, so clunky!

Editorial vision isn't evil... as long as you recognize that it is an art form like any other. That there is an art of the encyclopedia as well as the anthology.... I love books and anthologies. I love how they are framed, and I love to take in that frame and critique it. Think of the different flavor the same text has if it is "framed" as a Penguin classic or as an oxford one! and think of how different that same text is if you put it in a very american-style paperback that's jazzed up to look cool for a high school or college audience, or done book-club style with "questions"! That is what you are missing with Google and it's why Google will die (or become less useful, especially as it's overwhelmed with spams and splogs.) BUT I love it that the database still exists (the google model). It means that someone can always go in and make a new "anthology" or taxonomy or system of what's important.

I like what Jeneane Sessums had to say about it - about wanting to feast.

Think of project gutenberg vs. something like the Heath Anthology. Or some smaller more focused anthology. don't you want them all? Not just a mass of e-text, and not just someone else's idea of what's important and what goes in which category.

This is kind of what I was trying to say at WisCon at the canonicity panel. Even when I have my own "golden bookshelf" of what I think is the best of everything -- I still love all ways best.

I'm dumb!

I decided earlier NOT to go to this reading. which is one of the monthly peninsula readings. I like to go to Waverley and to Sat. Poets and Art 21 or at least one of them. And I keep missing out! So I fixed on tonight to be the one I get to ... in this chunk of what, 3 months that I'm going to miss all the others? I haven't seen those people in a while... they act like I must be dissing them and their scene and I'm too cool and San-Francisco now. (That's a laugh - I am a huge dork.) And it's my particular friend Pastiche reading tonight, and my other friend whose poetry I admire extremely, Antzen, called me to make sure I was coming.

Gah!

Then Rook's sister was going to be in town and I said absolutely not tonight, so we were going to meet Monday. But she cancelled monday and moved it to Wednesday. So I waffled back and forth about go-selfishly-to-poetry-reading or go with Rook and Moomin to see his sister, and I like her a lot and miss her anyway. (Though, we have grown so far apart - and she is kind of an alien to me now - and seems to have forgotten ever being different - and plus, I'll see her for a week at thanksgiving.) But! But! But! my reading! I said I'd go with Rook. and then I said well, but I'd rather... Ugh! Ignoble! And somewhat hurting-of-Rook's-feelings!

But then she cancelled anyway. But then after falling asleep this afternoon in the sour grip of pain and exhaustion... after staring at my to-do list and my IM-ed "Remember the Milk" reminders and my thesis on the screen... I realized I should NOT go anywhere.

and I'm going to be on a 7 hour drive to san diego tomorrow...

and then at the last minute i was like, Oh, hell. Obviously I am going to sit here being in pain on the couch, and then give Moomin his bath while I'm in pain, and then fool about on my computer and watch a video while also in pain. So what the fuck. I might as well go drive to Burlingame and see my fellow poets and be in pain, what is the difference?

So against Rook's "Hmmmmm-ing" and frowns I beetled off, promising to skip the open mic and come back very early. About 5 blocks away I had a nasty sharp pang of extreme pain and realized I was being an idiot and maybe deep down:

a) Partly I'm determined to go so that people won't forget me, i.e. worrying that they won't like, invite me to be in their events and magazines and stuff, i.e. schmooziness. how gross, i used to not be that way at all!
b) and that also i was in the back of my mind thinking they have seen some of the things i published recently and I would get a lot of nice compliments and could preen myself even though half those things are kind of crap that embarrasses me
c) those are both stupid reasons to go
d) I had nice reasons to go, too, like missing all those people and their work, but they are outweighed by the fact that I'm sick
e) I'd be really dull company anyway since I'm hurting and grumpy.
f) it's beneficial to REST not gallivant around. that's why they call it RESTING.
g) It's exactly the thing that Severin pointed out to me long ago where I go out, then come home and drop dead. must not do that to rook and moomin!
h) I'm going to be on a 7 hour car ride tomorrow and must REST.

so I turned around and came home!

Now you all know just how dumb I am! But wait, it get so much stupider...

I don't usually call myself dumb, but with things like this, I am and everyone knows it.

in which I get mad in the library

Stupidity annoyed me more than usual today. At the library I wanted to check in one book, renew three others, and pay my fine. (Then I was going to go look for more books and possibly check them out.) The "system" lately has changed so that there's self-checkout stations in the lobby, and one desk where the sole library worker is always mobbed. Then, floating library clerks sort of hover to ask you if you need help with the "self-checkout" stations. It's crowded, confusing, unpleasant... One feels sorry for the "floating librarians" who have to be on their feet all day and who now lack the mildly pleasant authority and security of sitting behind a desk, in their own territory.

The clerk was thrown into a tizzy by my request. "We can't do that here. You have to do returns through the slot." I explained with slight ill temper that I wanted to check it in immediately and pay the fine, so that my other books would renew. "But, I just can't do that here. It's not our policy." Instantly, three "floating librarians" came whooshing over to chime in. It was impossible. It was against the rules. I must put the book in the slot. Well, maybe it WAS possible, but she would have to change screens. (*gasp* ! change screens!!! nooooo!) Finally I snapped at them all, too loudly, "Okay. HOW about if you RENEW ALL OF THEM. Then I pay the fine. Then I return the book. It's the SAME THING." With a strongly implied "for fuck's sake" at the end.. a lot of sentences have that silent "for fuck's sake", don't you think? There was a moment of silence, the extra librarians went away, and the dithering fool in front of me tried to renew all my books... and completely failed... and I had to help her.

The rest of our interaction was just as stupid.

It's the ulcers, or I would not be so ill-tempered.

Normally I laugh it off and explain things nicely to people like this, but after dealing with the Red Cross and others in the Astrodome I feel like that kind of stupidity is Evil Incarnate. When it gets a little power in its hands ! Such a person should be doing a job that requires no brain. I can't imagine what. At least in the library no one will be harmed -- but fools like that make the worst hospital bureaucrats, bank officers, nurses, managers, executives, politicians... it's when they get into positions where they can really hurt people that it's evil.

But then I think of the poor clerk who had to deal with me being a giant bitch and how she is not even a real librarian and gets paid maybe 10 bucks an hour to sit there. Lord knows she might have one of those 30-hour "no benefits" jobs. And feeling lucky to get it (except for when there's bitches like me.)
Fine, she's a human being... I know... but!!!!
Evil thing #1 - saying it's not our policy.
Evil #2 - saying that because you don't know how to do the thing required.
Evil #3 - creating a big multi-person hoo-ha over something quite minor.
Evil #4 - doing it wrong anyway
Evil #5 - not realizing in the first place that there was a simple solution.

1-3 don't require intelligence to avoid --- 4 and 5 do.

But the point of the story is that it's not government that's bad. It's not "bureaucracy" that's bad. Because there are GOOD bureaucracies and institutions. It's not the fact of having librarians and libraries and people to check out your books or even computers to do it with. A bad structure was instituted, and then an incompetent person, underpaid, was put into the job, and the job itself was ruined, its "teeth" pulled, all chance of even attracting a competent person to it, lost forever.

And think of all the things the hapless clerk might have been good at. If only one could send around a kind team of experts who could say... "And what would you really rather be doing, and what are you good at?" And find her an equivalent job she'd be good at - one that she would enjoy.

and I sneezed tamarind sauce, too!

I just went to the worst performance thing ever. It wasn't a spoken word thing ... it was "performance". I must blog it in detail, later. During the thing where the chick in the headscarf and overcoat talked about her husband dying and she went "Oh Sabir, when you told me about the cancer I didn't cry. Not in front of you. But when I left the room, my tears were as big as pakoras."

What!? hahahaah. I started laughing uncontrollably ... not loudly but I'm afraid I disgraced myself with my stifled shaking and wheezing. I left the room as fast as I could. There was no way I could stop laughing. When I came out of the bathroom she was saying something about how she stepped on a spider and "Are the worms and spiders more important than us? I've killed many worms in my life, but I never thought the worms would be eating YOU." I'm sorry but it was one of the very stupidest and snort-worthy "performances" ever. "When the bombs were falling around us, and I kissed you, and I screamed that desire in the face of danger was the way ...of Life..." oh, it was something... I was in the bathroom crying with laughter...

The more inappropriate it seemed to me to be laughing, the worse the laughing got!

The crucial question -- what KIND of pakoras?