July 31, 2009
July 30, 2009
Handerpants - Underpants for Hands
Handerpants:Fit Most Hands
Breathable Cotton
Form Fitting
Prevent Chafing
Absorb Sweat
Distract Enemies
Non Toxic
Great For Jazz Hands
July 29, 2009
It's Always The Hard Way With Me
I was thinking about anger recently. (The unrighteous kind.) I do have a temper, although I am highly manipulative about how, and to whom, I reveal it. It usually comes through as intractable obstinancy.
In times gone by my temper was even worse, characterized by freqent episodes of violent wailing and thrashing.
What "cured" me, insofar as I have been cured, was not any great love for God on my part. It was strictly a matter of self-interest. Whether I acted out with active or passive aggression, the pattern was always the same:
Step 1: Attempt Act of Vengance
Step 2: Observe as Act of Vengance Blows Up In Face
There are few lessons more permanently instructive than being hoisted, repeatedly, by one's own petard.
In times gone by my temper was even worse, characterized by freqent episodes of violent wailing and thrashing.
What "cured" me, insofar as I have been cured, was not any great love for God on my part. It was strictly a matter of self-interest. Whether I acted out with active or passive aggression, the pattern was always the same:
Step 1: Attempt Act of Vengance
Step 2: Observe as Act of Vengance Blows Up In Face
There are few lessons more permanently instructive than being hoisted, repeatedly, by one's own petard.
July 27, 2009
Pelvic Surgery Follow-Up Survey
When making your selection, please select only one choice that describes your conditon best ...
Now, these questions are posed in a definitely officious way. That's nice if you have to go through all the usual rubbish about reporting toilet habits.
How are you eating ... how much pain .. where does it hurt ... which of these 6 medications are you taking ... have you had a complication ... Do you leak anything out the backend?
But after that part, the survey becomes unaccountably chatty. I can't read it without sounding like a kindergarten teacher.
Do you feel full of pep? (bold in the original)
Have you been a very nervous person?
Have you been a happy person?
Have you felt so down in the dumps,nothing could cheer you up?
I wanted to know exactly what "pep" is. According to my massive Webster's New Explorer Encyclopedic Dictionary, pep is either: (n):"brisk energy or initiative and high spirits" or (tr.vrb.):"to inject pep into."
I answered that I have a reasonable amount of pep. Certainly I am not "full" of it; but neither do I need it injected. I can hear the nurses now: "Miss. Elizabeth, it's time for your shot of pep."
Now, these questions are posed in a definitely officious way. That's nice if you have to go through all the usual rubbish about reporting toilet habits.
How are you eating ... how much pain .. where does it hurt ... which of these 6 medications are you taking ... have you had a complication ... Do you leak anything out the backend?
But after that part, the survey becomes unaccountably chatty. I can't read it without sounding like a kindergarten teacher.
Do you feel full of pep? (bold in the original)
Have you been a very nervous person?
Have you been a happy person?
Have you felt so down in the dumps,nothing could cheer you up?
I wanted to know exactly what "pep" is. According to my massive Webster's New Explorer Encyclopedic Dictionary, pep is either: (n):"brisk energy or initiative and high spirits" or (tr.vrb.):"to inject pep into."
I answered that I have a reasonable amount of pep. Certainly I am not "full" of it; but neither do I need it injected. I can hear the nurses now: "Miss. Elizabeth, it's time for your shot of pep."
July 24, 2009
Oh Really ...
Apparently the Volkswagen people have always been fun loving wiseguys. (Except for that regrettable Hitler period, of course.)
If you click on the image, it will expand so you can see the text. The first line is: "Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things." Yes, things. Things like the face attached to whoever wrote this ad.
July 20, 2009
We Kill Ourselves
All death is essentially the same. Whether there is a virus, a breakdown, or unfortunate run-in with the guillotine, it does not matter. The body ultimately dies from lack of oxygen in the brain.
There is also the idea that death is always an inside job. Traffic accidents do not kill us. We kill us. When someone smashes up their car, their body receives an impact. And their body responds. A certain conversation has to take place ... There must be a deadly question posed, and a deadly answer given in reply.
Infection is an infiltrator. Cancer is an alien force, a multiplication of teenage mutant ninja cells. Organ failure is a result of pollution or wear and tear.
This past illness of mine seems rather different. My white blood cells were healthy, but also paranoid. They were convinced that an invasion was underway when there was none. And so, it was my own immune system that witlessly attacked my body. How embarrassing! My "certain conversation" was me talking to myself. Self-absorbed to the end. An inside job, indeed.
Spiritual illness and death follow a similar pattern. God does not send anyone on the road to perdition. We can't blame the devil, either, since he has not the power. There is that "certain conversation" at the pearly gates. If I am damned, it is because that is my reply.
There is also the idea that death is always an inside job. Traffic accidents do not kill us. We kill us. When someone smashes up their car, their body receives an impact. And their body responds. A certain conversation has to take place ... There must be a deadly question posed, and a deadly answer given in reply.
Infection is an infiltrator. Cancer is an alien force, a multiplication of teenage mutant ninja cells. Organ failure is a result of pollution or wear and tear.
This past illness of mine seems rather different. My white blood cells were healthy, but also paranoid. They were convinced that an invasion was underway when there was none. And so, it was my own immune system that witlessly attacked my body. How embarrassing! My "certain conversation" was me talking to myself. Self-absorbed to the end. An inside job, indeed.
Spiritual illness and death follow a similar pattern. God does not send anyone on the road to perdition. We can't blame the devil, either, since he has not the power. There is that "certain conversation" at the pearly gates. If I am damned, it is because that is my reply.
July 17, 2009
News Flash: I was Baptized in a Bathtub
As far as the authorities are concerned, I was baptized in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, by a priest, in May of 1985. Little do they know, my mother beat them to the punch.
You see, when my sister and I were born, our mother was faced with all the anxieties which typically afflict a new parent. The situation was complicated by the fact that her first go around involved two babies instead of one.
My sister, in behavior characteristic of her future comedic endeavors, concealed her existence during our mutual gestation in utero. Her abrupt entry into the world five minutes after myself was therefore a surprise for which our mother was totally unprepared.
When the time came for the First Bath (times two,) poor Mom was filled with dread, terrified that somehow we would bang our heads, or die of some kind of soap poisioning or other. Seizing the moment, she baptized us right there in the tub, "just in case."
Mother was ignorant of the finer theological points of baptism, and how it can be performed only once. In any case, she wondered whether her attempt "maybe didn't take." So sometime later, she took a baby in either arm and approached the parish baptismal font, "to have it done right."
All of this is news to me. Mom mentioned it casually this morning whilst we were discussing a slow moving tub drain. I am highly amused. It seems fitting that my body and soul were washed clean in the same bathwater.
You see, when my sister and I were born, our mother was faced with all the anxieties which typically afflict a new parent. The situation was complicated by the fact that her first go around involved two babies instead of one.
My sister, in behavior characteristic of her future comedic endeavors, concealed her existence during our mutual gestation in utero. Her abrupt entry into the world five minutes after myself was therefore a surprise for which our mother was totally unprepared.
When the time came for the First Bath (times two,) poor Mom was filled with dread, terrified that somehow we would bang our heads, or die of some kind of soap poisioning or other. Seizing the moment, she baptized us right there in the tub, "just in case."
Mother was ignorant of the finer theological points of baptism, and how it can be performed only once. In any case, she wondered whether her attempt "maybe didn't take." So sometime later, she took a baby in either arm and approached the parish baptismal font, "to have it done right."
All of this is news to me. Mom mentioned it casually this morning whilst we were discussing a slow moving tub drain. I am highly amused. It seems fitting that my body and soul were washed clean in the same bathwater.
July 15, 2009
Islamic Martyrs
I am a nerd. Therefore, I am entertained by reading about religions besides my own. All kinds. Although I particularly enjoy sponging up stuff about Islam. Before I committed to Catholicism, there was a brief period in which I considered the idea of converting.
So, this afternoon, I passed the time with some good old fashioned Islamic hadiths. (A hadith, for the uninitiated, is a written record of an oral tradition. Wrap your brains around that one.)
I was reading one of these reports by some fellow with a crazy name I can't pronounce, when I stumbled upon a section describing the different kinds of Islamic martyrs. (Mild surprise: those who blow up Jewish discos are not included.)
There are five categories: people who die for Allah, are crushed, drown, contract plague, or suffer from stomach diseases.
That last one piqued my interest.
In another place, the list is expanded to include a typically poetic Mohammedan finale:
So, this afternoon, I passed the time with some good old fashioned Islamic hadiths. (A hadith, for the uninitiated, is a written record of an oral tradition. Wrap your brains around that one.)
I was reading one of these reports by some fellow with a crazy name I can't pronounce, when I stumbled upon a section describing the different kinds of Islamic martyrs. (Mild surprise: those who blow up Jewish discos are not included.)
There are five categories: people who die for Allah, are crushed, drown, contract plague, or suffer from stomach diseases.
That last one piqued my interest.
In another place, the list is expanded to include a typically poetic Mohammedan finale:
"and if a woman dies during the post-partum period, her child will drag her to Paradise by his umbilical cord.”
July 13, 2009
It's a Walk In the Park
Today, a major victory: I took a walk out of doors.
When first I underwent the unpleasantness of excision from religious life, I was quite a mess. I wept copiously, every morning and evening, for nearly a year. It was an Olympic performance.
I took solace in mid-night walks. For whatever reason I felt that even the casual glances of passersby would trample my desired privacy, and so I would wait all day to totter around my neighborhood in darkness.
It was so soothing an exercise, I often passed most the night this way. Several times my poor father was worried enough to drive out looking for me in his rickety Chrysler.
Since the time I became so sick, my walks were suspended. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months.
Today, at last, I returned, in the pattern of MacArthur. The weather was perfect. I made it half way before I was out of breath. Did I break a sweat? Men sweat, but ladies perspire.
I am advised not to overdo these things; but I imagine there is a daily constitutional in my immediate future.
In the meantime, I will continue to pass along the advice of those illustrious purveyors of wisdom, Ace of Base: "Take a walk in the park when you feel down, there's so many things there, that's gonna lift you up."
When first I underwent the unpleasantness of excision from religious life, I was quite a mess. I wept copiously, every morning and evening, for nearly a year. It was an Olympic performance.
I took solace in mid-night walks. For whatever reason I felt that even the casual glances of passersby would trample my desired privacy, and so I would wait all day to totter around my neighborhood in darkness.
It was so soothing an exercise, I often passed most the night this way. Several times my poor father was worried enough to drive out looking for me in his rickety Chrysler.
Since the time I became so sick, my walks were suspended. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months.
Today, at last, I returned, in the pattern of MacArthur. The weather was perfect. I made it half way before I was out of breath. Did I break a sweat? Men sweat, but ladies perspire.
I am advised not to overdo these things; but I imagine there is a daily constitutional in my immediate future.
In the meantime, I will continue to pass along the advice of those illustrious purveyors of wisdom, Ace of Base: "Take a walk in the park when you feel down, there's so many things there, that's gonna lift you up."
July 11, 2009
Pain Can Break
Or It Can Break Open
“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist,
and into them enters suffering,
that they may have existence.”
~Leon Bloy
and into them enters suffering,
that they may have existence.”
~Leon Bloy
July 10, 2009
Australia
My surgeon is from Australia. His accent is charming and makes everything he says, even nasty stuff like "skin infiltration," sound lovely.
I was noodling around, looking up all the surgeons in the department, when I discovered that a whole bunch of them came over here from Australia at the same time. Clearly, growing up in Australia leads one to have huge brains and proficiency cutting with sharp, shiny knives.
If you take a look at the map, it makes perfect sense. Australia is like my native New Jersey: Only the strong survive.
July 9, 2009
Talk Radio
Today I was lounging around (my most frequent activity these days) listening to the radio. I had a horrible wave of disgust and nausea overcome me and I was forced to turn it off. I am a conservative person, and yet I seem to have lost my taste for the AM dial.
I have tried to namby-pamby it in my own mind, but the bare naked truth of the matter is this: many conservative "media" types are stupid. That's it, I said it. Stupid. Either they really do lack critical thinking skills, or they simply choose not to use them.
The problem is, these people have no readily apparent intellectual interest in a political or social movement. They are "pop" conservatives. Entertainers. Instead of thinking out an argument, they attempt to zing. They publish vapid, 150 page books with large pictures of themselves on the cover.
It has been widely assumed that the failure of the left-wing to maintain its own stable of similar "pop" communicators is to that movement's detriment. I think the reality is exactly the opposite.
I have tried to namby-pamby it in my own mind, but the bare naked truth of the matter is this: many conservative "media" types are stupid. That's it, I said it. Stupid. Either they really do lack critical thinking skills, or they simply choose not to use them.
The problem is, these people have no readily apparent intellectual interest in a political or social movement. They are "pop" conservatives. Entertainers. Instead of thinking out an argument, they attempt to zing. They publish vapid, 150 page books with large pictures of themselves on the cover.
It has been widely assumed that the failure of the left-wing to maintain its own stable of similar "pop" communicators is to that movement's detriment. I think the reality is exactly the opposite.
July 6, 2009
Healing Takes Time
When I was in the hospital, there was a clock between the beds, hung in such a way so that every patient could tell the time. Knowing the hours and minutes is good for recovery, so my nurse said.
There was, for me, a nightly 3 am blood draw. The technicians were always silent, only smiling. At 4, a nurse gave me a series of injections. At 5, she came to record the dosage rate of my morphine pump.
At 6:00, the gaggle of doctors arrived. I always heard them coming; they stood in the hallway talking about me. When they came in, they never turned on the lights. Just stood there around my bed, asking me questions in the dark. I realized later that they were trying to make it easier for me to fall back asleep.
At 7:00, the night nurse came to introduce the day nurse. Then another injection. Then liquid breakfast. After the first day, the nurse would unplug the machines and arrange the various tubes so that I could take a morning walk.
At 4:30, the doctors came again. This time it was my surgeon and one or two others from the morning rounds. My surgeon is the most senior, and happens to have charge of the department, so I guess he is allowed to sleep in a little. He always wanted to know if I'd eaten my lunch. He'd never ask, just lift the cover on my food tray to see how much I'd left behind.
At 5:30, there was liquid dinner. And an insulin shot. And an afternoon walk. One evening I took advantage of this time to escape to the 10th floor. I knew of a linen cart there that was always full of hospital pants. On my floor there were no such pants, because the doctors wanted easy access to a patient's bottom parts, should an emergency arise.
At 7:00, the shift changed, and the nurses were busy giving report. So they didn't notice me sneaking back into my room with a armful of contraband pants. I shared with my roommate and we hid the extras so that they wouldn't be confiscated.
At 9, another series of injections. More insulin. At 10, vital signs taken. At midnight, lights out.
I still have those pants. I wore them home. I feel a little guilty for stealing them, but they are soooo comfortable.
There was, for me, a nightly 3 am blood draw. The technicians were always silent, only smiling. At 4, a nurse gave me a series of injections. At 5, she came to record the dosage rate of my morphine pump.
At 6:00, the gaggle of doctors arrived. I always heard them coming; they stood in the hallway talking about me. When they came in, they never turned on the lights. Just stood there around my bed, asking me questions in the dark. I realized later that they were trying to make it easier for me to fall back asleep.
At 7:00, the night nurse came to introduce the day nurse. Then another injection. Then liquid breakfast. After the first day, the nurse would unplug the machines and arrange the various tubes so that I could take a morning walk.
At 4:30, the doctors came again. This time it was my surgeon and one or two others from the morning rounds. My surgeon is the most senior, and happens to have charge of the department, so I guess he is allowed to sleep in a little. He always wanted to know if I'd eaten my lunch. He'd never ask, just lift the cover on my food tray to see how much I'd left behind.
At 5:30, there was liquid dinner. And an insulin shot. And an afternoon walk. One evening I took advantage of this time to escape to the 10th floor. I knew of a linen cart there that was always full of hospital pants. On my floor there were no such pants, because the doctors wanted easy access to a patient's bottom parts, should an emergency arise.
At 7:00, the shift changed, and the nurses were busy giving report. So they didn't notice me sneaking back into my room with a armful of contraband pants. I shared with my roommate and we hid the extras so that they wouldn't be confiscated.
At 9, another series of injections. More insulin. At 10, vital signs taken. At midnight, lights out.
I still have those pants. I wore them home. I feel a little guilty for stealing them, but they are soooo comfortable.
July 4, 2009
Happy Birthday, America
Independence Day is my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas are full of tension, stress and the risk of unmet expectations. But no one wigs out about the 4th of July. Dad gets out the grill and we all just enjoy each other's company. Now that's a celebration.
July 2, 2009
A Bird in Hand
So, yesterday, my sister found a bird trapped in our garage.
It was a robin, about the size of my fist. He was making a tremendous racket, bashing repeatedly into the window glass.
We threw open the doors and windows and implored the little bird to leave. But he was either too stupid or too willful to understand. "That bird is going to damage his itty bitty brain," my sister said.
"It's like you're God," I told her. "You know what's best for the bird, and you make a whole bunch of easy ways for the bird to get out of trouble, but the bird just wants to keep knocking his head against the window."
My sister put on a gardening glove and gave me a meaningful look. "Well, the 'Divine Hand' is about to intervene in a serious way."
Once she grabbed the little bird, the poor thing began to shriek. My sister screamed too. She ran from the garage and tossed the robin into the air.
I followed her out onto the driveway. The little bird did not seem any worse for wear, flying high over the elm trees. My sister shook her head. "There! You're free! It's probably pleased with itself and is congratulating itself for its own effort."
I said: "No. It's probably blaming you for making it go through the experience, and is right now denying your existence."
It was a robin, about the size of my fist. He was making a tremendous racket, bashing repeatedly into the window glass.
We threw open the doors and windows and implored the little bird to leave. But he was either too stupid or too willful to understand. "That bird is going to damage his itty bitty brain," my sister said.
"It's like you're God," I told her. "You know what's best for the bird, and you make a whole bunch of easy ways for the bird to get out of trouble, but the bird just wants to keep knocking his head against the window."
My sister put on a gardening glove and gave me a meaningful look. "Well, the 'Divine Hand' is about to intervene in a serious way."
Once she grabbed the little bird, the poor thing began to shriek. My sister screamed too. She ran from the garage and tossed the robin into the air.
I followed her out onto the driveway. The little bird did not seem any worse for wear, flying high over the elm trees. My sister shook her head. "There! You're free! It's probably pleased with itself and is congratulating itself for its own effort."
I said: "No. It's probably blaming you for making it go through the experience, and is right now denying your existence."
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