“I can’t have a four legged dog.”
Dec 13
Worst. Vacation. Ever. pt. 2
Part 1 is here.
At St. Mary’s they put me on a different medicine, but my heart still wasn’t acting right, and they said they were going to have to put me under and hit me with the defibrillator to reset my heartbeat. CLEAR!
Since they had to put me under, that meant no food. It also meant no coffee. It was about lunch time now and I hadn’t had either all day. My vacation was ruined, I was starving, and I had a massive caffeine headache. I started to develop a bad attitude. On top of that the nurses came in periodically to stab me or rip some more of my arm hair or chest hair out.
Ba-bm, bum, …., BBBBM!
Later in the afternoon I had some visitors: The Bob and Bruce. Bruce had to be hospitalized for months due to a kidney tumor, a faulty heart valve, and a complication from surgery from which he literally almost died. Bob had had a heart transplant just four years before.
“Do you know how you know you have a lying heart?” The Bob asked seriously.
“Um, it’s in the Bible?” I couldn’t think of the verse. Jeremiah, maybe?
“No–it’s A-FIBBER!”
Bruce and The Bob exploded with laughter. Not only was I spending my vacation in the hospital and being starved and coffee-deprived and depilated–but now I had to endure puns.
“You know,” The Bob said, “You really do have a lot to be thankful for; this could have been so much worse.”
“Yep,” I said flatly. I was trying to ignore the very audible rhythmic clockwork tick of Bruce’s mechanical heart valve.
“That sounds like mental assent instead of heart acceptance.”
“Yep,” I said again. I was in a bad mood and I didn’t want someone ruining it by counting my many blessings. And don’t get me started on Bruce. Sure, we had a lot of laughs when I visited him in the hospital, but this was entirely different.
A couple hours later the medicine finally worked its magic, and my heart started beating normally. I was finally allowed some food, but no coffee.
That night was the first–and only night so far–that I have spent in the hospital as a patient. I was awakened in the middle of the night by my roommate’s bladder, and the small circus that resulted as nurses and care assistants piled in to deal with the situation. Apparently the collective noun for nurses is a clown car.
An hour later I was awakened again so another nurse could stab me in the belly with a needle.
A couple hours later, more bladdericious fun.
The next day I had more tests–and finally–some flippin’ coffee.
Dec 05
Christmas Lists
As I worked on this year’s Christmas list, I had to ask myself why I do this; I can’t remember why I started writing a list like this. I think I got in trouble for not providing a list at all, and wrote the 2008 list to be a smart aleck. After that it was entertaining to write, and some people claimed it was entertaining to read.
As I wrote my list this year, I found out that there are some things I don’t really want. I don’t mean to say that I don’t want them at all, as I obviously kind of want them enough to put them on my Amazon wish list. But there were several items I started to add to the list but then realized that I couldn’t make an interesting or meaningful sentence to justify–even to myself–why I wanted them. So they didn’t make the cut.
I mean, what do you say about a book of Alphonse Mucha’s artwork? “I really want to commit suicide, but can’t quite manage to get motivated, what with the wonderful wife and children and nieces and students. If only I had a big book of art by an artist who is better than I will ever be to taunt me with inadequacy to push me over the edge.” Who’s going to buy me a Mucha book after that?
Now, if the book shows up I will know who wants me dead.
There are some things I know people think are a joke. They think my Christmas lists have jumped the shark.
“He doesn’t really love bitter soda that much. He’s just putting things on the list because he knows I’ll never find it.”
They have obviously never tasted Brood. But maybe I did put it on there knowing you will never find it. Same with Dreams of Flight–where the heck will you find it–and at a reasonable price?
I stopped putting black jeans on my list because I was told no-one was going to buy me black jeans–by the person who had once bought me black jeans. Fine.
Anyway, what I realized was that writing things out forces me to really think, instead of just throwing something out. And really, if I ask you for a Christmas list, it’s because I really want to buy you something, preferably something you just can’t live without. One, it will bring you some happiness, or fill a specific need (professional grade network cable crimpers don’t bring happiness per se, besides the quiet happiness of having the right tool for the job does remove the sadness that doing a job with the wrong tools often brings).
But secondly, when you use said gift you will likely think of me–and how awesome I am.
Nov 22
Superheroes in brown
Superheroes and superheroines can wear a lot of colors: red, blue, yellow, and to a lesser extent, green. Sometimes black* or white or silver or gold.
Villains corner the market on most of the black, as well as green, orange, and purple. Funny that heroes use largely primary colors, while villains largely use secondary. But there are some colors you never see superheroes in: gray, pink, brown, tan, aqua. And if they do have these second-rate colors, they probably have second-rate powers and no-one’s ever heard of them.
There are exceptions, of course; Green Lantern is certainly a second-rater (or a mid-carder, for you wrasslin’ fans), and he’s got all kinds of green, and thanks to the movie this year, non-nerds have now heard of him.
But back to the issue: superheroes, as a rule, don’t wear gray or brown or aqua. But there is one notable exception. Not only does he wear brown, he actually does it well. And he’s huge.
True, he’s largely depicted now in black, yellow, and sometimes blue. But for a large part of his existence, this was Wolverine’s normal outfit. How does he get away with it? I guess by simply being such an awesome character. Pretty much all of Marvel’s heroes have flaws, but Logan really has problems–yet he is so real and so likable.
And when you’re the best you are at what you do, you can wear brown as a superhero.
*No, I’m not going to dignify any of those idiotic ‘black’s not a color’ arguments you might have.
Nov 18
Age, maturity, boringness, and flatware
As I age and mature I find myself thinking about, for birthday and Christmas, fewer impractical extravagances (pirate hat, Tesla coil) and more practical needs (debt reduction, flatware).
The side effect is that I am becoming boring.
Before you no doubt object, remember that I have mentioned ‘flatware’ twice already.
I used to be largely content to eat with most any utensil of most any quality of workmanship. It’s not that I couldn’t tell the difference between a finely crafted furcated utensil and some piece of barely-usable piece of junk hastily stamped out of cheap metal. But as I get older I find myself disliking most of the forks in our home.
Shortly after we were married Heather and I purchased a very nice set of flatware. They were thin, but they were sturdy and, more importantly, had smooth edges. For some reason, every single implement from this set has disappeared–save two knives. I blame the children.
Since then we have somehow acquired some unpleasant forks from the Ugly Flatware collection. Most utensils of even the lowest quality are relatively smooth, but cheap forks, and their tines in particular, have a rather unpleasant feel to their edges.
When I said I dislike most of the forks in the house, the reason is that I have a couple of forks that do not belong to me; they may belong to you. I use them when we eat communal meals, rushing to the kitchen to secure fork preference by making some pretense of helping cook, or appearing to be magnanimous and doing the dishes.
My friend Kaleb has some amazing flatware; all of the utensils are heavy enough to murder someone with. I don’t know why my standard of an object’s sturdiness is measured by the capacity to successfully commit murder with said object. I used to work with a guy who measured everything by its capacity to destroy a tree; at the time we worked in a woodworking factory.
Anyway.
Why, you are no doubt asking, don’t you just go buy some nice flatware if it means that darned much to you? Let me show you something:
Maturity is Inversely Proportional to Fun
Fun is Directly Proportional to Excitement
Excitement is Inversely Proportional to Boringness
Boringness is Directly Proportional to Maturity
therefore
Maturity and Boringness are the mortal enemies of Fun and Excitement
It’s sad but true. Observe:
Fun:
- New X-Box 360
- Collector’s edition of Skyrim
- Skipping work
- Drinking Mountain Dew
- Skipping work to stay home drinking Mountain Dew while playing your collector’s edition of Skyrim on your new X-Box 360
Mature:
- Going to work every day on time
- Paying life insurance
- Visiting the dentist
- Caring for children’s needs
- Buying flatware
Eventually the flatware may win out, simply because I can’t keep doing the dishes in order to secure a fork, and hiding them seems kind of childish.
Nov 17
Donegal Danny
There is a folk song called Donegal Danny about a man whose ship was caught in a storm and all of his fellow fishermen perished.
Here are part of the lyrics:
“And often at night when the sea is high
And the rain is tearing at my skin
I hear the cries of drowning men
Floating over on the wind.”
I’ve heard this song several times, but it was only yesterday that I realized that ‘the cries of drowning men’ should sound like:
‘Glub, glub, gluuuububbbb.’
