Category: health

my doctor was supposed to call me

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But surprise, he didn’t.

Not only has he (like my doctor that retired and the various clinic/ER doctors I saw while I was without a primary care physician) ignored everything I said to him about pain and discomfort in my abdomen, doing no tests (like the others) and blowing it off “gas” (here, have a pill!), he couldn’t even be bothered to follow up on the change in blood pressure medication he gave me (which has made the situation ten times worse.)

For every Dr. Robbie or Meredith Grey, there are a thousand doctors who don’t give a fuck, for whom it’s just a job, who no longer care, or who graduated bottom of the class.

Someone had to, right?

Target: 1500 words
Written: 257 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Code And The Laws Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig
Comics: GenActive 4, Gen 13 v2 61-62, Gen 13/Fantastic Four 1
Music: Fashion Nugget, Cake

no masseuse for me

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I gave it to my wife because while a massage is nice, I don’t really necessarily need them. I prefer a lighter massage, and if I’m really being honest, I’d rather it be sensual, rather than clinical (not that I’m asking a RMT to do such things – I mean from my significant other).

But, I guess they’re good for you?

Personally, I could do with some muscle relaxers.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 308 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13/Monkeyman & O'Brien 2, Gen 13 v2 33-34, Gen 13: Magical Dream Queen Roxy 1
Music: Facelift, Alice In Chains

options

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I know it’s pop or whatever, but I feel Cameron Whitcomb’s Options in my gut. I never think of myself as an alcoholic, though my sister-in-law loves to imply it, though her husband actually drinks harder liquor than I do, more often.

He’s prone to get a right buzz on; I just like a couple of beers at the pool or a glass of wine with dinner.

And that, only two to three times a week, if I’m lucky.

Of course, there’s more of that when we’re on vacation, but fuck, you’re on vacation.

If you can’t let your hair down a little on vacation, what kind of vacation is it?

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2139 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 12 5, Gen 13 v2 31-32, Gen 13 Bootleg 20
Music: Face Dances, The Who

blood pressure

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This new drug is not working. I weened off the other stuff and into this new one and it is not doing the trick.

Things are worse than they’ve been since before I started taking anything.

I think my doctor might be trying to kill me, through negligence, if not actual malice.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2342 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
Comics: Gen 13 Bootleg 2-3, Gen 13 v2 16, -1
Music: November 23, 2007, The 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, They Might Be Giants

one more street

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Ha! Another lesson learned!

Or rather, the same lesson, two days apart.

We parked on the boardwalk of Ayamonte, Spain, and while it’s a nice boardwalk, it’s not exactly appealing, one street in, gorgeous.

Of course, I wasn’t really feeling that great still, but man, what a beautiful place.

Oh, and it’s flu, because now my wife is sick, and she didn’t have the shrimp yesterday. 

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2036 words, short story: Ultra Mundane

Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf In Gotham 4-6, Fables 151
Music: 45 Or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough To Go On Our Other Records, NOFX

food poisoning

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Fucking shrimp. Or it could be the flu. Or something in the water?

I’ve shit a bunch, dry heaved once (I don’t actually puke – I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve thrown up since the ninth grade), and slept the rest of the day.

What a shame.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 989 words, short story: Ultra Mundane

Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Everafter: From The Pages Of Fables 12, Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf In Gotham 1-3
Music: 420station.com, Bill Hicks (I don't know, man, that's what it's listed as on my iPod, and yes, I still have one of those)

sick to my stomach

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At first, it was stress for my baby girl, but it turns out, she’s going to be okay. She’ll have to learn balance all over again, and she still walks like a drunk on black ice, but she’s going to live.

It sucks for her, but we were so not ready to lose another one.

What really made me sick was making the mistake of reading some of the Epstein emails.

America, either you’ve got incredible self-control, unbelievable cowardice or unmitigated depravity, but how you have picked up the torches and pitchforks and marched on the homes and offices of every single billionaire or politician named in those files is beyond me.

I suspect it’s a matter of all three, but holy hell. If you haven’t read these things, you should know it’s so much worse than you could ever imagine. Fiction isn’t that inhuman and sadistic.

An anger came up from somewhere absolutely primal reading some of these excerpts. I’m absolutely abhorred. It makes me ill.

These monsters aren’t human.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 898 words, short story: Skeleton Park

Read: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 29-32
Music: 3, Violent Femmes

heartburn, round two

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Weirdly, I ate super light yesterday, but did have a customary glass of red wine, as one does, on Sundays.

We drink red wine on Sundays, or so my father-in-law tells me.

He’s also a man who feeds his other daughter ice cream and Coke for dinner on a regular basis, so he’s not exactly the sommelier we look for.

But still, for some reason we do it (and I do love a good red), but it seems to have triggered a relapse from the night before’s horrid gastrointestinal adventures, and now, I sit, having lost another couple of hours of wondrous sleep.

Plus some weird fuckin’ dreams.

Weird fuckin’ dreams, man.

I liked the ones I had before the acid set in; The Last Showgirl apparently wormed its way into my subconscious in the forms of Song and Ship.

Sorry, honey. It was involuntary. I can’t be held responsible for what my unconscious mind dredges up.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 3315 words, comic: The Stuff 4

Read: Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn (we're livin' the full catastrophe, all right)
Comics: Fables 135-137, Fairest 21
Music: 20 Years Of Hell, Vol IV, Anti-Flag/One If By Land

four hours

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Maybe three. I love a good homemade lasagna, but goddamn.

Heartburn.

Followed by bile creeping up the throat in the fifteen minutes I first fell asleep.

Then a light, persistent cough. No amount of water, milk or Gaviscon would help.

Eventually, I took a sedative and said fuck it.

Two hours later, I’m patted on the face by a cat.

Maybe three.

Maybe two.

Sleep is a fucking bitch.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 321 words, comic: The Stuff 4

Read: Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Comics: Fairest: In All The Land 1, Fables 134, Fairest 20, The Unwritten 54
Music: 20 Years Of Hell, Vol III, Anti-Flag/Worship This!

rage

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I had ideas about what to write today, but things went so far off the rails, from taking a coatrack to the head, being utterly abandoned by anyone and everyone and just the universe, doing its complete fucking of me, again and again.

I need to stay off social media. They’ve gone looney tunes down south and my blood pressure is through the roof.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 4500 words

Read: Secrets And Lies: Digital Security In A Networked World, Bruce Schneier (prophetic and interesting, as a time capsule during a time I would have been a lamer script kiddie)
Comics: Fables 107-109, Jack Of Fables 50
Music: November 25, 1990, Off Ramp, Seattle, Nirvana