Duct tape the damned thing into the window, that’s what i intended to do. Because i will not be waking up at five thirty in the morning stuck to my own self and coughing, hacking, until finally i crawl out across the hall to the bathroom so as not to wake up Elise. My personal alarm clock seems to be set for five thirty despite the level of humidity present, but i can’t help but think that i’d have a shot at a whole night’s sleep if i didn’t have so much trouble breathing — this morning with hands braced on other side of the sink either trying to keep me standing or trying to aim well in the dark, fiddling with her stupid drain that always falls down when it should be staying up. I wound up downstairs on the new couch doing a crossword as my vision slowly doubled from the percocet until finally each box had halfway overlapped into its neighbor and i knew it was time to sink back into a largely restless slumber.
I’ve never owned my own duct tape before; it makes me feel powerful. The air in here is cool now, and the doors are closed. It’s my own damned clubhouse. Now if only i brought the portable fridge in with me…
Personal
And, boy, let me tell you, if you ever really need to get motivated you should go hang out with your mother for a week during which you can’t go outside, can’t eat, can’t use the internet for anything other than checking email (without much replying), can’t work, and don’t have any money. Within 24 hours of your escape you’ll have taken two walks, cooked breakfast, blogged, caught up on email, set up interviews for two new jobs, and balanced your check book. Sure, all of this motivation could be connected to the fact that my other option is to sit downstairs with a roommate who is coughing her lungs out just to see if my newly reimagined throat can resist the evil lure of virii and bacteria, but that doesn’t mean i’m not enjoying the concept of being organized for the first time ever in my adult life.
I woke up from surgery almost exactly eight days ago, and at the time i couldn’t feel any part of my mouth. The state of affairs made it nearly impossible to talk much or open my mouth up too far. Furthermore, as i’ve found in the past, i am an absolutely headcase when i come out of anesthesia – i’m very sensitive to small stimuli.
There i was, Monday morning without a fairly useless body part that i had grown to utterly despise, unable to talk, and wearing a dotted dressing gown. From somewhere down the hall music wafted past, and my softened brain sucked it in like a sponge. “Here Comes The Sun” was recognized immediately, though i couldn’t even begin to approximate the process of humming along. Instead, i immediately turned to my somewhat distraught mother and exclaimed “It’s okay mom, George Harrison is here with me.”
My mother apparently took my accompaniment by a blessed Beatle to mean that i was moving towards the light, and thus became even more upset. Of course, being a mother whose sensitivity to art was washed away by the brutal reign of the television and trickle-through exposure to N’Sync singles, she had already forgotten that my secondary reason for being so upset the last time i was in the hospital for a procedure was that George had just died.
I explained it to her later: Obviously he’s become my guardian angel
Her response? Something about a flying Beatle.
Har har, mom. Har har.
Thank god for modern medicine, that’s all i’m gonna say about that…