I know, I know, English profs are always whining that HP Lovecraft‘s use of “the Unspeakable” and “the Unnameable” is a literary cop-out, but that, my friends, is because they are English profs, with circumscribed, English prof-y lives and limited, English prof-y experiences. If they’d venture off-campus once in awhile (let alone down eldritch and unsuspected catacombs beneath the decayed megalopolis in which they scratch and scrape an oblivious, complascent living, never venturing to the secret, subterranean city) they might have their eyes uncomfortably opened; indeed, peeled, if not actually sucked out of their sockets by …
the Unspeakable.
We have, in deference to our readers of more delicate sensibilities, hidden this abomination over the jump. Before you click on, please stow all baggage in the overhead bins or underneath the seat in front of you, ensure that your seatbelt is securely fastened, and return all trays, maiden aunts, and reanimated corpses to the upright position.
I had a friend like that once. I told her "I choose very unsupportive friends". She didn't get it.
Some curious and brave souls have asked me to describe what I’ve been going through (although they seem to wish me to leave out the “gee, it’s taking a lot longer to digest corn” info for some reason: EQUALITY FOR BOWEL UPDATES is what I say! If Mommybloggers can do it, so can I; bloody age-discriminationists! If baby doodies are twit-worthy, so are social media specialist spoor! That’s what I always say, or at least since this afternoon anyway) and I have decided, under pressure, to tell them.
Or rather, because I am lazy and a better artist than me has already done all the work, to show them. To show them, in fact, this video, which neatly captures the feeling of being a patient in the medical system. It is far less Ralph Naderesque and far more Franz Kafkaesque than one might expect, however familiar one is with the concept of hospital care as a whole. Tug on something, and something else starts to unravel. Ravel it up again, and wires go hay-style in places you never even knew you were wired. You spend half the time in the waiting room, 1 third of the time trying to keep your stupid hospital gown from mooning everyone in the ward, 1/20th of the time unconscious and, it seems, most of the rest on WebMD looking up what just happened to you.
And this, my friends, is exactly what it feels like.
So, those of you who’ve been following this blog closely or Facebook closely, or Twitter even half-assedly will know that I’ve lately spent five days lolling around the luxurious surroundings of St. Paul’s Hospital, enjoying the luxurious fare provided by IV. Once I got switched to real food, the so-called “real food” was so awful it played a significant role in encouraging me to get out as soon as it was practical. This little time-out came courtesy of a gallbladder attack and serious infection, and resulted in me having the better part of a week without the internet and, consequently, the internet having a week without me.
It did not appear to notice.
Obviously, however unwell I may have been, the internet was in even worse shape!
In any case, once they discharged me with prescriptions for enough antibiotics to cure the rot in the Chinese government, I was told to eat low-fat, make an appointment with a surgeon (they gave me her name and number, nicely enough, and the meds have me so loopy I promptly left it behind) for an examination preliminary to the surgery which would undoubtedly happen within the next three months, and avoid alcohol, as one of the meds has the side-effect of acting as a sort of Antabuse, causing projectile vomiting if you so much as sniff too deeply at a passing cork. So, no onion rings, no fries, no cream, no booze.
and this does not take me to my happy place.
I mean, if you can’t self-medicate your “nobody visited me” sulks with premium frozen dairy products and alcohol, what’s the frickin’ point?
Which is to say, in a typically roundabout way, that I’m still sulking, and that, furthermore, I have excellent reasons for sulking, as today I had another proper gallstone attack, although one of nowhere near the severity of the last. Hospitals were avoided, but doctors were phoned and appointments were made. And, when i stupidly forgot to write them down, my friends found them for me on Facebook, so hey, social media DOES work sometimes!
But all this is nothing, really, in the larger scheme of things, and there are few things that can cause me to say my own sufferings are nothing, really, and I mean REALLy there are very, very few such things but this is one of them, this being, in this case, the brilliant if I do say so myself and if I learned one thing from being stuck in the hospital that long it’s that if I don’t say it nobody will idea of making jewelry out of gallstones and selling it to the gullible, tasteless masses that bought, and that very expensively, into the idea of yellow diamonds, formerly known as industrial-grade rocks.
Yes, once these pesky little gallstones are removed like pearls from an oyster, they will be lovingly polished and set within a luxurious 10k gold-plated setting with real Swarovski crystal accents, and sold to ostentatious suckers across this fine land.With my celebrity connections, we’re looking at offering a premium line of celebodyparts, at a significant profit.
BioRecyclables Unlimited: Our motto: You Want A Piece Of Me?
So apparently the Snot Otter, aka Hellbender aka Devil Dog is endangered. “Very little reproduction has taken place in recent years.” Well, looking at one, I can believe it; he’s totally let himself go. Get that salamander to a gym, give him a good skin care routine and equip him with a few dance moves and next stop: PlentyOfFish!
This was an addendum to a research post about hipsters linked to by Gawker, but thank god for once I read right to the bottom. It is possibly the most interesting research notation I’ve read since the Journal of Irreproducible Results posted the Psychology of the Necronaut.
“Dr. Agnew and Dr. Carleton’s expertise and equipment were invaluable in helping us validate and document the results of our initial cryopreservation trials with the hellbender semen.” — Sally Nofs of the Nashville Zoo, on efforts to develop conservation techniques to sample and freeze sperm from the last surviving hellbender salamanders — the largest kind in North America — which are also affectionately known as “snot otters” or “devil dogs.” Note: We made none of this up.
raincoaster 