| Where the smell was coming from! |
[Nov. 20th, 2004|11:10 am]
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For the last week or so I've been more-or-less tearing apart my apartment to find the source of a horrible smell that's been driving me crazy.
It smelled like someone took clothes-washing powder and spilled it all over my apartment. I couldn't figure out what it was.
I just figured it out.
The smell is coming from my garbage BAGS.
Not from garbage! Let's be totally clear on this! It is coming from the EMPTY BAGS, and it is PUNGENT.
I looked at the box they came in. It says "Fresh Clean Scent!"
I took one out and opened it. The horrible smell of clothes-washing powder instantly filled my home.
Only in America would the bags smell worse than the garbage. |
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| Jen dream |
[Sep. 10th, 2004|11:38 am]
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| [ | music |
| | Naima's Love Song (DJ Spinna Remix)-Betty Carter & DJ Spinna-Verve Remixed 2 | ] |
Last night I had a dream that Jen came back from the dead to talk to me. It was one of those dreams that seems really real, really clear.
She looked good and told me that she was really happy where she was. She had the sort of remoteness that she would get when she was happy, or in love with someone, in the years after she and I had broken up: She didn't seem completely aware of me, or completely engaged with me, but she did seem happy. She was somewhere else. |
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| I broke my ankle! |
[Sep. 6th, 2004|10:35 pm]
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I'm in St. Louis right now.
Yesterday morning I was rollerblading in Forest Park -- there's a really great five-mile loop around the park that I've rollerbladed many times.
I had a freak accident and broke my ankle. The front wheel of my left blade basically got caught, but the rest of me kept moving forward, causing my foot to twist down in an extremely disturbing manner, and to make several horrible loud (to me) noises.
These loud noises internal noises were matched by the loud external noises I started to make, though I like to think that my shrieks of pain were more in the realm of masculine and tough than girly and shriek-y.
A passerby stopped to ask if I was ok (after I stopped screaming) and I confided that it would be well if she took my cell phone out of my pocket and called 911, which she did.
The weird thing is I could SEE the hospital from where I was, but because I was not right on the street, the ambulance had a hard time finding me. We could hear it going by a few times.
A few people stopped to ask if I was OK.
Eventually a cop happened by, and he was cool. 911 called me back to ask where I was, and the cop talked to a person who was apparently extremely mentally deficient on the other end. He did one of those things where you simplify the instructions even more every time you tell them, to the point where you are practically saying, "Ok, you know what a road is, right? It's a big piece of parking lot, that runs in a long thin line." I asked him, "Are these the same geniuses who are going to be working on my foot?" he said no, that was just the dispatcher.
The ambulance showed up and they took off my rollerblade (I was against that idea) and put a brace of sorts on my ankle and put me on a gurney into the van.
We went to the nearby hospital where we went into the emergency room, which was PACKED with people. Then came the comedy of "How can we put him in a wheelchair and elevate his obviously broken foot?"
Barnes Hospital -- where they took me -- is a world leader hospital. AND it happens to be the hospital I was born at, but that's not really relevant here. Anyway, it is at LEAST a five-hundred-million dollar hospital complex.
So of course I had five people trying to gerry-rig my wheelchair to hold up my leg, as they had no system for doing that. Eventually one woman found a piece of cardboard box that I sat on, which stuck out for my leg. To guys, under the supervision of another woman, managed to make a sort of a primitive sling out of a sheet, which they tied to the arm of the chair, under the cardboard, to sort of hold it up. This is what I used all day.
Eventually I was shunted to a waiting room. At this time my friend Paul showed up, too, thankfully.
I spent the next about five hours in waiting rooms, which after a while became more annoying than the crash itself. They wouldn't allow me to eat or drink, "In case the doctor wants to do a procedure."
Occasionally I would be wheeled somewhere, where they took insurance info, x-rayed me (ow!) and so on, but still no doctor, no food, no water, dehydrated from rollerblading and trauma, sitting there with a busted ankle, getting waaay hungry and cross, etc. Oh, and it was really really cold in there, too. PLUS, there was no cell phone signal.
At the same time, I was clear I really had very little to complain about. There were people there with REAL problems, and I couldn't help but remember the last time I'd been in a hospital was a few weeks ago, watching Jen die. Compared to that (and some of the stuff I saw there), I realized I had very little to complain about.
BUT at the same time, it was true that I had just had real trauma and they were doing what they could to WEAKEN me. The waiting became pretty long. One guy there, who had internal bleeding, got fed up and LEFT -- perhaps not the smartest move he could have made, but understandable if you were actually IN the circumstances.
For some reason a lot of the nurses were quite beautiful, and all married. The one who did my ex-rays -- and who told me that my ankle was broken in two places -- told me that they'd probably need to do surgery and "put me under." She said, I swear, "I love general anesthesia. It's the best sleep you'll ever have. I've had three operations in the last two years!" She kind of had that Morticia Addams attitude going.
Around five thirty (I got there about 1115) They took me into an observation room and I saw a doctor, who said the funniest thing of the day: "In real life, you'll keep this foot elevated."
She put a temporary cast on it (I need to see a surgeon in Madison, and probably get surgery on it), and at one point they gave me two pills, which I took, before thinking to ask, "what was that?" It turned out it was two percecets, which are pretty powerful pain killers and I really should have only taken ONE, I knew that right away.
So at last they discharge me, and I'm thinking, "the first thing I want to do is eat some food and drink some water." I'm waiting by the external door for my friend Paul to bring the car around, and....and....
Suddenly I'm profoundly dizzy. Very nauseated. Cold sweat. Feeling very cold. I gracefully slide out of the wheel chair onto the floor, where a security guard says "Should I get someone? You don't look too good lying there."
One of the nurses comes out, and I manage to opine "this is a reaction to the hunger and dehydration and the pills you gave me."
They said, "Do you want to come back in?" and I said "Not if I have to wait another five hours, forget it!" It was weird, it was like, I'd rather take my chances in paul's car than deal with all that again. They said no, they'd look at me right now, so I said OK.
They took me back in and I started passing out again in the chair as they were taking my blood pressure (which was really really low, though I don't remember what it was), and I'm sort of gasping "lie...down...now..."
We went BACK to the observation room where they gave me some food and water and I started feeling better. The doctor concurred that it was a reaction to the pills they gave me. Eventually we left. I called my brother to tell him about the accident, and had to hold the phone away from my ear for like 30 seconds as he screamed. That didn't actually help me much, but at least I knew it was coming.
Tomorrow my brother is driving me back to Madison, a really big favor -- I won't be driving my stickshift for a while!
So that's my story. I am remarkably helpless now. I can hardly walk, steps are impossible (practically), and I cant do things like carry anything while moving. Etc.
So the next few months should be interesting! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 20th, 2004|10:13 am]
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I'm home! Got home yesterday, but didn't really do anything, it was pretty much a travel day.
I've got some work that has to be handled today but I'm really, REALLY gonna try to have a couple of days completely off this week.
I INSTANTLY felt better once we got down to denver at 5000 feet. It's great to be able to, you know, generally EXIST again, though I do have a left-over headache today. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 17th, 2004|03:59 pm]
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The altitude is playing unpleasant games with me. I was doing fine this morning. Great, even. Energetic (as much as I can be, up here), feeling good.
Then headache...not like the ones I usually get. Different somehow, a thin pain in my temples. Then by noon a gathering weakness, leading seamlessly into some mild form of dementia. Fogginess and lightheaded and confused. And feeling guilty for not being more "on the ball." People started asking me if I was feeling all right, and finally I came back to the hotel -- 15 minutes of driving and 500 feet lower -- to sleep. It was one of those sleeps where the body just goes unconscious wherever you've flung it, awkwardly positioned on the bed, a black curtain comes down and that's it for over an hour. Waking in the same position, feeling somewhat better. Still have the headache, and this is on four Advils. But less spacey and possibly could get up some time soon.
While I know it is really the altitude that is getting to me, it is an unpleasant reflection of my lack of energy for the work we are doing, when I am there. I'm in a room with 20 org dev people, talking about doing work with corporations and organizations, and I'm just not into it. Some of that is surely from the symptoms I'm experiencing...I sure am a lot more into it when I'm feeling good, and a hell of a lot less into it when I'm feeling bad. But at the same time, a big part of me just wants to be home, working on internet marketing projects, and spending time with my friends. This other stuff, I either don't have enough intention to really believe in it, or I don't believe in it enough to have a serious intention of success with it. Or I just plain don't get it. Of the four leaders, I have the least experience, and the least to say, even when I am feeling on. So this may not work out long term anyway.
True to Cliff form, the workshop went from six-thirty to 11 last night, and will go from 9am to probably ten or ten thirty tonight, and then there's tomorrow. So much working!
I am looking forward to coming home! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2004|11:53 pm]
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1145pm. Feeling better now. We got started and there's good energy in the room. It's started!! That's good. |
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| NOT a vacation |
[Jul. 16th, 2004|11:02 am]
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Still in Colorado, our workshop begins tonight.
Today I feel a weird balance inside, if balance is the right word for it. On the one hand I feel the desire to focus on the masculine side, and what's most important to that -- being able to construct a living, to be able to take care of a woman, a family. From that point of view, I find myself wanting to spend every spare moment studying internet marketing.
On the other side there's the more feminine principle -- simply wanting to take care of myself, to connect to love, and most, very most important, to HAVE SOME SORT OF VACATION.
I had an hour-and-a-half massage last night, and it was great. It really fed my lover archetype.
But this morning I wake up and there's still that tiredness. That need for more "taking care of". For more lover archetype connection. For a period of time in which I'm not working on anything -- not working on internet marketing stuff, not working on non-internet marketing stuff. Not working on important stuff, not working on unimportant stuff.
So I feel like I'm left being able to perhaps barely do what needs to be done, the work that is in front of me that must be done, not even the most important work. And at the same time I do feel some connection to the ideal feminine, to that kind of joy, to that oneness and connection.
But I think the order of operations is going to look a lot more like this: Do and finish this weekend. Find a way to take a couple of days as "off" as humanly possible. Then start up on the marketing stuff, once my mind and body are fresh again.
Boy is this NOT a vacation. It's working and traveling, at altitude, for free. |
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