Day 10 of my recovery. Today, Day 11, I return to work. Day 14 I should be able to resume all normal activities: piano-playing, cat-fancying, boulder-hurling.

The suffering was illuminating. There were depths. Sleep was only a temporary respite. There were bouts of fever. The feeling that dominated all was of slow suffocation. Claustrophobia of being contained within my own body. My tongue was bruised like a raw strip of steak. my nose was no longer nose-shaped, it was a salad potato nestled between my bleary eyes.

I could breathe through my nose, despite the blood-soaked gauze. I could breathe through my mouth, despite the torn ragged tunnel collapse of cauterized tissue.

I could breathe, but it felt like I was stealing air. Like using a snorkel.

Now I'm back a work, wearing all black for some reason. Maybe I expect to start bleeding from my nose and throat, which can happen spontaneously for up to two months.

Or maybe I'm mourning being new.

Had a fabulous time with Josh and Maja at Undertow. It was lively. We went back to our house and had enchiladas and played Quiplash. Nick G. came over also. He and Josh talked about music, most of which I'd never heard. It was a good time.

Work has been hectic, and I worry that I am being less patient with people. I'd prefer to be patient. I'd prefer to be many things. Then, how to build upon those traits.

Josh and I talked about writing. I told him how I was worried that the writing I'm doing now is dulling me, and that I need to attempt to do something fictional. Rip free of the dull trappings of idle conflict. Or something.

Surgery tomorrow. What will I see?

You there, boy! What day is it? 

Why, it's Day After Christmas Day!

And I'm at work. It's not so bad. Working today, tomorrow, and then surgery on Thursday. Oh, that reminds me, I have to make an appointment to get my nose hair waxed tomorrow. Tear it right out, I say. Maybe I should get my legs done while I'm there. For gam-strutting purposes.

Christmas was good. Kelly had to work, so we'll open presents sometime tonight. We've got a double-date with Hagler and Maja at Undertow.

We went out for a drink with them on Friday night, I think? Yes. It was fun. We talked art, religion, politics, and the soul. All the usual artist stuff that comes up, I suppose. Also that time I was drunkenly crawling around the backyard at a party and Josh rode me around like a horse, whooping like a cowboy.

He didn't remember it, but agreed that it sounded like him and in fact had made it a point at that time to do inane things at parties where everyone else was drunk and he was sober. 

I got a little drunk yesterday from some pineapple rum. It was really good, and my tasting turned into drinking. It happens. Sometimes you drink the rum, and sometimes the rum drinks you. 

Watching a child I cared for take care of another child is illuminating. Part of me feels like I did a good job training them, and part of me understands that they may be succeeding despite my own failures in trying to train them. Grandparents must be in constant existential crisis.


My friend Josh Crohn surmised that's why grandparents give so much toys and sweets. I think it could also be that it's so much easier to make little children happy. Making adult children happy is a lost cause.


I do a little soft-shoe shuffle for my nieces and they think it's hilarious. Or I pretend to be asleep, and they scream and I startle awake. They love it.


* * * * *


I walked faster yesterday. 3 mph at an incline of 12%. I need new shoes already. Wearing out quick these days.


It might actually be worth it to go to a specialty runner shoe place and get fitted. Must protect feet.

Look, we're all reasonable people here and I think we should be able to talk about these things openly so here goes: Get yourself a good set of headphones. If you enjoy listening to music at all, you owe it to your ears. I'm a huge fan of the Bose SoundLink headphones. They're over the ear. Also, the Parrot Zik 2.0 are pretty sweet. They have an app that lets you select different preset sound profiles (created by artists like La Roux and DJ Jazzy Jeff) and it's crazy. I listen to songs I've known for years and suddenly a preset brings out subtle things I've never noticed before.

And the Parrot has noise-canceling that will be very handy when everything goes to hell.


I stayed up way too late last night listening to music through my Zik's. All those presets. My preference seems to be for pop settings. I'd call it more of a wide-spectrum of sound, vocals usually towards the top, punchy, low and high. When I tune it for indie rock it gets higher, and sounds kind of tinny to me. I have yet to try that setting on any Iron and Wine. I'm looking forward to it. Maybe some Lisa Hannigan; she recorded her album Sea Sew in a barn. Maybe I'll hear a rat dodging a barn owl.

Countdown to Surgery: 7 Days. I haven't gotten an audio sample yet. I have plenty of audio of my voice, but I want to specifically try to read a page of something, like "Moby Dick", and then read the same page afterwards.

Also, if perhaps they accidentally slice through my vocal cords, I'll want a voice sample so I can get one of those sign-language-to-voice devices like Amy the gorilla in the movie version of "Congo."

Hell I want something like that now.

Ah, more end-of-year administrative mires. I've worked here for almost five years. Every anniversary marks how much farther I am from when I was truly happy, doing animal rescue. No, not happy, but passionate. There was a lot of pain. I wonder if it would have destroyed me, eventually.

Now I'm killing time until I'm old, grizzled, and living in a remote cabin. Then I should be called out of retirement for one last animal rescue.

Basically the movie "Logan" but with puppies?

I've started filming the opening montage now. Soundtrack will be "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" by Ida Maria. Running around the forest, disarming hunter's traps, exposing polluters, swinging from trees, that sort of thing.

Might not have a choice. The GOP tax plan is poised to go through. I'd better start picking out loincloths.

Yesterday I was here, staring at the laptop. Didn't write anything. Why not? Questioning habits, maybe.

Time is the river, not the canyon.

Christmas is troubling me. Previous success at avoiding unnecessary purchases is now faced with the kraken of consumer enticement.  Its arms...are everywhere.

Maybe books. Books for all.

Sigh.

Did I sleep well, I wonder? I felt I didn't Sunday night. Part of that may have contributed to my sullenness. That bell curve of despair, before it drops down and becomes reckless abandon.

I don't believe that the limits in our lives are the ones we impose on ourselves. I also don't believe there's anything wrong with believing in that when trying to achieve something. It's only harmful when one encounters failure. Limits are imposed on us, and we need to know them.

And to know which ones to forget.