Saltwater Shallows

It was certainly a Monday!

I continued, despite the best of intentions, to be the KillJoy of Marlinspike Hall, dragging down any and every one close enough to share air. 

These were my frustrations: 

1.  I could not take a shower and began obsessing about how wonderful a shower would feel and how long it had been since I enjoyed one -- one week, exactly.  In the interim, I wash, don't worry, and I wash several times a day.  I smell marvelous.  I might even squeak were you to rub my dessicated skin together.  But I cannot get up the nerve to navigate on these bum legs right now.  And so on, and so forth. 

2.  I have no privacy.  That's really not a problem.  Were I to politely explain to the parties in question that I wanted some privacy, I would politely be granted privacy.  It's that "politely" part that poses the problem.  I fume about it, waiting for people to realize that they are using me and my environs as a gathering point, without asking --
     a.  if they may,
     b.  if that's okay-by-me, which is the same thing as "if they may," and
     c.  whether I might need to get some sleep, or have some quiet, or read a book, or lounge about nekkid, which is all the same as "if they may," and "if that's okay-by-me," too and also.

3.  I am being outmaneouvered by physical and mental pain, and am demonstrating little skill at adapting, coping, or changing according to circumstances.

4.  The state of the world. 

5.  The Drug House down the road (just past the Cistercians, on the left).  It's a nondescript little Renaissance villa with small attached farming compounds, achoo, sneeze, if you get my drift.  Were it just a matter of growing some weed, we'd hardly care and might even underwrite the endeavor, but no-o-o, they are into the nasty stuff.  That's right:  nutmeg. [Kids!  Just because Malcolm X and William Burroughs did it doesn't make it right.  If one of them shot one of his wives in the head, would you, too?]

Nutmeg illustration by Herman Eggleling, published in
The Encyclopedia of Food by Artemus Ward, 1923.

Plus, they pipe in digital drug music from the villa to the faux-rustic outbuildings, putting their dairy cows and hens into deep otherworldly trances, and God only knows what that does to the milk. And the eggs.  Some of that so-called music "will purportedly bring about the same effects of marijuana, cocaine, opium and peyote," according to the experts in the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, which is among our favorite bureaus of narcotics, state-side.  We worry about the young monks who may fall under the influence of their druggie neighbors, as The Monastery rents space from them to house some goats, turkeys, and a few swayback horses. While The Brethren may claim to be listening to The Best of the Psalms on their MP3 players, we know better.



6. The characterization of a kid who has signed on to play b-ball at Duke as "another slow, ugly, white player with gay hair..."

7. Joe Lieberman. Just because.

On the positive side of things, my eye pressures are down to normal levels -- both were 18 today! The doctor denies, though, that the new drops are the culprits behind my high blood pressure, despite that being the only medication change of any sort, despite my usual readings being in the 90/60 range. My Go-To-MDVIP Guy was sure EyeGuy would be willing to switch to another drop, but EyeGuy is something of a dolt and claims "there are no other drops that we haven't tried... it's either the timolol or surgery." Stick in the mud. So we will soldier on, adding a blood pressure medication to the ungodly mix, and putting up with the substantial other side effects of all these drops. Because **18** rocks! If they want to fight it out between them, they can do that. I am just happy that after all these appointments, I now don't have to go back for 3 months.

Tomorrow is the Big Conference with the Head Ketamine Dude. I'm hoping he'll have some encouragement for me, and will be willing to keep trying. He has already proposed intrathecal ziconotide (Prialt) treatment to me -- yes, synthetic sea snail venom -- that of the Conus magus of tropical saltwater shallows fame, to be precise. [It is not likely that I will follow his advice, as there are rumors of the drug causing suicidality in people with a history of depression, and that, my friends, would be me...]

Still, I could use it to stun my prey...