Hello?

Somehow the telephone always ends up under my pillow, so that the ringing encourages my seizing, jerking body to become one with the ceiling.

This morning, the crisp, businesslike woman calling informed me that I was not who I thought I was, and that she intended to get to the bottom of my problems with her auto insurance company. The company was called The Auto Insurance Company.

A few months back, I turned over a new leaf.

I'd become increasingly rude. I excused my rudeness as being the inescapable result of being in constant pain and seemingly always febrile -- both of which contributed to my being perpetually sleep-deprived. Poor me. Who would not be abrupt or rude, given those conditions?

Oh, shut up, you!
Stifle!

But then, one evening, a meek and mild, indeed a rather *milky* telemarketer gave me a call. He was supremely polite, apologetic almost for his mere existence. After our brief confab, I found myself imagining what his work day was like. The result of these imaginings was the aforementioned leaf-turning.

I mean, really. Eight-to-twelve hours of talking to people like me?

After The Auto Insurance Company Lady informed me of my true moniker and of her intention to ferret out my various wrongdoings and, most importantly, my non-payment
to The Auto Insurance Company, she wanted some information about Sonia, the person to whom I might have sold the vehicle in question. Her address, phone, email addy, anything. It was simple: either I turned state's evidence against Sonia or The Auto Insurance Company Lady was going to bring me down. Way down.

Patiently waiting, at the first break she took to avoid oxygen debt, I reassured her of my name and of the well-insured status of My Darling Ruby, the Honda CR-V, with State Farm. As I geared up for a gracious dénouement, proud of my stellar even-keel, wondering just how hard it could be to embroider the Golden Rule on my poly-blend pink pillowcases, The Auto Insurance Company Lady interrupted me...

And put me on hold.

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
MORE TESTIMONIALS OF THE ETERNAL TELEPHONIC BATTLE BETWEEN RUDE AND NOT-RUDE:

I just got a telemarketing call from a guy who said he was with an organization representing the local police departments in our area. I politely told him that we handle our own business donations and that I wouldn't be interested. His response was "I don't care if your interested, I'm asking you to try thinking a little differently. Now can I speak to someone in your organization who can actually make a decision." -- DOGZA

I really hate the way that you can't argue with them.
There should be some way to bind them to what they have said.
Countless people have phoned me to offer a free mobile handset. I've accepted every single offer, but not one of them has delivered. -- vincevincevince

[Poor Vince!]

I used to own a telemarketing firm - the staff were a bunch of freaks.
One used to dress like an undertaker and smoke from a 1930's cig holder, another was arrested for murder, another attempted suicide in the womens toilets, another was a satanist and would keep reminding you of the fact, another would engage in bizarre behaviour like throwing his coat out of the office window.
odd bunch, im glad I dont do that anymore. -- Essex Boy

The Wearing of the Green

A few unoriginal thoughts before I refer to someone else's blog post about how to follow developments in Iran using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, dedicated blogs, etc:

Mir-Hossein Moussavi is not exactly the candidate that Westerners, as well as a good many expat Iranians, would love to see in terms of a -- well -- *westernized*, progressive, freedom-loving, liberty-worshipping, anti-cleric type dude. What seems to be emanating among some of the more reflexive and reactive news folk is the heavy gloss and high sheen of the Conservative Myth of Mass Protest, whereby any demonstrative undertakings resulting from stuff like voting causes Right Wing Dumb Think.

I mean, seriously, the Republican ditto-heads that have graced some of the news shows are waving the United States of America Freak Flag as if Mir Hussein Moussavi were the *point* of these protests, these protests even unto death.

If people are willing to die in protest -- manifestly* -- surely the act merits more serious consideration than application of a Party Line, an ideological agenda, yes? Or, at least, we ought to get the Party Line right.

Mousavi does have, as is repeatedly repeated, a reputation for honesty and competence (and even, in several articles, a reputation for being "soft-spoken"). This is how he has recast himself after twenty years of political truancy. A lot can change about a person and his politics in two decades. Still, it is important to always remember ("...and never forget!" -- Dwayne F. Schneider) -- what was the case before the miracle of re-invention:

As Iran’s prime minister during the Iranian Revolution’s most formative years (1981-1989) he was a hard-liner closely allied with then-president Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, and a “firm radical,” as The Economist described him in 1988...

In [a] 1981 interview, Mousavi defended the taking and holding of American hostages by Iranian militants for 444 days as serving the revolution’s purpose. “It was the beginning of the second stage of our revolution,” following the overthrow of the shah, he said. “It was after this that we rediscovered our true Islamic identity. After this, we felt the sense that we could look Western policy in the eye and analyze it the way they had been evaluating us for many years.”

In terms of more immediate issues, Mousavi has stated his support of Iran's nuclear ambitions, adding only that he would like to make it less "costly," a word open to careful interpretation. A reference to the burden of sanctions. A reference to near worldwide disapproval.

I believe that he truly is a reform candidate -- I believe it, especially, since the massive demonstrations and worldwide scrutiny following these fraudulent election results dictate that he toe that line. "The eyes of the world," and all that.** Among Mousavi's stated goals are the privatization of some media and putting the police under the control of the President (and therefore, purportedly, under the control of the people, since the President is elected... or is supposed to be, anyway!). He accuses Ahmadinejad of economic mismanagement. He makes further gains as a reformer thanks to having served as "adviser" to Khatami.

One of the most interesting things to watch, at least here, deep deep in the Tête de Hergé, where all is well, is the stance of the clerics in all this -- where will they place their approbation, and why? Will they lose influence --have they already lost a significant amount of power? What exactly is the relationship between Mousavi and the theocrats. Like him, they are caught by circumstances that may well dictate a less severe future course; They are also trapped by the immediacy of events transmitted to the interpreting world by a new technical age. Of course, they would most like to suppress the demonstrations and the demonstrators, but Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, supreme leader, who controls everything from the judiciary to the Republican Guard, is an astute politician.

Ah well, this post has wandered far from its initial intention, which was to share some recommended means for following the events in Iran in real time. All I meant to say was that the situation calls for us observors to do our due diligence. A dear friend, The Iranian Lesbian, developed ulcers after years of explaining that there were, indeed, paved roads, traffic signs, and some guarded evidence of a civilized past back home in Tehran.

While she smiled sweetly and fielded idiot questions, her thoughts strayed -- to her uncle, once the theoretician for the Communist Party, who was imprisoned for many years, finally beheaded; to her mother, a well-known Sanskrit scholar; to her father, a well-appointed judge under the Shah, who daily expected arrest after he simply stopped showing up for work; to the many friends she left behind when her parents forced her on a flight to France at the height of the revolution; to how she and her sister would manage to send enough money home that their parents might continue to live according to their custom.

I think of her and am ashamed at how much I have never bothered to learn about her country, her family, her exile.

Ah well...

"How to follow the Iran protests: Twitter. blogs and more," over at Open Salon offers some informed choices among all the photo-blogging, noteworthy Tweeters, and video selections floating around out there.

Yep, that's all I wanted to say!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
*MANIFESTLY -- I note the usage because it is the first such adverbial usage in my long life. Tapping my brilliantly white and obsessively straight teeth with a number two pencil, spaced out, thinking of Iran -- and what very little I know about the country and her people -- I started thinking in French and quickly hit upon the word "manifestation." Hence and ergo, this:

man - i - fest  /ˈmænəˌfɛst/

–adjective 1. readily perceived by the eye or the understanding; evident; obvious; apparent; plain: a manifest error.
2. Psychoanalysis. of or pertaining to conscious feelings, ideas, and impulses that contain repressed psychic material: the manifest content of a dream as opposed to the latent content that it conceals.

–verb (used with object) 3. to make clear or evident to the eye or the understanding; show plainly: He manifested his approval with a hearty laugh.
4. to prove; put beyond doubt or question: The evidence manifests the guilt of the defendant.
5. to record in a ship's manifest.

–noun 6. a list of the cargo carried by a ship, made for the use of various agents and officials at the ports of destination.
7. a list or invoice of goods transported by truck or train.
8. a list of the cargo or passengers carried on an airplane.

Origin:
1350–1400; (adj.) ME <>


**The eyes of the world:
"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world." -- Gen. Eisenhower, June 6, 1944

QUINTUPLE SKULL

Courtesy of zenosaurus via Ian's blog:




He was born by caesarean section on December 25th, 1918, in Madison, Wisconsin. Nearly institutionalized at an early age, he surprised doctors with his above normal intelligence, unusual in such cases. He attended public schools in Madison. His bizarre appearance led to his being ostracized by fellow students. Outside of school one day, he was struck by an open beer can flung from the window of a passing car by some high school bullies. Slowing down, they taunted him with jeers, insults and threats. Speeding off, the car unexpectedly veered to the left, and struck an ancient Oak, killing three of the occupants. A fourth occupant became severely agoraphobic, and confined himself largely in his bedroom closet for the next 41 years. After this, he was left alone by other students. Three days after graduating from high school, he forgot to turn sideways while walking through a door (as he was forced to do his entire life) at a local candy store and knocked himself out cold. He was in a coma for three weeks. When he recovered, he was able to speak fluent Swedish. Doctors never resolved this mystery. Although he had a multitude of eyes, he was blind in two of them, having shot them out with a bee bee gun as a child. As a young adult, he dabbled in painting, and was barely able to make a living by selling his paintings on street corners or at local festivals. People purchased his paintings out of pity or because they thought it was cool to have a painting by that weird looking guy. Unfortunately, no surviving paintings can be located, and no image was ever recorded of them. However, it is said they were all signed with a one inch brush, dipped in Cadmium Red Medium, in Swedish. Andy Warhol is said to have purchased one of his paintings. When he was 25, he inherited a large sum of money from an uncle. He lived with his eccentric mother until her death a few years later. At this time, 47 cats were removed from the home by local authorities. He continued to occupy the house, until his own death in 1972. After his death it was discovered that he had a collection of 1,756 vintage ladies compacts kept in a shopping cart in his bedroom. He had apparently collected them from the local St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift shop over the years. He also had accumulated another 17 cats, one of whom had two tails, and another one of whom was probably half-dog. His body vanished from the funeral home while it was being prepared. Years later, a bizarre skull, matching his unique characteristics, was confiscated during a drug bust in Madison, apparently having been converted into a bong. It wound up in the possession of a distant relative, who had it restored, and then tried to sell it on Ebay. However, the relative forgot to indicate that it was being sold for educational purposes only, and the auction was cancelled. It was later obtained by the Anthropology Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and added to a large collection of pathological specimens in the Social Sciences building. At this time it was photographed. When an inventory was conducted on the collection some years later, the skull turned up missing, along with the skull of the half dog/half cat. The skull clearly shows the ravages of his habitual candy consumption.

::in the inbox::

In the inbox this morning:

Miscommunication

A co-worker got a pen stuck inside our printer. He started to try and remove the pen, but I told him: "We don't have time for that now, just put a note on the printer telling folks not to use it and then report it to the Help Desk."

So he grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it. I left before he finished the note.

About 20 minutes later, one of my techs comes in laughing and says he was just in the lobby, saw a piece of paper on a printer and went to investigate.

This is what he found. Sometimes things don't always come out the way you want them to...

The Gentle Sandpiper

I've sent La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore off on a sort of Snipe Hunt this morning, just to get her out from underfoot.

There really is such a thing as a snipe -- a "shorebird," Wikipedia tells me. Plovers, godwits, ruddy turnstones. I even ran across the creature named for the famed attributes of my blueblood birding family: the double-striped thick knee.

I am a sucker for a sandpiper. When I was in high school, my stepmother, a great gift-giver, got me a little sandpiper statuette -- ah, I just found it: the Gentle Sandpiper Sculpture from the Smithsonian Store. Why don't I still have it? Where and when did I choose to leave it, break it, whatever I did with it? Could it be that the bill broke off, that it would not accept my sad efforts at repair?

I am known for the destruction of my own property. Fits of pique, whatever. Photographs, term papers, dissertation chapters. My hair. Gifts from stalkers.

So what is The Castafiore out looking for, what fruitless quest have I set her? To find and purchase the ingredients for injera, a type of Ethiopian bread.

The Castafiore neither cooks nor bakes. She does not grill, steam, braise, fry or parboil. The Chaste White Flower, the Milanese Nightingale does, however, love to eat and enjoys exploring the myriad of ethnic cuisines.

The Fredster lived several years in Ethiopia -- the origin of his passion to end hunger.

Strange, then, that we are celebrating the very paucity of ingredients that has made round and empty so many distended little stomachs.

He misses the bread, the coffee, the large soupy mashes of vegetables and tough stringy goat meat. Eating with the bread as utensil, the act of sopping. Tossing out the odd gem of amharic.

No doubt he also misses the beautiful woman with whom he lived (along with several members of her family) but with whom he could barely communicate. I've seen her picture and she is lovely, brown, placid, thin but also round.

Anyway, after years of harrassment, Fred is cooking an Ethiopian meal for us but is demanding (being demanding) authentic, fresh, quality ingredients.

I suppose it once was impossible to find teff flour, properly ground, to make the spongy sour injera. No more. And really, it is not far from being an unleavened sourdough -- if that makes any sense whatsoever. We go through spurts of drinking a variety of Ethiopian coffees that are readily available at a local international Farmer's Market. Even here -- deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé -- there is diversity.

When all the right makings are purchased, when the stars are all aligned, Bianca and I will clear out and leave him to it.

For today, though, the stuff of his meal is serving me as snipe, for I am in a mood.

This business of little sleep is wearing me down, eating at my sanity. Last night, I managed to sleep from midnight to one, then three to four-thirty. I feel like taking a carrot peeler to my eyeballs.

I am waiting for my surgeon to get back in town. I want to get this second left spacer out. And at the same time, I am tired of trying. Fred and I keep going over the opinions we were given last week. They still don't make sense to us.

Bloomsday 2009

Street marker, Dublin: "You're in Dawson Street, Mr. Bloom said. Molesworth Street is opposite. Do you want to cross? There's nothing in the way." Photo credit: Brian Cormack

"Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves," notes Joyce's Stephen Dedalus.

And as someone else once noted: Meeting ourselves might mean meeting the occasional asshole.

In the pre-dawn hours -- before those rosy-fingers deigned to stretch out pink -- I checked my often over-wrought social calendar, only to discover that today has only one goings-on:

BLOOMSDAY 2009.

Hmmm. Ulysses on the brain! What are the odds, d'ya think, that vague electrical shorts of memory are what caused me to inexplicably go Homerian a few days ago?

All part of a desperate attempt to remember Bloomsday, 24 hours of anacoluthon, achoo, bless you!

Today, June 16, is The Day which takes place within James Joyce's Ulysses: it is a Dublin-y Day in the life of Leopold Bloom.

Remembering was easier a few years back, in the excitement of the centenary. No, that's not it. Remembering was not so lonely, is all.

Anyway. For a few of the very weird, Ulysses by Joyce shadows and minnows The Odyssey; It out-homers Homer.

And were I feeling collegiate, or even convivial, I'd lay out the correspondances between Dedalus and Telemachus, Bloom and Odysseue, and, of course, Molly and dear, dear Penelope.

But that is not how the feelings are splayed out upon the page, today.

It's more offal. Sweetbreads.

It's downright gamy -- that celebrated taint:

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."

All that grease on the linen napkins!

So hunker down in your body, be as corporeal as can be. Raise a glass, it's the centenary and a few, but more than that -- it's the same day, all over again:

"Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."

Simon's Cat Man Do

Hat tip to jennbird at Frankie's Hideout.

"Always the setting forth was the same..."

What a beautiful morning. We had a rosy-fingered dawn that followed on the heels of a refreshing shower. Never mind that in a few hours, oppressive humid heat will descend on all of Tête de Hergé, and will force the inhabitants of Marlinspike Hall to seek the cool darkness of our various cellars.

The Odyssey is home to "the rosy-fingered dawn," when Nector "left his couch," and Menelaus "bound his sandals to his comely feet."

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, looses its tight fist, it is time to light the fire, milk the goats and ewes. It is precious reading; It is Homer's trope:

"[T]he child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn..."

I would prefer to sleep than to witness every sunrise, with its finely tapered digits and gleaming buffed nails that pinch and grab, coerce.

Yes, I would like to rest right through the cusp, there where "the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion..."

When all is said and done, and Ulysses is home, and Penelope's patience rewarded, Minerva both holds back the night and hinders the morning; She plunges Dawn deep down in Oceanus until the couple has had time to trace the outlines of their stories and prepare to part again.

[Do you know W. S. Merwin's poem Odysseus? Lovely.]

It's been hours now. The bones hurt, various appendages swell. The headache won't quit. No fever yet, though, and there is ice cream for breakfast -- sugar and fat free.

Uncle Kitty Big Balls rules the roost, as I predicted he would. He's a gentle tyrant but easily the most obstinate creature I've ever encountered. His world view is fairly simple: he wants what he wants when he wants it.

He has a propensity for Left Shoulder Flops with Triple Twists O'er the Mouth -- getting high points for Degree of Difficulty. That is, he won't stay off of my left wing -- and he loves to cover one's face with a big old mouthful of ragged sheared fur.

We are hoping he will start to gain weight now that his acute ills have mended. He is happy and strong, but still so thin and bony that he is at risk for falling over with a simple butt tap. Roughhousing is however he defines it...

But what a gentle soul! We continue to marvel at his good nature after all this time on the street.

There was a brief and ineffective uprising against him two days ago -- hissing and scratching. The result? Tufts of hair all over the living room and one weeping eye on Marmy.

And world peace.

[Stan Fields: What is the one most important thing our society needs?

Gracie Hart: That would be... harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.

Gracie Hart: And world peace!]

Ach. I have to give in to the discomfort for a bit. Maybe grab a few minutes of sleep. Rest.

"Alas," he cried to himself in his dismay, "what ever will become of
me, and how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through
the long watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold
and damp may make an end of me- for towards sunrise there will be
a keen wind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb
the hill side, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I
may escape the cold and have a good night's rest, but some savage
beast may take advantage of me and devour me."

In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one
upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath
two shoots of olive that grew from a single stock- the one an
ungrafted sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however
squally, could break through the cover they afforded, nor could
the sun's rays pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely
did they grow into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began
to make himself a bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead
leaves lying about- enough to make a covering for two or three men
even in hard winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he
laid himself down and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one
who lives alone in the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand
as fire-seed in the ashes to save himself from having to get a light
elsewhere, even so did Ulysses cover himself up with leaves; and
Minerva shed a sweet sleep upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and
made him lose all memories of his sorrows.

Road Trip

An update for my friends who visit me here (instead of at the Big Bald Guy's Place... oops, I mean the BBG's Community) --

Anyway -- just the gist about The Road Trip. As a testament to my laziness, this is a copy-and-paste from the aforementioned Big Bald Guy's Place.

Oh, ummm, the Church Lady. Let's just say it is a reference to a woman who has decided that Fred might just be... available. She is a very former friend, becoming more former every week. She fairly lusts after him at these purportedly innocent Wednesday Church Suppers. We all know it really is an Eat-Along During Devil Worship.

Anyway, she likes to bring desserts -- and not your Granny's Impregnated-With-Stuff Molded Jellos -- no, she likes to bring... Chocolate Mousse.

Chocolate Mousse: one of two dishes in my gastronomic experience that resulted in food poisoning. It was a rainy afternoon in Paris, I was drenched and sick with a bad cold, the Important Person with whom I had rendezvous failed to show up... and I needed chocolate. So at the end of a delicious Vietnamese lunch, I ordered up that Vietnamese specialty, the Mousse au chocolat. A little runny, but hey! Two hours later... runny had truly become the descriptor.

I remember being in bed the next morning, trying to hug the wall, ignoring the knocks on the door, wishing I could just die, promising never again to eat Mousse au chocolat.

[Just for the record, the other food that brought me lower than low was a "Garlic White (Stuffed à la Chicago Style) Pizza" that was scarfed down in Berkeley Town, prior to hoofing it with My Boy -- my oft cheating paramour -- to see El Norte at an Oakland discount theatre. It says something about our relationship -- what *exactly*, I am not sure -- that we both ate the garlic pizza! But get this: I got sick; Famous Writer did not. Ah, but I have seen him humbled by bleeding hemorrhoids. That's something.]

################################################################################## ROAD TRIP REPORT:

Youse Guys crack me up! (My friends had been leaving me online advice about dealing with Church Lady)

Okay, let's call Church Lady... The Mousse! Yesterday, Fred had a bunch of unexpected dental surgery, so he emailed The Gang at The Church to say he wouldn't make it to the Famed Wednesday Supper. About 10 pm, the phone rings, and it's The Mousse. Seeing her name on caller ID, I basically threw the phone at The Fredster.

What a conversation, judging from the one side I heard.

He sounded like he had just had a heart bypass or something:

"No, no... {sigh} I'm okay... No, thanks, Mousse, I don't need anything..."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Don't mind me, the woman running a fever, in 8+/10 pain, going back and forth in my wheelchair, bringing My Darling specialty coffees and scrumptuous soups, various cats, and all the remote controls. Don't mind me, The Gimp! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

((Oh, shut up! So what? Yeah, so... if I *had* shoulders, they *might* have chips on them... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.))

The poor endlessly suffering boy.

Anyway, I am trying to treat The Mousse as a bit of nothing. As a *speck* on a bit of nothing.

So... our roadtrip! Fred is incredibly accurate. We were to be there at 1 pm, and darned if we didn't pull up at 12:55. They were definitely aware of why I was there -- I felt like a very minor celebrity, emphasis on minor.

But no matter who you are, there is always a huge pile of redundant paper work -- and it always starts with signing away your rights... especially at a teaching facility. "We have the right to allow untrained students to mess around with your one and only body, and furthermore, we have the right to publish and just plain gossip about your case..."

"We also intend to charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege..."

Anyway, I did manage to hurt Fred's feelings -- he started to gather his things to go back with me to the exam room -- and asked, just as a matter of course, "Want me to go back with you?"

-- already standing up, tossing his backpack over his shoulder.

"Nope," said I, and motored off.

I don't know why. It probably wasn't smart, because some doctors will open up more if there is a 3rd, "responsible" party in with the patient. They tend to spend more time explaining... Oh, well. I think I managed to get the drift.

Actual time with the doctor? 8 minutes.

Time the doctor had spent in consultation with my orthopedic surgeon here and the famous Dr. Go-To-Guy? Unknown, but apparently more important -- because at least 3 minutes of the aforementioned 8 minutes were wasted on niceties, and questions like "Are you sure your shoulders hurt more than, say, your hips or knees?" He asked that 3 times. Obviously a crucial question. WTF?!

So... he thinks that the spacer on the left side, which is the second spacer since last December, must be taken out, and soon. He claims that the hand-fashioned antibiotic-laced head of the spacer (the round part at the top of your humerus) is fractured into 3 pieces.

Okay, folks. {Sigh. BIG sigh.} I *assumed* that he must have seen this on one of the x-rays that I brought him. I had not looked at them, because... I can't read x-rays! But when we got home, I took out all the films and eyeballed them. Know what? There was only ONE sent of that shoulder since the 2nd spacer got put in -- on April 27, 2009. And it was very clear, very clean: There were no "pieces" of spacer, or fractures. None, as in NOT THREE.

Anyway, it is exceedingly painful, as you kind people understand, and he thinks it needs to come out. Pronto.

When he finally turned to the issue of infection, I was again pretty surprised.

"I spoke with Dr. ShoulderMan and Dr. Go-To-Guy, extensively. I think we are dealing with a very common bacteria by which your immune system is being compromised. It usually is considered a culture *contaminant* -- propionibacterium acnes. It is notorious for infecting shoulder prostheses."

I was excited at that point, but posed a question. Turns out he doesn't like to be interrupted. Tough titties, I say! He even employed one of those weird-out moves: The Two-Handed Hand Hold Pat-Pat and Dip. Ha! Foiled again...

"What leads you to think it is P. Acnes as opposed to all the other possibilities, Super Smart Guy?"

"Well, Former Prof, it takes a very long time to grow in cultures. At least 19-21 days, in fact. Hospitals only keep cultures 5-7 days. So your cultures weren't given enough time to grow."

I didn't want to burst his Super Smart Guy Bubble... but I was being treated by one of the region's best infectious disease doctors... and he had ordered the hospital lab to KEEP my cultures, week after week. Once I know he kept a set of them incubated a month. NOTHING grew -- not P. Acnes, not a contaminant, not nothin'!

I figured he hadn't read the ID doctor's notes yet, and, come to think of it, the ID guy was the one doc with whom he did not chat on the phone in advance of my arrival.

Seeing that this was his Big Finish, I just kept silent.

"If it is P. acnes, how do we treat it?" I wondered, out loud (keeping silent).

"Well, Former Prof, it is actually an easy one to treat!" He never said what antibiotics are typically effective, so I let that go, too. I mean, give the guy a break -- he just had three hundred pages or so of notes to go through.

By the time we got home, I was in horrible pain, and had developed some Serious Attitude about driving all that time just to spend 8 minutes with someone who already had his mind made up before I got there.

I have heard rumors about some exciting new technologies out in the larger world -- things like computers and telephones, oh -- and teleconferences! Gawd! I can't think of a situation that better lent itself to teleconferencing than this one! His physical exam consisted of a few half-hearted palpations of my shoulder, evincing nothing but bared teeth and growls.

Anyway, sleep was denied Tuesday night, so I did what everyone here would do -- I got online to learn about P. acnes bacteria. I have never had acne or been treated with antibiotics for acne -- Super Smart Guy said that we all have the bacteria on our skin and in our mouths. It is now believed to be very common in shoulder hardware -- why the shoulder and not the hip, for example? No one knows. Also -- infection by it is almost exclusively limited to males!

Unfortunately, the antibiotics used to treat it? I've already been on them -- by i.v. -- for extended periods of time.

I know it sounds like I am refusing to accept the first answer anyone has dared to propose... but it makes NO SENSE.

[Don't forget the most disturbing detail of my situation -- these infections are recurring -- or never really going away in the first place. Even after being given what seems like appropriate antibiotic therapy, the infection remains/returns.]

In all of the studies and case reports, the longest time it took for P. acnes to grow in the culture dish was 11 days. There was no mention of 19-21 days! Most results came back in 5-7.

None of the studies/case reports dealt with patients whose samples refused to grow anything!

In summation (and please! put on your logic hats and tell me whether this makes sense to you.):

We're taking out this second antibiotic-laced spacer. He says it has broken into at least 3 pieces and is tearing up the joint space.

At the time of removal, he wants my surgeon to "reconstruct" the joint, and, I presume, to put in a different shaped spacer.

Take more [anaerobic] cultures, keep them at least 21 days.

As soon as something grows out -- determine antibiotic sensitivities, etcetera.

His money is on P. acnes.

The drugs that normally work? Penicillen and penicillen derivatives, cefepime.... ***vancomycin*** (yes, my eyes are rolling back in my head. yes, i just finished 6 weeks of i.v. vanco last sunday night).

So there you have it. If we buy into this, another surgery looms large, then about 3 weeks of waiting, followed by 6 weeks of [ineffective] i.v. antibiotics. Gee, I wonder if my WBCs and CRPs will still be way elevated, will I still be dripping with sweat from fevers, weak, bitchy and exhausted? Will my picture still figure next to the definition of "left shift"?

Do I do this -- another roughly 9-10 weeks of it -- or do I head for Baltimore?

Suddenly, I don't want to have to make the decision. I want my docs here to understand my doubts and concerns, and respond to them. I am sure that 10 weeks is not a long time to anyone else... I need to take a Patience Pill.

So... here is to patience! Wish I had some.

Thank you so much for following this ridiculous saga.

Prof

Just as a so-it-goes notice: I woke up this morning. [No, wait, there is more!] I woke up this morning, at the end of a 1 hour 15 minute nap, to find that I am developing a wicked chest cold to accompany this never-ending headache. Marmy and I sound much alike: *ack*-*ack*-*ack*-ing to beat the band. What say I get this out of my system before the next intubation, eh wot?

One fell poop

My life is all over the place, in pieces, disparate -- but my ass is firmly in the bed. My legs are acting up and if they aren't elevated, well, it ain't pretty. And it hurts.

Given that we have to hit the road tomorrow and Tuesday, I am trying to get them in as good a shape as possible. By Tuesday night, they will be frozen blue-black tree trunks.

Tomorrow, we have the Infectious Disease folk at 11 am, and then we get to tour the metro area of Tête de Hergé in order to pick up all my medical records in preparation for Tuesday's trip to see this Super Guru Specialist Dude.

Doesn't it seem like I ought to be dreaming about that whole process and not milky-blue glass chakras?

Supposedly, Super Guru Specialist Dude is seeing me at 1 pm Tuesday. It has yet to be writ in stone, though. I am not sure what the issue is -- I think it is as simple as entering my information into the Medical School's computer. Also, I guess she is still trying to work out the insurance issues. I was to have received a few phone calls of verification that never came.

Arg.

I am pleased to report that Uncle Kitty Big Balls (Sorry, but we are still waiting for his name to show up. I have suggested "Stumpy," "Gimp," and "Ragamuffin," and all three have been shot down. *Derisively*, I might add. So, really, he remains "Little Boy," "Pickle Head," and, most appropriately, "Stinky Boy.") -- that UKBB is happy, eating, sleeping, pooping, and playing. He looks like he has been through hell, and since he has been through hell, we think he looks just fine.

Every so often, he will land on that back leg, wince, and pull up short. The next thing you know, he goes flying by, in hot pursuit of Dobby -- who is thrilled to have another cat who loves speed and butt whacks.

Oops. Ignore the "butt whacks." It's a private thing.

Little Boy, like his sister Marmy, can create stink bombs that ought to part of a national military arsenal. I mean, Marlinspike Hall is nothing if not spacious and airy, you dig? And still... one fell poop by Little Boy and all creatures, great and small, start running for the drawbridge, praying that it is already in position over the moat.

I continue to feel guilt at my well-practiced inactivity. I did mop one of the kitchen floors -- twice, even -- and have done some laundry. Day before yesterday, I managed to rotate the mattress in our bedroom, and change the sheets and pillow cases. I feed and water the animals twice a day. I do the dishes.

But who are we kidding? That adds up to "not much," and the fact that after each task I had to rest and take pain meds sort of detracts from my usual panache.

I have a feeling that we still ought to be gearing up for a trip to Baltimore. But one thing at a time, yes? The thought of having to go has begun to panic me. How am I going to manage this alone -- because Fred will not be able to come along.

Dr. Go-To-Guy opines that we should direct our questions to the Infectious Disease Department there, rather than the Orthopedic Surgery Department. It makes sense when you study the breakdown of research interests within eact one. It makes even more sense when you consider that we will have taken the ortho approach already, given the upcoming visit with Super Guru Specialist Dude.

Dr. Go-To-Guy was no help, however, in helping me figure out what to do in the immediate sense. I think we are back to the point of everyone waiting for me to call up, saying -- "Okay, I am at the point where I cannot stand it anymore." Then ShoulderMan will go forward, even if he is still operating in the dark.

It has become too much of an onus, too much to ask of a patient. The only reason I have any expertise is because this is my body. But it shouldn't be up to me to determine when surgery ought to happen. There have been MANY times in the last 2-3 weeks when I was ready to lop off my arm. Then again, there have been hundreds of times when the idea of a DIY amputation of my legs has seemed like the best idea ever.

There is a task I dread doing, should I be sent on to Johns Hopkins. I had a sort of friend... that is the most honest expression... I had a sort of friend who shared one of my "conditions" and who repeatedly sought out a certain Hopkins surgeon. He's no longer there and did not leave for any reason other than dealing with a thriving career. She had as many as four or five surgeries per visit to Baltimore. Anyway, last year her story did not end well, but it did end. I had been a frequent vociferous voice of opposition to the excess of surgeries that never seemed to solve any problems. There was no joy in being right. There was no joy in the many painful months she spent at home, in pain, feeling useless, biding time until the next round of surgeries. Taking enough meds to have killed herself many times over.
If it was prescribed, Virginia felt obliged to take it, and take it often.

God, did I bitch at her.

Anyway, one of things Virginia did was research how to stay in Baltimore "on the cheap" -- so I need to go back over her emails and get the many details she graciously provided.

I wish I had been a friend to her instead of constantly taking her moral inventory. What a snotty bitch. I thought it was a *role* I was playing, as I watched other serve as "sympathizers." It was no role; Her life was no fiction, no drama. I had no right.

Dreaming Chakras

It just now occurred to me that the novel I am reading may have something to do with it: The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. Freud and Jung figure prominently among the characters. Rubenfeld also includes G. Stanley Hall, Abraham A. Brill, Ernest Jones, and Sandor Ferenczi.

In 1909, Freud, Ferenczi, and Jung truly did travel to the United States, to a bustling New York City that was enthralled by the idea and actuality of skyscrapers, bossed by Tammany Hall, and obsessed by the idea of modernity, before continuing to Massachusetts.

Clark University, of which G. Stanley Hall was president, was honoring Freud with a doctorate and an invitation to deliver a week's worth of lectures on psychoanalysis -- for which Freud was pulling down a hefty $714.60. Jung was also to lecture. Ferenczi, a close friend to Freud and disciple of psychoanalysis, seemed to be along for the ride, thrilling to America.

After insuring his life for 20,000 marks--$4,764--Freud took a train to Bremen to join Jung and Ferenczi the day before boarding their ship. Hosting a farewell lunch, Freud ordered wine. Jung, a teetotaler, didn't want wine, but at Freud's insistence he agreed to have some. Curiously, after Jung capitulated and drank,Freud fainted.

(Jesus wept.)

While the three were in the city, Brill served as the primary tour guide. Jones came from England, via Canada, to join the group.

The first place Brill took his illustrious friends? Coney Island.

After the success of his lectures, and the receipt of his first, and only, academic honor, Freud spent 8 more days in the U.S., "...and most of it was downhill. He was in constant pain not only from his prostatic condition but also from intestinal disorders, which he blamed on American cooking. He felt that his hosts were not sympathetic enough toward his illness. He disliked not being understood when he spoke in German, resented the lack of Old World manners, disapproved of the inhibitions and prudery he perceived in most Americans. Forever after, Freud rarely had a kind word for the U.S. He told Jones, 'America is a mistake; a gigantic mistake, it is true, but none the less a mistake.' He told Hanns Sachs, who later taught psychology in Harvard Medical School, 'America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.'"

Rubenfeld couches his fiction in Freud's dislike of America and in a series of murders --which, of course, require the careful application of the new analysis.

A victim survives the murderous attack, but loses her ability to speak, as well as her memory for the event. Certain that the young woman is an hysteric (and was, prior to the attack, of course), Freud endeavors to cure her, so that she will be able to provide police with a description of her assailant.

I'm only about a third of the way into the book.

The book has to be behind it, don't you think? Behind the dream, my incredible dream?

I didn't think it possible to dream so intricately within a 45 minute period, a time marked by severe discomfort and a measure of indigestion from a surprise dinner of Chinese food -- one dish of which was coated with a questionable garlic sauce.

My dreams are notorious for their boring and literal nature. If I have spent the day correcting papers, by night I dream of working through essays with a trusty red pen. Even interesting opportunities for rich dreaming are made facile by my mind -- the day I first read Saussure and discussed the arbitrary nature of signs, I simply re-experienced a long walk down Shattuck Avenue, seeing once again the lone cast-off black patent leather Mary Jane shoe sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, pristine. Thoughts of a [one-legged?] goth with style. Worry for that goth. Was she alright?

Wow. Where in the world did that come from? The mind, the mind! What a wonder. Even one like mine, in decline, my mind! The arbitrary nature of signs has been the fundamental nagging element since the dream was dreamed.

Strange, isn't it, that I am psychically caught up in these early years of the 20tho century?


Fred served up a surprise dinner and you'd have thought we hadn't had proper food in weeks, the way we devoured it. We ate in that awful way -- with the television blaring, sitting up in bed, surrounded by cats. And not ten minutes afterward, I was asleep.

In the dream, I resided in a large house that may have been a museum -- it was empty except for a central area that contained only one piece. A piece of art? No... it was a beautiful thing but the sense was that it had utility. And was very important. I was its guardian.

My brother-unit TW arrived. There were moments of long silence, and we walked and talked on a rolling green lawn that stretched out from the back glass walls of the house/museum. From the outside, you could see that the house/museum was built of distressed white brick.

We spent a long while standing in the dark, out on the lush green (it sort of glowed), looking in at the lights and airy space inside the house. Always, though, our eyes were drawn to the careful kaleidoscope of color of the... beautiful thing.

I don't know what to call it. There was a moment there at the end when I knew precisely what it was -- in the dream. But, awake and remembering, I cannot see how it could actually be what it was.

We went back in and stood in front of the beautiful thing.

Suddenly, it was reduced to a single item, a lovely, gleaming glass bowl, full of highlights of various blues with swirling creams. I held it up, told TW that I was entrusting it to him "for keeping, for keeping safe."

"She will need it," I declared, adding: "It is worth 5.5 million dollars."

Don't ask me, I don't know -- who *she* is, why $5.5 million?

And I handed the bowl to him. He reached out to take it, but instead came away with what looked like a large coat button. The button, like the bowl, was swirling blue-cream glass, but broken. In half.

He looked at it, quizzically. "It's a chakra," I said.

"It's a broken chakra, and we have to have it fixed."

At that point, TW delivered a speech, the content of which is fading.

That's a lie. It's not fading, I just don't want to remember it.

It was about feeling unworthy, and sad at having missed so many occasions of import in *her* life.

Uncomfortable listening to him, I shushed him by saying that he had been chosen to safeguard this gift, this broken chakra, worth so much. He obviously mattered, he obviously was a part of a whole.

Transformed back into the bowl alone, TW and I carried the glass swirl of a beautiful thing out the back, down across the long, long lawn, and out onto what looked like a busy old-timey English village -- consult your own subconscious for that visual!

We took the first road to the right, which dipped down into a sudden, unexpected forest. Suddenly, we stood before a wonderfully stereotypical cottage -- right out of Hansel and Gretel. A very nice, and obviously fairy-tale wise, elderly woman invited us in.

Somehow, we knew she was An Expert. In Chakra? In beautiful things? In brother-unit feelings of abandonment and worthlessness? I kept waiting for her to fall fully into her role of wise and wizened matron, hoping, to be honest, that she might serve tea.

The bowl turned back into a broken glass button. I handed it to her, and she smiled, then did magic.

The button became whole, vibrant, shiny, milky-blue, smooth.
It grew, with a sound like a ((pop)) -- but was only briefly in its prior incarnation as a bowl -- it kept going, morphing.

I think it had a copper wire "skeleton," the structure that resulted. From the copper wires were hung many bright sterling silver beads and filigree -- delicate wire work, again in silver, but some in gold. Metallic lace. I have the impression of woven baskets supported by all of that airy interlacing wire.

Impression, because when I focus my eyes, they are no longer woven baskets, but rather an expanded set of those magical glass bowls -- now golden swirls along with cream and blue, a deep but distant teal.

Without any of us discussing how it could be so, we agreed that it was the most beautiful bassinet we had each ever seen...

and that *she* would love it.

Clin J Pain. 2009;25:273-280

The Natural History of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Robert J. Schwartzman, MD, Kirsten L. Erwin, BS, and Guillermo M. Alexander, PhD

Objective: Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a severe
chronic pain condition characterized by sensory, autonomic,
motor, and dystrophic signs and symptoms. This study was
undertaken to expand our current knowledge of the evolution of
CRPS signs and symptoms with duration of disease.

Method: This was a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis using
data extracted from a patient questionnaire to evaluate the clinical
characteristics of CRPS at different time points of disease
progression. Data from the questionnaire included pain characteristics
and associated symptoms. It also included autonomic, motor,
and dystrophic symptoms and also initiating events, ameliorating
and aggravating factors, quality of life, work status, comorbid
conditions, pattern of pain spread, family history, and demographics.
Comparisons were made of different parameters as they
varied with disease duration.

Results: A total of 656 patients with CRPS of at least 1-year
duration were evaluated. The average age of all participants was
37.5 years, with disease duration varying from 1 to 46 years. The
majority of participants were white (96%). A total of 80.3% were
females. None of the patients in this study demonstrated
spontaneous remission of their symptoms. The pain in these
patients was refractory showing only modest improvement with
most current therapies.

Discussion: This study shows that although CRPS is a progressive
disease, after 1 year, the majority of the signs and symptoms were
well developed and although many variables worsen over the
course of the illness, the majority demonstrated only moderate
increases with disease duration.

French Semis

In semi-final action, little Cibulkova just won the opening game, breaking big, bad Safina's service.

Cibulkova hits nice and deep, pretty flat, and is moving Safina around, at will.

I'm just sayin'!

Could be a trend. (I *do* like Safina; More than individual players, though, I love a good match!)

Serena may not know what to say next about rankings...

On the men's side, I continue to have trouble pulling for Federer. Don't know exactly why, given that Nadal is not around to divide my loyalty.

Wing Suits/Base Jumps

Fred urged me to watch this last night. Afterward, he said, eyes glistening, "I am going to do that before I die."

And he smiled a very happy smile.

toujours, ce sacré miroir (et moi, là-dedans...)

I don't know what I am doing with this blog anymore.

Honestly, I'm not fit for human company. Unwashed, in the same clothes I wore yesterday -- I hurt so badly last night that washing and changing were unimportant. Sleep mattered, that was it. Even so, sleep came in spurts of 45 minutes. She's down! She's up!

La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore gave me a look of pure disdain this morning. "Que t'es bête, prof... complètement bête."

To her, it is a matter of will, getting better, an area in which I am found sorely lacking. The fact that there are ungrowable pathogens destroying my bones, and apparently getting into some soft tissue (one side of my face is swollen, to the point where I have a permanent headache and my glasses are digging into the side of my head)? Not pertinent to The Castafiore.

Will it all away.

She is something of a changed woman these days -- being an out-of-work Diva has been both a curse and a strange blessing. Fred and I admit to appreciating the decline in the ear-splitting frequency of L'Air des Bijoux, and that blessed mirror, that laugh approaching hysteria.

You see, Bianca only sings L'Air des Bijoux from Gounod's Faust.

Not that this is at all out of the ordinary, an operatic star fixated on one role, one lyric, one composer. We all can get stuck on our favorite things, certainly on a cherished ditty. But..."Ah, je ris de me voir si belle, dans ce miroir..." -- ad infinitem? ad nauseum? I want to reach through the time and space of fiction to shake that stupid Marguerite, to point out the obvious devil traits before her in the unctuous Faust, all in the hope of getting La Bonne et Belle Bianca, the Milanese Nightingale, to shut up!

So she thinks I am an idiot. I can take it. She has called me worse things, in the middle of some madcap caper or other, usually seeking the approval of Captain Haddock -- what better way than to throw the extraneous French professor under the bus?

Feels like I've nowhere but *here* to emote; My thoughts are hardly worth noting anymore -- repetitive tripe.

I am spending the day making and fielding phone calls from doctors' offices. Now that there is a workable plan to put in place, there's nothing much for me to do except fret. And I am almost too tired and in too much pain to do that.

The current task is the assemblage of medical records that I am to hand carry to this guru of a medicine man, a mere half-day's drive from Marlinspike Hall, deep deep in the Tête de Hergé.

Ah... a wrinkle. Yes just in the space between the last paragraph and this. My MDVIP Go-To-Guy called to say I will likely see the Wizard next Tuesday. He paused and then regaled me with the heartwarming story of how, seeing that the Wizard-Guru Man has just relocated here from Ohio, he's not had time to establish his insurance connections. "That might be a problem for you," opines my Go-To-Guy. Bull Crap Bull Skeet of Tête de Hergé is an imposing monolith of a health insurer, indeed.

YOU THINK? GAWD...

Am I so sick that I am supposed to be able to magically bankroll this consultation? I have spent over $20,000 thus far this year on health care -- and that money came straight out of my investment account, the account that was not to be touched because it will hopefully, one day, have enough in it to comfort, shelter, and feed The Fredster and The Castafiore, as well as the Four Felines. It was never meant to be money spent on BCBS, hospitals, doctors, repeatedly unhelpful tests, and month after month of intravenous vancomycin...

That money was supposed to survive me, god damn it.

ah... je ris... je ris... de me voir... si bête, si bête... toujours dans ce sacré miroir...

The expert we are consulting doesn't even have an established surgical team, barely an office -- he is a new prof at the medical college there. Yonder. One of the administrators is going to attempt to get his provider numbers with Bull Crap Bull Skeet of Tête de Hergé tomorrow.

But everyone knows my situation vis-à-vis the paddle and the creek -- so I may have to write a magic check.