"Nadir my foot" or "Waiting for the other shoe to drop"

OK sorry I was going to start with something else but I have to say this. My cellmate's husband was just being a condescending asshole to the cleaning lady. Do not go there, man. That woman tries to maintain some standard of cleanliness in a room containing your odoriferous wife. All I need is for you to alienate my best friend in this shithole. In the interest of keeping this entry relatively free of profanity I will change the subject.

So the mustard gas. Apparently it's got a maximum toxicity at about 7-10 days. So here I've been anticipating the nasty delayed side effects, just dreading the weekend because I would be barfing and worse all over the place, fever, shaking, delirium, begging them to just let me die. And NOTHING! I know I'm lucky. I mean, not 100% because my poor little Tin-tin hair has started to get that characteristic tingly feel so Gollum will be back but oh well. Like I said, just tell me it'll be worth it and screw the hair, but you can't do that, can you?

So here's how I am re-orientating (as the Brits would say) my thinking. (And no, I still haven't learned my lesson about the direct relationship between anticipation and disappointment.) As long as I can avoid getting so much as a cold for the next several days, my stem cells will have a chance to graft and start producing whites and that'll be it. Finito. Smooth sailing. A bit optimistic? Perhaps.

God, I love diesi. THE best radio station.

TMI

When you've got Tin-tin (here pronounced tenTEN) hair and two tubes (with your own blood trapped in the hardware) coming out of your neck, you may not do as much mirror gazing as you once did. So it's understandable that I missed the appearance of the sign on my forehead that apparently says: Tell me all about your feces in full and explicit and complete detail.

To my cell mate,
You are vile. For your own sake, start respecting the laws of common discretion because I am about to strangle you. If I wasn't too grossed out to approach you, I might have already done it.
Yours truly.

Ahh... Pantelis on the radio. What a charmer.

Reporting from County

This from the 3rd floor room whose window should have bars because I'm about to jump out...

Dude if I had any hair I would be pulling it out by the roots right now. Lou's had this blog for over two years and I've posted more in the last ten days than in the previous 26 months. But let me make an important announcement, listen up.

1) I WILL NEVER COMMIT A CRIME THAT COULD LAND ME IN JAIL.
2) I WILL ALWAYS BE AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE FROM OTHER PEOPLE COMMITTING CRIMES THAT COULD LAND THEM AND, BY ASSOCIATION, ME IN JAIL.
3) IF I EVER END UP IN JAIL, IT WILL FEEL LIKE THIS POEM:

The eternal, infernal three weeks

Stuck stuck stuck in jail.
Stinky snorer at my side.
Physically assaulted, poked, prodded.
Days are long, nights longer.
Oh when will sweet parole come?

Nothing to do, nowhere to go.
Not welcome out there.
Scrutinized, measured, rated.
Close the door, close the window.
Oh when will gentle furlough arrive?

The Perch Revolts

The following advice comes straight from the perch:

If you see a big lump in the bed, hidden under layers of bedding, it's not necessarily your nightshirt and stocking cap stuck under there. It could be Sir Lou Reese (form of White Fang) (shape of Arfur) preparing to attack. That is, of course, if he has enough brain cells left to get the job done.

Ok, so maybe I was a torturer in a past life and that's why I have such bad karma, but did I really deserve a cat in this life with almost as many psychological problems as I have myself? Is that fair, Ganesh? Shouldn't a house guest be able to rest her weary head without The Wrath of the Badderson Line descending upon her? I ask you.

I remember

Yesterday I had a little impromptu gmail chat with Rach, prompted by my sister wanting to know how old her mom was. I generally (actually, as a rule) avoid chatting people when I see they're logged on-- I feel like I'm invading their few minutes of internet time they have to check their mail. Anyway, yesterday we ended up having a nice little exchange and I reminded her of this saying she had told me, like a philosophy, which has been one of the tenets of my life and that I use to reflect on my behaviour and way of looking at myself in relation to other people (!!!), I mean one of the top ten, and she was like, 'oh, I said that? hmm...'

SO IT GOT ME THINKING (more, because this is something I sorta think about a lot) about how we perceive each other and how our memories of other people and ourselves are different from theirs of them and us, and sometimes somebody from our past can say, this is who you were for/to me, and it's different from what you remember, and it can make you feel good or bad. And sometimes when we tell our friends what we remember (this is perhaps more 'eventful' for me because I live far away from my old friends and am one of the world's very worst correspondents and I have a very bad memory, so I'm not always reminiscing and kaffeeklatsching (sp) with everybody) we can give them new perspective by reminding them of the old.

Somebody on Oprah (Dr Oz?) said that our basic personalities are formed by the age of six. So people I knew in grade school are the same people I knew in grade school, with just more layers of sophistication or responsibilities or baby spit-up. And even though I say I have a bad memory, I may remember that a certain friend was a person who took charge of her life at a young age, figured out what she wanted, and is one of the very few people I know that is pursuing what she loves today, professionally and personally. So when her spunky daughter is being a bucking billy goat, she should take heart in the fact that at the very least she is an excellent role model, a living example, and shouldn't be so hard on herself.

You probably don't know that one of my favorite movies is The Kid, that Disney movie with Bruce Willis and Spencer Breslin, where a forty-ish guy somehow meets his 12-year-old (?) self from the past and they deal with their (self-) loathing and learn to love themselves/each other. It's not that hokey. What does it mean to live up to your own dreams and ideals? Should you try to live up to dreams you had for yourself when you were younger? What does it mean to let yourself down? Have your ideals simply changed or have you failed yourself? There's this line where Breslin says, "I'm forty and I don't have a dog?!?! I'm a LOSER!" which particularly resonates. I often wonder what my 15-year-old self would think of me now. I don't mean about being sick, she'd be freaked. But would she be impressed and excited that she moved away and was managing to live in a different place and had had my experiences, or would she see a good deal of these 20 years as wasted, her dreams as squandered? Just wondering...

Getting penic

I know, right? tee hee hee

So for the past several days cutie doc walks in and says, "you're not penic yet." And, of course, getting penic has nothing to do with getting some, but with tanking blood levels, so neutropenia, leukopenia, lymphopenia, etc. Oh, well. So that's all I'm up to, waiting to tank, waiting to be waited on while my stem cells get down to some hard work. Roomie is doing great, so if she's any indication, things won't probably be that bad. But no action of the other kind foreseen in the ospedale this time...

A study in contrasts

This is the view I should be enjoying (the new hibiscus on my balcony whose color I didn't even know until K brought me a picture off her mobile. Instead, and I know this is WRONG in every way imaginable, I'm in a place where it's more common to see this: (Believe me it is WRONG.) There is this horrible museum that you have to walk through to get to the snack bar (!) with specimens whose formaldehyde mostly evaporated (!) decades ago and which are unidentifiable, even if you wanted to know what they are, which trust me you don't. Do not even ask me or yourself what this is: