Originally Posted Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Thanksgiving Eve descends upon the country. Some say that, in our multicultural society, it is the most important holiday of the year, one in which EVERYONE can partake of the celebration of a new nation. It is mostly true.
Everyone but me.
My mother and I had plans for the Hillbilly Holidays again this year, and I had looked forward to going, truly, before the disease, then after I tried my best to get well enough to go for my mother for whom it is a very big treat. But I'm not able to. I can't stand the two and a half hour car ride to a house full of relatives where I must sit up and chat with while the family prepares food I cannot eat. Sorry mom, I said, I just don't think I can make it.
"That's O.K.," she said. "I wasn't looking forward to going over there anyway."
Liar. But that's my mom. So we will stay in our own hometown and have something safe and bland, probably at my house so I can lie down immediately after.
But don't cry for me, Argentina. Not yet. I think I'm on the mend. At the factory yesterday, I felt the building sway as I was standing in conversation with another worker. I didn't say anything, didn't let on, but I had a true and wondrous panic. Later, day done early, I went to the grocery store. And again, the floor swayed, the shelves tilted. But this time, my hands began to shake, my muscles began to twitch. The thing about having one disease is that you tend to blame everything on it and overlook the fact that you may have multiple diseases at once. Hell, this could be brain cancer for all I know. I had planned to eat something easy on the stomach again that night, but I felt the need for food. I grabbed a package of brown rice tuna rolls in the sushi department, then a package of sliced honey baked turkey breast, some Carr's crackers, creamy peanut butter, and then a carton of organic chocolate milk. It is a little known fact that chocolate milk is almost always low fat.
When I got home, my whole body was quivering. I sat down with a big glass of ginger ale and the sushi.
And within ten minutes, I felt like a champ. I opened the turkey and the package of crackers. Man, suddenly I was hungry. After that, I decided to relax with some "Californication" and a glass of chocolate milk. Before bed, I was playing my guitar and singing "You Can't Always Get What You Want" because I heard it on the closing credits of the show.
I read a bit before bed.
Night. I woke in it. It was time to take an antibiotic. I felt things in my stomach. What? I drank a big glass of water to wash the biotic poison down and lay back in my bed. Shit! Which one did I take? I'm pretty sure I took the wrong one, I thought. Fuck me, I'm losing it. What was that I was feeling in my gut? Pain, maybe. Gas? Perhaps I needed to poop.
If you are a medical paranoid like me, you will understand the black thoughts that are part and parcel of every sensation.
Morning. Victory. Almost. I mean. . . it was almost a poop!
I will eat lightly today, but no more Ensure. I have more energy. Maybe I should live on brown rice and tuna. I think with avocado, it would be the perfect diet, balanced between the yin and the yang.
There was little in the news this morning to react to. Ferguson and people trying to parse things, learn lessons, etc. I don't mean to be flippant about it, but I am. It is like the Arabs and the Jews. It ain't ever going to work out on a universal scale. Arabs and Jews, Blacks and Whites, they get along on a personal level. But in groups, shit, it ain't ever going to work out. Little does, even when you think you are in love.
On a fun note, I don't think my big fat gut is an inch smaller than it was a week ago. I probably drink 2,000 calories a day on a normal day, but of course I haven't had a drink since the hospital. On a normal day, I eat, too. Again, I haven't. But fat is a fighter, man, it loves to hang around. I'm becoming a big fan, really. It is one of the most tenacious things in the cosmos. There are lessons to be learned from it. How does it do it? How does it survive until the rest of the body collapses? Muscles wither, connective tissues snap, but fat. . . fuck, it is the last thing to go. I'll be no David Duchovny. Today it is creamy peanut butter and bananas. Yum.
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