Yesterday morning, Jess convinced me to go to the ER. My brother had optained some script level painkillers and we drove all the way to Nashua to pick them up. He had already left, I could barely stand up or sit down. We had the dog with us so we drove to my mother's house. She loves that dog, and I think that her chance to dogsit offset the normal mom-anxieties.
The doctor at Lowell General was great: talked about JFK, core strength, and climbing Mt. Rainier. Turns out it wasn't a herniated disc, but just a serious muscle strain that I reinjured this week. By Friday, I could barely eat or sleep because I felt so uncomfortable. Those who know me ought to be shocked. At my worst, I don't lose my appetite.
A shot and a painkiller still left me hardly able to walk, so I gave in and gobbled a handful of the pills. I'd been putting off taking anything, even refusing the spare percocents offered by a friend, but, at this point, I no longer cared.
An hour after the fistful of pharmaceutics, I could walk, bent but free. In relation to my struggles earlier in the day, I was flying, weightless. After spending three days lying down, being able to walk without pain counted as one of my life's great joys.
Late last night, Jess got up to go to bed, and, while feeding the dog, slipped in the water around the dish and banged her head. She became dizzy, mumbled incoherently, and showed signs of a concussion. I was still under the effects of the drugs, but was aware enough to make sure she was okay, even if I couldn't do much about it either way. This morning, she woke up and started vomiting, so it was back to the ER, this time in Groton.
The stay there was even longer: the doctor was sharp -- I overheard him talking knowingly on the phone about neologisms and aphasia, just where the writer and the doctor are closest -- but it was a small hospital and the staff were hit by a string of emergencies after our arrival. Sitting, first next to Jess on the gurney, and then in a chair, caused a lot of stress on my spine, and, by the time we left hours later, not only were we hungry having not eaten all day, but I was back to walking with my body bent like a cheese curl.
Having not eaten all day, but having been kept right across from the nurses's station, where chips and bon bons and cake and sandwiches and sodas were nearly constantly consumed by the team, Jess was famished despite the day's difficulties and we loaded up on subs, chips, nuts, and sodas as soon as we got back on 119. The sun was starting to set. We had to go pick up the Dufflebag. First nice weekend of the year, and we saw it pass us by through hospital windows.
*
Thankfully, living in the horizontal world gives me plenty of time to read and watch movies: finished Yates, started Geoff Dyer; saw Mongol, Bourne Ultimatum, The Changeling, and four of the recent South Park episodes. Enjoyed all, except for Bourne -- spy thrillers don't have much of a pull on me. I'll leave it to others to figure out why.
I have been reading Sherlock Holmes stories recently, but that is different, because, in Doyle, crime is incidental to a probing of the nature of reason, and questions about the perfectability of thought, about the nature of cognition, of aesthetics, and of intellectual freedom. Side note: Holmes dispatches his great adversary Moriarty with a modified judo throw -- Holmes practiced a British self-defense style called bartitsu, a mix of judo, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and stick fighting. Another side note: I remembered that Holmes did cocaine, but never realized how much. A final side note: the passages on Holmes's love of music are beautiful and profound. Holmes is a musician and a love of music, and he seems to use music to deliberately offset the parts of himself drawn to a too-mechanical objectivity and to isolation.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Brokeback Cat Toy
Earlier this week, it seemed as though my back was nearly healed. I went on a hike over the weekend and taught bjj on Monday night. However, after a 45 minute hike on Tuesday, I felt the brief hitch that seems to signal doom. It is worse now than after the original injury -- yesterday I had to slowly crawl through the house if I needed to use the toilet.
I couldn't walk up the stairs last night to bed, so I slept on the couch, which meant I didn't sleep much because each of the three animals took it in turn to take advantage of my situation. I was jumped on, rubbed against, licked, and patted. This might sound like a kickass porn vid, but it left me cursing the dawn.
*
That's the bad news. The good news is that I set myself a task on Monday: to write every day. On Monday and Tuesday I produced drafts of two short stories. Then, after getting a facebook message from a local filmmaker, I was inspired to work on a script. I lifted a core idea from my second short story and used that to sculpt a basic story. I went online and read webpages about how to build scripts, and I read through a handful of samples.
As the story grew, I began to see it as a dark comedy about a young teenager. I decided it would be mature and without condescension, while at the same time avoiding profanity. This came from my difficulties finding movies to watch with the Dufflebag -- he has a sense that kid's films are somehow beneath him, but the amount of stuff aimed for teens that doesn't involve super duper villains or the ghosts of Porky's is slim. So that's the starting point. I stayed up until three in the morning doing an outline, diagramming conflict, obstacles, characters, all the classic film stuff, just to have a sense of where I was going before I settle in and hope the words write themselves.
I couldn't walk up the stairs last night to bed, so I slept on the couch, which meant I didn't sleep much because each of the three animals took it in turn to take advantage of my situation. I was jumped on, rubbed against, licked, and patted. This might sound like a kickass porn vid, but it left me cursing the dawn.
*
That's the bad news. The good news is that I set myself a task on Monday: to write every day. On Monday and Tuesday I produced drafts of two short stories. Then, after getting a facebook message from a local filmmaker, I was inspired to work on a script. I lifted a core idea from my second short story and used that to sculpt a basic story. I went online and read webpages about how to build scripts, and I read through a handful of samples.
As the story grew, I began to see it as a dark comedy about a young teenager. I decided it would be mature and without condescension, while at the same time avoiding profanity. This came from my difficulties finding movies to watch with the Dufflebag -- he has a sense that kid's films are somehow beneath him, but the amount of stuff aimed for teens that doesn't involve super duper villains or the ghosts of Porky's is slim. So that's the starting point. I stayed up until three in the morning doing an outline, diagramming conflict, obstacles, characters, all the classic film stuff, just to have a sense of where I was going before I settle in and hope the words write themselves.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
For the Bland Mexican
Writing my review of Felipe's Taqueria left me thinking how much I could go for food with a little heart right now.
Elementary Particles
I took Jess to Mt. Auburn hospital yesterday for surgery. I figured it would be a good time to visit one of my favorite cheap eats restaurants for the column, but had to leave the car in the hospital garage. Along the way, I needed to deposit a check for Jess that she didn't have time to herself.
I walked all the way to the International Buddhist Progress Society, nearly all the way to Central Square, and found that it was closed on Mondays. Perhaps because my herniated disc forced me to walk awkwardly, I developed large blisters on my feet. I had only enough money for lunch -- I sold a video game at Newbury Comics so I would have enough. No taxi. I walked back, very slowly, all while circling around and looking for a Bank of America. Not an ATM. But a bank.
Finding none, I made it back to the hospital after stopping at an inexpensive but awful little burrito shop in Harvard Square.
I still needed to find a bank, so I got the car out of the garage and started driving. Luckily, I found one in Watertown, and made the deposit, although it required the intervention of the manager. By this point, I couldn't stand up straight because of my back. I was supposed to be lying down but had done nothing but walk or sit since six that morning, when I drove to pick up my mother to babysit the Dufflebag.
I made it back to the hospital and started a series of check-ins on Jess's condition. They continually added more hours to the projected recovery time, so I was worried about her. Despite this, the time moved very quickly. I payed for a large coffee with my remaining change and sat in the hospital lobby. The cleanliness of Mt. Auburn, and the friendliness of its staff, is almost comical. At one point I considered asking the woman at the information desk for a back massage.
The main lobby was nearly deserted, and most people there maintained a respectful silence. This was broken only briefly by the sort of loud mouthed invalid I was expecting to deal with all day, but his ride thankfully showed up and he was on his way without much fuss. I read nearly half of Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles. I've had it lying around for a while and I'm not sure why I picked it up but I can't imagine a more engaging read under the circumstances. It's a book that makes me want to write. With that book, the hours in the lobby passed with none of the normal waiting room feelings of restriction and frustration.
Jess came out tired but in good health, and the surgery went well. The drive home normally takes about an hour, but this took over two, partly because of two accidents on route two, and partly because of delays at CVS: we had to wait inside to file for her pain medications, wait fifteen in the car, wait in the drive through for another ten, find out the meds weren't ready yet, queue up again in the drive through, one more time for good measure when it still wasn't ready, and then finally head off to home.
My mother has the dog under her sweater and was watching Fox news.
I drove her home, printed out some copies of my resume, since we don't have a printer, and ate two nearly raw sausages. I hadn't eaten since my bad burrito eaten eight hours previously and was hungry enough to get them down.
After making another failed attempt to find my R. Crumb's history of the blues book, I drove back home for the final time, where Jess and I started Let the Right One In and got halfway through before falling asleep. Both of us wanted to finish the film -- we were getting wrapped up in it -- but between the drugs and day, there was too much weariness and we couldn't hold off.
I took a razor to my blisters, one of which was filled with so much fluid that it shot, in a stream, three feet across the room. I lay down and my back began to spasm uncontrollably. This didn't hurt, the rapid firing of the muscles, but I had to wait for it to subside before giving in and letting go. Five hours later, I was woken up by repeated attacks on my toes by the cats. Jess was in pain and couldn't sleep, and had moved downstairs to watch the Sex and the City dvds Mac and Ana lent us this weekend.
Back upstairs, one cat would claw at the door, come in, attack the drapes, and leave. Then the other would come in, jump on the bed and start going for the feet.
If I locked them out, they would cry at the door to be let in.
Finally, I just gave in and started reading essays about Michel Houellebecq on the Internet.
Today is for coffee and retreat. That seems fair.
I walked all the way to the International Buddhist Progress Society, nearly all the way to Central Square, and found that it was closed on Mondays. Perhaps because my herniated disc forced me to walk awkwardly, I developed large blisters on my feet. I had only enough money for lunch -- I sold a video game at Newbury Comics so I would have enough. No taxi. I walked back, very slowly, all while circling around and looking for a Bank of America. Not an ATM. But a bank.
Finding none, I made it back to the hospital after stopping at an inexpensive but awful little burrito shop in Harvard Square.
I still needed to find a bank, so I got the car out of the garage and started driving. Luckily, I found one in Watertown, and made the deposit, although it required the intervention of the manager. By this point, I couldn't stand up straight because of my back. I was supposed to be lying down but had done nothing but walk or sit since six that morning, when I drove to pick up my mother to babysit the Dufflebag.
I made it back to the hospital and started a series of check-ins on Jess's condition. They continually added more hours to the projected recovery time, so I was worried about her. Despite this, the time moved very quickly. I payed for a large coffee with my remaining change and sat in the hospital lobby. The cleanliness of Mt. Auburn, and the friendliness of its staff, is almost comical. At one point I considered asking the woman at the information desk for a back massage.
The main lobby was nearly deserted, and most people there maintained a respectful silence. This was broken only briefly by the sort of loud mouthed invalid I was expecting to deal with all day, but his ride thankfully showed up and he was on his way without much fuss. I read nearly half of Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles. I've had it lying around for a while and I'm not sure why I picked it up but I can't imagine a more engaging read under the circumstances. It's a book that makes me want to write. With that book, the hours in the lobby passed with none of the normal waiting room feelings of restriction and frustration.
Jess came out tired but in good health, and the surgery went well. The drive home normally takes about an hour, but this took over two, partly because of two accidents on route two, and partly because of delays at CVS: we had to wait inside to file for her pain medications, wait fifteen in the car, wait in the drive through for another ten, find out the meds weren't ready yet, queue up again in the drive through, one more time for good measure when it still wasn't ready, and then finally head off to home.
My mother has the dog under her sweater and was watching Fox news.
I drove her home, printed out some copies of my resume, since we don't have a printer, and ate two nearly raw sausages. I hadn't eaten since my bad burrito eaten eight hours previously and was hungry enough to get them down.
After making another failed attempt to find my R. Crumb's history of the blues book, I drove back home for the final time, where Jess and I started Let the Right One In and got halfway through before falling asleep. Both of us wanted to finish the film -- we were getting wrapped up in it -- but between the drugs and day, there was too much weariness and we couldn't hold off.
I took a razor to my blisters, one of which was filled with so much fluid that it shot, in a stream, three feet across the room. I lay down and my back began to spasm uncontrollably. This didn't hurt, the rapid firing of the muscles, but I had to wait for it to subside before giving in and letting go. Five hours later, I was woken up by repeated attacks on my toes by the cats. Jess was in pain and couldn't sleep, and had moved downstairs to watch the Sex and the City dvds Mac and Ana lent us this weekend.
Back upstairs, one cat would claw at the door, come in, attack the drapes, and leave. Then the other would come in, jump on the bed and start going for the feet.
If I locked them out, they would cry at the door to be let in.
Finally, I just gave in and started reading essays about Michel Houellebecq on the Internet.
Today is for coffee and retreat. That seems fair.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
And, Finally, We Move
Today, I got hired as the area Cheap Eats writer for the Examiner.com. Would you kindly send me information about your favorite inexpensive places in the Boston area? Anyone willing to take me to such places will have favors returned in kind when I start getting comped.
*
Other news: amazon.com has quite a few sampler albums available for free download as mp3s, including those put out by Anti and Sub Pop. Take advantage while you can. With a little searching around, I was able to add a few tunes to the library I'd been looking for, and discovered some interesting new music in the process.
*
Today's New Yorker arrived. That's all for now. Time to read!
*
Other news: amazon.com has quite a few sampler albums available for free download as mp3s, including those put out by Anti and Sub Pop. Take advantage while you can. With a little searching around, I was able to add a few tunes to the library I'd been looking for, and discovered some interesting new music in the process.
*
Today's New Yorker arrived. That's all for now. Time to read!
Clawing the Corridors
The herniated disc continues to offer hidden blessings: I spent a lot of time prepping for the MTEL exam again today. Not that the test seems particularly hard, but I still have a nerdy teenager's revulsion at getting a single answer wrong. So I'm doing exercises in my head: name as many conjunctions as you can; define abjure; list rules of capitalization relating to geography. Good, clean fun.
*
Go through a murky, impressionistic part of The Hamlet and am back into what I like most: Balzacian realism, or so the critics call it. The murk made me want to give up, once again, on the old mudmaster, but I'm glad I decided to trudge on and find the jewels that lay beyond: Protestant love confusion, heat, and shady dealings in Frenchman's Bend.
*
Now, I'm off to the store, gingerly. Yes, I know. I'm not supposed to be running around. But I'm under twin imperatives that go beyond hunger. I have to rest up, but I can't let the old carcass just rot either. And I quick trip to the produce section is about as mild an exercise as I might conceive. It's easier than taking a shower, surprisingly, physically, although more taxing in terms of feeling plain helpless. It's tough to go out into the world knowing I could be beaten up by your average eight year old. Damn back.
*
Go through a murky, impressionistic part of The Hamlet and am back into what I like most: Balzacian realism, or so the critics call it. The murk made me want to give up, once again, on the old mudmaster, but I'm glad I decided to trudge on and find the jewels that lay beyond: Protestant love confusion, heat, and shady dealings in Frenchman's Bend.
*
Now, I'm off to the store, gingerly. Yes, I know. I'm not supposed to be running around. But I'm under twin imperatives that go beyond hunger. I have to rest up, but I can't let the old carcass just rot either. And I quick trip to the produce section is about as mild an exercise as I might conceive. It's easier than taking a shower, surprisingly, physically, although more taxing in terms of feeling plain helpless. It's tough to go out into the world knowing I could be beaten up by your average eight year old. Damn back.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Couching It
Today, my back is worse, and it was a big struggle to get out of bed and get the Dufflebag to school. Lots of wallholding.
I stopped with the heating pad and opted for ice packs, which brought some relief: clear but temporary.
Since I've done nothing but lie around trying to heal up, I managed a trip to the store to buy a french press -- I've been using a decades old drip maker that seems to impart a certain unlikeable somethingness to the coffee that makes it hard to stomach. I bought a supercheap press earlier this year at a Chinese market, but the screen falls off the post with every use, making cleaning time last longer than drinking time.
So, I have a french press.
I took the first part of the MTEL practice exam today and am starting to focus on the licensing exam. If I could suffer this back problem at any time, now is it, since it makes it much easier for me to stem my curiosities and stick to the subjects at hand.
I stopped with the heating pad and opted for ice packs, which brought some relief: clear but temporary.
Since I've done nothing but lie around trying to heal up, I managed a trip to the store to buy a french press -- I've been using a decades old drip maker that seems to impart a certain unlikeable somethingness to the coffee that makes it hard to stomach. I bought a supercheap press earlier this year at a Chinese market, but the screen falls off the post with every use, making cleaning time last longer than drinking time.
So, I have a french press.
I took the first part of the MTEL practice exam today and am starting to focus on the licensing exam. If I could suffer this back problem at any time, now is it, since it makes it much easier for me to stem my curiosities and stick to the subjects at hand.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Spurs
It's been three weeks since I started training again. For one of those, I had to stop for a sinus infection. Now, I believe I herniated a disc and can do little more than lie down, shifting for more comfortable positions.
It bothers me, not being able to train, and not being able to go on a short hike yesterday. But even simple tasks like making coffee are difficult. A nuisance. I have considered relating the difficulties that come along with wiping my ass, but suffice to say it takes less time to simply take a shower.
It does give me time to study for the MTEL, which I'm taking in early May, and to read Faulkner's The Hamlet.
I remember struggling with Faulkner when I was younger, and telling Charlie that I just didn't get it. If I remember correctly, he suggested that was astute on my part, and suggested you needed to be from the South to truly "get" Faulkner.
As I read him now, I do get the sense that his writing is all the more vivid now that I spent a short period of time on a farm. The world he describes is still agricultural. Now that I know what "cutting to the quick" really means, a scene with a botched horse shoeing makes more sense. It also seems to accord well with the times: money, food, work. Confidence games. Aspiration. And all told in a prose that is dense and rich.
*
I watched both Monte Hellman's Cockfighter and the bonus Warren Oates biopic this weekend. I'll probably go through the commentary track today.
It is an impressive film, and deserves to be seen by more than just the cinema insiders who are drawn to it. In fact, it worked well alongside Faulkner, in terms of setting and tone, even if I suspect the Charles Willeford novel it is based on is unfaulknerian.
For those of you haven't seen it yet, Warren Oates plays a cockfighter who takes a vow of silence after a drunken, foolish bet makes him lose his chance for the coveted Cockfighter of the Year award, given out by the state Senator despite cockfighting being, at the time, illegal.
It is a basic story: a man torn between love and vocation, but it is also entirely fucked up. His vocation, after all, is disreputable and his ability to maintain meaningful relationships is stunted.
Hellman, at his best, works with simple stories but focuses on the sort of casual but meaningful details that other directors ignore. Watch the movie carefully and you could probably put short spurs on a game cock yourself.
It bothers me, not being able to train, and not being able to go on a short hike yesterday. But even simple tasks like making coffee are difficult. A nuisance. I have considered relating the difficulties that come along with wiping my ass, but suffice to say it takes less time to simply take a shower.
It does give me time to study for the MTEL, which I'm taking in early May, and to read Faulkner's The Hamlet.
I remember struggling with Faulkner when I was younger, and telling Charlie that I just didn't get it. If I remember correctly, he suggested that was astute on my part, and suggested you needed to be from the South to truly "get" Faulkner.
As I read him now, I do get the sense that his writing is all the more vivid now that I spent a short period of time on a farm. The world he describes is still agricultural. Now that I know what "cutting to the quick" really means, a scene with a botched horse shoeing makes more sense. It also seems to accord well with the times: money, food, work. Confidence games. Aspiration. And all told in a prose that is dense and rich.
*
I watched both Monte Hellman's Cockfighter and the bonus Warren Oates biopic this weekend. I'll probably go through the commentary track today.
It is an impressive film, and deserves to be seen by more than just the cinema insiders who are drawn to it. In fact, it worked well alongside Faulkner, in terms of setting and tone, even if I suspect the Charles Willeford novel it is based on is unfaulknerian.
For those of you haven't seen it yet, Warren Oates plays a cockfighter who takes a vow of silence after a drunken, foolish bet makes him lose his chance for the coveted Cockfighter of the Year award, given out by the state Senator despite cockfighting being, at the time, illegal.
It is a basic story: a man torn between love and vocation, but it is also entirely fucked up. His vocation, after all, is disreputable and his ability to maintain meaningful relationships is stunted.
Hellman, at his best, works with simple stories but focuses on the sort of casual but meaningful details that other directors ignore. Watch the movie carefully and you could probably put short spurs on a game cock yourself.
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