05 December 2010




And then Megg and Laini came along. Again.










17 November 2010

"Partial Rat Body Part"







02 November 2010





Yeah yeah yeah.

































That's what she said.

24 October 2010

Curiosity Killed the FireCat (or, The Post That Goes Just About Nowhere)

My curiosity isn't the kind that electrocutes small children, or poisons household pets, or causes cartoon characters to turn into an animal-shaped pile of cinders. For some reason, I've never been the "what happens if I put the knife into the electrical outlet?" kind of curious, or the "gee, what's this green stuff taste like?" kind of curious, or even the "what happens if I pull this string, Allan?" kind of curious. (The answer to that last question, by the way, is apparently, "My shorts will fall off." I wasn't there at the time, but I heard the story for days afterward.)

No, mine is the kind of curious that sends one to grad school. Repeatedly. What's with all the little boats in Dante? Is rose a rose a rose? Why can't we, once and for all, decide how to spell the Wife of Bath's name? And for god's sake, will someone please smack Werther upside the head and give him an SSRI? For the good of all Europe? Seriously.

The alarming result of this particular strain of academic curiosity is that--oh God. I'm about to confess this out loud. On the Internet. Ok. The result of this is that I love writing papers.

There. I said it, ok? I love writing academic research papers. Call the ambulance on me, lock me up in an ivory tower, hit me in the face with a waffle iron, do whatever you want, but it's true. Except, mostly, what I like is the research part. I don't necessarily like sitting my arse on the chair and cobbling the pieces together (which is sometimes what it feels like, especially this past semester), but I love logging into JSTOR and following the thread of my ideas and seeing where it leads. This, despite the fact that more than once in the past several months I have typed in literary search parameters and gotten a certain article about White-Faced Capuchin monkeys. I am not making this up.

Presently, however, it has led me to the most frustrating dead end of my life. I've got all these fabulous ingredients, but they don't make soup. They make smoosh. I know it. Chaucer knows it. My cats know it. My rough draft knows it (and, as a result, is being more recalcitrant than usual). Worst of all, the professor knows it. The Scots-English word "fookt" does not even begin to describe my situation here. I am several pages into nowhere, and need to have been finished already by the time I meet the professor tomorrow to discuss possible solutions. This is due to a glitch in the matrix known as "I have a marathon to run out of town next weekend and am not due to return home until thirty seconds before this paper is actually due, and you can't give me an extension because immediately (as in, the four days type of immediately, so, super-immediately) after that is my qualifying exam, for which I still have 200 pages of reading."

Sorry. This isn't really a post about curiosity. This is really a post about sheer, unmitigated panic. But that's what I'm good for right now.

That, and lots and lots of coffee.

22 October 2010

Chocolate-Flavoured Love

This is not a post about fair trade month, ILRF, the new documentary about child slavery in the cocoa sector, or the musical Hair. Nope, it's about bras. Well, sort of. But it is about chocolate. And breasts.

Slow your roll there, Sparky. I am not about to get kinky. Please. I'm not that kind of nerd. I am, however, about to get amused. Very, very amused.

Because a certain high-end lingerie boutique reviewed in the New York Times last month apparently keeps a bowl of gourmet chocolates by the register. I do not know whether the intent was to be humourous, or whether the proprietress is simply fond of almonds.

Regardless, my delectable treat has a very distinct silhouette.


04 October 2010
















28 September 2010

A Bit of Change

Welcome to the new digs at thefirecat.net! You will notice that the front doormat is missing. Hopefully I will have it unpacked soon. In the meantime, wipe your feet on the cat.

20 September 2010

Race Report: Race Formerly Known as Philly Distance Run, aka "Shut Your Face, Carl."

Our story begins Saturday, around 11:45 AM, when I am fresh from the shower, robed and dripping wet. And my phone rings. And it's Carl. And he's in Philly, when his train shouldn't even have left yet. We're supposed to meet at the hotel at 2. I'm not packed. I'm not even dressed. Fortunately I am an expert in the subcategory of "Throwing Shit into Backpacks and Hopping in the Car." I proceed to do just that. Also fortunately, I've already had the race gear laid out for about a day and a half, because that's a whole different category of packing. Lube? Check. Socks? Check. Extra hair ties? Check. Gu? Check. Safety pins? Check. Lucky snot bandana? Um, check. But I'll get to that later.

So, I fly down 95 with the tunes cranked and avail myself of the generously included valet parking (Carl, if you're lying about that, I owe you $36 and then I'll smack you NCIS-style.) Carl does some pointing and laughing at my LETS GO METS keychain. I drop my gear on the bed closest to the bathroom, of course, and we hit the expo and met Charlotte and Bill. Charlotte and I proceed to lose Carl because he's still shopping, I hit the main expo floor and score some deeply discounted Mizunos--and MAN ARE THEY PINK--and visit the Power Balance booth. In part because I'm curious, in part because I want to piss off Jerry.

Then, we meet up with Mike--hey Carl, who is that hot Marine in the tie-dye and flipflops?!--and Len for the obligatory Maggiano's dinner. Charlotte meets Smart-Car cake. Her reaction is almost as good as the cake. Sit around in the hotel lobby shooting the shit until 8:15 or so. Lots of cackling and interpretive-dance type flailing. Then upstairs for a few episodes of NCIS, which Carl has to explain to me. Interspersed with all this activity are certain pre-race rituals that cannot be discussed. Some of them, in fact, cannot be explained. Like the part with the lemming and the Body Glide--but that would violate the non-disclosure agreement that Carl made me sign.

Ahem. Anyway, Sunday morning dawns as predicted--with the very loud strains of Bach on Carl's cell phone, a yodel of "Good morning, Morning Glory!" from the other bed, and me muttering, "Shut your face, Carl." Things only deteriorate further when he emerges from the bathroom singing and I am forced to use my stuffed bear as a missile. Seriously, man, how does your wife stand you before noon? When I emerge from the bathroom, Carl has bought Starbucks and pumpkin bread. What a mensch. I take back at least a couple of the mean things I said about him. We indulge in more weird pre-race rituals (as you can imagine, mine involves a lot of peeing.) We go downstairs to meet the crew. Mike is nowhere to be found. Eventually we figure he must have struck out on his own because he's not answering his house phone. So much for leave no man behind.

We find Len at Logan Circle and continue our trek to our respective corrals. We dump Carl at Corral 5, where apparently we stop and pose for a photo that I don't remember. We continue on to Corral 13, where we realise that portajohn lines are not getting any shorter. So we get in one. Charlotte and I are in line long enough to make friends with the women in front of us. Someone up at the front passes back a bog roll, thank god. We're still in line when they sing the National Anthem. We're almost at the front of the line when--oh god, Starbucks. Oh god. Starbucks.

Yeah. Despite the kindness of strangers who carry bog roll to races, I end up sacrificing my lucky blue snot bandana to The Cause. I am remarkably displeased about this, er, turn of events. Charlotte gives me a tissue when I finally emerge, in case I--you know--actually have to blow my nose during the damn race. But needless to say, my mind is not particularly on the run at this point. It's mostly about things like my favourite blue bandana. And anti-bacterial wipes. And adult diapers. This is not a normal part of my race-day ritual. It customarily occurs early in the pre-race festivities. Like, the night before. So I'm feeling a little off my game.

Anywhoodle. I leave Charlotte and Len (and Bill, with his collapsible yellow pom-pom on a stick, which always reminds me of something from The Lorax) and continue on my way to the end of the starting area, to a corral marked To Infinity, And Beyond. Here, there are walkers, teenagers,Team in Training noobs, pregnant women, disabled veterans, the juggling man, and a 74-year-old grandfather. These are my people.

Twenty minutes later, we are finally approaching the start. And here come the elite runners, who are at Mile 5. And the elite women. And the elite hand-racer. At which point the female announcer makes a comment over the loudspeaker that seriously pisses me off: "And the people over here who are about to start, they're a bit more casual." Yeah? Yeah??? Fuck you lady. We're not any more casual. We're just more slow. So go screw. (Seriously, I'm emailing my displeasure with that to the RD. That's not ok with me. Way to make me feel three inches tall. There is nothing casual about running 28 miles a week. I don't see you out here training, bitch.)

Ok, I'm over it. Really. We cross the mat, I start my watch, and follow the crowd ahead of me the frack knows where. Seriously. I am less than intimate with the geography of downtown Philly. All I know is we passed my hotel twice and the convention center like, eight times. I'm just following the--oh look, there's the Reading Market. Again. I'm feeling pretty good, mostly just thinking about running at this point, and not falling into any of the Smart-Car-Cake-sized potholes for which Philly is notorious (not to mention the whole train tracks in the street thing) and--oh look, it's JFK Boulevard. I totally know where we are. We're heading back towards the start, where the elite runners passed us before we even started. Cool.

Mile 5: some band is playing Margaritaville. I start giggling and make a mental note to tell Lee and Nita.

Mile 6: another band, a tunnel through the side of a rock, and--oh hey, there's Bill! He doesn't see me, so I do a superman-style leap in front of him. Because, what the heck, I still can. He's got Cytomax and a Clif bar in his backpack for me, but I don't need anything. Except maybe a brain that would remind me to have some Gu, because while other people don't take Gu at six and a half miles, I've been out here for almost an hour and a half. It is what we runners call Time for Gu. And my time is still pretty much either on pace or ahead of pace. I don't really pay much attention, actually. I feel pretty good. I'm in a running groove, the scenery is lovely (the only other time I've run this part of the course was during Midnight Madness for BOMF, so I've never actually seen it) and--oh, hey. Runner down. Not ok. She looks as if she fell and hurt her arm, but she's already strapped on a gurney. Poor dear.

Mile 8 and some change: I discover that I really like blackberry flavoured Gu that they've set out. Much better than the lemon-lime crap that makes my teeth hurt (which is not even as sweet as some of the other flavours). Score. Oh, and hey, here's that bridge that I remember from Midnight Madness. Left turn, Clyde. I'm coming down off the bridge, past the gaggle of middle or high school band members with, like, one trumpet, one trombone, and a couple of saxes, getting ready to feel kind of down and think about a walk break.....and they start playing the Rocky theme. And I am, after all, in Philly. Damn. Damn those pesky kids. I can't help but perk up. Plus, it's downhill and in the shade. Awesome.

I hit mile 10 at a pretty good time (for me) but am starting to get a little cranky. (That's why I make the announcement, Carl.) Mile eleven is seriously the longest mile of the race. All in the sun, I'm hot, I'm cranky, I'm sore, my mouth is dry even though I've got plenty of hydration (thank you radioactive iodine and its effects on salivary glands). I've just had enough of this. Grr.

Last water stop. Some college kid at the water station is saying, "One more mile, one mile to go." I don't take water from him, but I pound over and kiss him smack on the cheek. He is totally my new best friend.

Of course, it's more like a mile and a half. A few minutes later, which coincidentally are the ugliest miles of the course if you ask me--one side of you has a stunning view of the concrete holding up an exit ramp--and everybody's Team in Training coaches are meeting them and encouraging them and running with them and congratulating them on a job well done, and.......here's me, slogging along by myself, dragging ass. Grr. Where's my cheeseburger, dammit? I ask one of the coaches, seriously, how long? She says maybe 2/10. Well hell, I can run that. I pick up my shuffle to an actual run. Plod plod plod. Just around the corner and up the hill.

Why hello, finish line spectators. Why hello, passing people. Why hello, all summer of training in the absurd heat and humidity and forcing myself to pick up the pace in the last mile. Why hello, strong finish. Why hello, BIG HONKING HILL whose butt I am kicking. Why hello, passing two people AT the finish mat.

Why hello, folding over sucking wind behind a race staffer so no one will see me. Points deducted for no one at the finish (race staff, medic, or fellow runner) asking if I was ok. I was, but still, if someone is bent in two sucking air after they finish, it's just polite to ask. Especially if you are an EMT and are stationed there for that purpose. So, I wander through the post-race, get my bagel, my bottle of water, my banana--someday I will eat a bagel post-race and not get the hiccups. But as Aragorn says, today is not that day.

I find my cell phone, which is coated in salt from a mishap with a ziploc bag during the race, and text Carl. COME GET ME. He's already gone back to the hotel and showered. How mortifying. He immediately calls back. "Are you a cheeseburger? Then don't talk to me." He asks where I am. Dude. I have no idea. I'm near some portajohns. I can't operate my banana. I see the Somalian flag. That's what I know. You figure it out. We start walking and meet somewhere in Logan Circle. I have managed to figure out this new-fangled packaging on the banana, but now cannot open my free Dove chocolate with peanut butter sample. Crap. I want my mommy. Fortunately, I have Carl, and what I usually call him starts with "mother," which at this point is close enough for me.

My next coherent memory is being back at the hotel bathroom, getting trapped in my sports bra. I hate that. You men have no idea, truly. Next stop, hotel lobby. Charlotte asks about my time. I have no idea because I forgot to stop my watch, but it was under three. Which is all that really matters to me. Oh, and I beat the 74-year-old guy.

Soul food and more hilarity ensues. We get to hear the story of why all ING race shirts are that unique colour called "holy crap neon inmate orange." I eat the best storebought mac and cheese I've ever had and get props for ordering collards. I mourn the lack of beer. We watch some amazing video coverage Bill got of race course geese. Run like the wind, geese! Carl makes more references to my bodily functions. I tell him to shut his face.

The party breaks up around 2:15 after Carl's left for his train and the rest of us realise we have places to drive. Some of them several hours away. I get home in time to watch the Mets lose to the Bravos, about which I have mixed feelings. I mean, it sucks that they lost, but at least they lost in a way that does the most damage to the Phillies, who are actually in the pennant race. After that it's kind of a blur of discount technical shirts, Advil, and smelly socks. And naps. Of course, let us not neglect to mention the naps.

Some damage to the upper quads today, but I'm chalking that up to sprinting up a hill at the finish line. My brain is still a little less than coherent, but that's also fairly normal after a long hard run.

Shut your face, Carl.

22 August 2010

Danger Mouse











20 August 2010

Bats in the Belfry

Or, more accurately, the dining room.

Yes, lovely. There I was, minding my own business, doing some stealth knitting for someone who has no idea she's about to get a present, watching the Mets suck (as they are sadly wont to do this time of year), and.......flappityflappityflappityflap.....thunk....!

A bat. In my house.

Let me say that again, just so we're clear here.

A bat.

In. My. House.

Needless to say, the next thing that happened was I dropped a stitch. Meanwhile, cats came screeching in from every corner of the house to investigate this new, exciting, flying treat. Look! It's a mouse! But it flies! like! a! bird! Thereitgoes!

Of course, these things never happen when there's anyone around to deal with them properly, like, say, anyone with a Y chromosome and better hand-eye coordination (not to mention a longer arm-span), so.....yeah. I went upstairs and changed into jeans and running shoes, guessing that a bathrobe was inappropriate attire for what was about to occur. (Although now I'm looking at it, a bat-robe might not have been a bad choice, if only for punditry's sake. But I digress.)

Anyway, my first thought was to sequester the bat in the dining room and kitchen, and shoo it out through an open screen door. But that involved rounding up the kitties and shutting them away. And also wasn't working as I'd planned, since the door from the kitchen to the hallway apparently doesn't shut anymore. Which is good to know for future reference.

Then it occurred to me to wonder how (the hell) this fist-sized flying rodent with spiky little teeth and a voice more annoying than Ethel Merman got in, exactly. Turns out that it's fairly easy to breach the inside/outside barrier when someone doesn't firmly reattach the screen after painting the window moulding. Not mentioning any names of course, Dad.

Ahem. So. After a few rounds of bat-ball (base-bat? stick-bat? rodent-hockey with repeated high sticking penalties?) and one stern admonishment not to climb up my mother's sheer curtains if he knew what was good for him, we reached an impasse.

The bat did not want to be found.

I, truthfully, did not really want to find the bat. At least, not at close range in a dimly lit room with a lot of antique furniture--some of which is fairly wobbly and none of which is mine--and breakable objects. Not to mention a rabies vaccine that's probably no good after nine years. (side note: I used to work as a vet tech, so yes I have actually been vaccinated against rabies. The nurses all thought I was kidding when I walked in and said I was here for my rabies vaccine. The serum is fuchsia. The needle is longer than my index finger. It was good times.)

My next plan was to close the dining room doors tightly and let the bat show himself out. My friend Loosey suggested I tape a note to the door:

Bat in here.
Drunk in bed.
Do not disturb either.

This would be counterproductive, though. The cats already knew all of that, and besides which, their reading comprehension skills pretty much suck.

28 July 2010

At Last! The Shocking Conclusion of the Epic Pus Volcano Chronicles!

It's true. My dentist finally sealed off my root canal this afternoon.

Of course, it couldn't just be a simple post and crown, could it? No. Of course not. Of course, his mainframe had to have died last week, so he's got this loaner unit that mills crowns (yeah, he's all high-tech like that) only apparently? This loaner unit? Is on quaaludes or something.

Because it froze while preparing the image. Twice. Yay.

Ok, I realise this makes mostly no sense unless you've seen one of these in action. It's sort of like auto-CAD for teeth (now there's something you don't hear every day). It takes a before picture, and then after your tooth is ground down and the post is in, it takes an after picture, and then you go in and sort of auto-CAD the patient's tooth until it looks exactly right, and then you hit "ok" and it mills a brandy-new shiny porcelain crown.

Except it didn't.


My half-hour appointment? Was three hours. Fortunately I had lots of Dante's Divine Comedy to keep me occupied, but boy was the dentist pissed. And by 2:15, my ass was sound asleep in the chair.

But seriously. Did he really think that anything about this whole procedure was going to happen easily, as planned? Really-really?

Yeah, me either.

Anyway, IT'S OVER. Except when I go back for one more post-op visit to the surgeon at the end of next month. Done done done no more pus volcanoes hooray.

(In other news, apparently my brain has gone on strike because I cannot make myself grade the eight papers I have to turn back tomorrow morning. Cannot. Make. Myself. They've been staring at me all day. And I can't pick up the pen.)

14 July 2010

Grand Finale!, Wherein FireCat Finally Conquers the Pus Volcano!

Coming soon to an oral cavity near you.







Just sayin.

Toothgate Continues (14 days ago)

I've been off antibiotics since Thursday night. I have an appointment tomorrow to actually finally finish this root canal.
And my face is swelling up again, with associated tooth pain.


Someone you know will be having oral surgery very, very soon.

The thing that annoys me greatly right now is that I start teaching summer classes today. Which means that either (a) I will be teaching the day after having oral surgery, or (b) I will have to either cancel or find a fill-in for my class. And that is deeply frustrating (especially since--hello, this has been going on since Memorial Day.)

I just can't imagine that aspect of it being fun. I'm more or less ok with the idea of the surgery. It won't be the worst thing that's happened to me.

Plus, we still have lime popsicles in the freezer.

Here is a portrait of me, opening wide:

Spongeworthy (22 days ago)

So. You know that sponge? Sponge to fill the hole in my tooth and allow the abscess to continue to drain, while I'm still too infected for a temporary filling?

I ate it.

Seriously. I looked in my mouth this afternoon whilst flossing, and.....it's gone. And I didn't notice it any time I spat into the sink in the past 24 hours. Which means there's only one place it could have gone.

I don't know why the idea of eating a teeny, orange little pus-filled piece of dental sponge is more disgusting to me than.....well, no, wait. I think I do know why.

Ew ew ew ew. Fortunately, I'm going in tomorrow for an update. And my face is still partly swollen, thankyouverymuch.

Thanks, though, for allowing me to tell funny stories about this. Otherwise, it'd be LAME AND HORRIBLE. Now it's just funny. And lame. And mostly funny.

No, well, mostly lame, but at least very funny.

FireCat vs. the Pus Volcano (25 days ago)



He poked it.

I leapt out of the chair.

He poked it again.


He poked it again.

Dude. Mark. CUT THAT OUT.








Really, could they get any more foul??



(update: Nope. It is not.)







Oh, wait.





( )



Wowie (38 days ago)

First of all, before you ask if I feel better, no--I feel numb. And for the next twelve hours I'll likely feel worse. But after that, I'll feel better.

Second, wowie! I've never managed to make my dentist go "eeeeew!" before. Apparently there's a first time for everything. Remember that pus that Cris sure was there, even though there was no visible infection on the x-ray? Yeah. He drilled, and created a little ol' tooth geyser. Yellow, green, orange--we're talking a veritable rainbow of infectious matter squirting out of what had once been the nerve of my tooth.


Now, mind you, I did not get to see any of this, because (a) I am not flexible enough to see into my own mouth, and (b) I make a habit of keeping my eyes firmly squinched shut whilst at the dentist, but let me tell you, I smelled it.

Oh. My. God. The stench? Of an infected root, coming into contact with air for the first time? Dude. I've smelled dead bodies that were less offensive than this. And I'm not even kidding. At one point he had to take the stuff out of my mouth so I could gag unencumbered.

So--yeah. The short version is, I in fact had a raging infection in my jaw, which unlike the BP oil disaster has now successfully been siphoned off and capped....at least temporarily, since, of course, we have to make sure the infection's all gone. But My. Goodness. Of all the offensive things! Phew!

He also said that for such a petite lady, I had the longest damn teeth he'd ever seen. So....wait a minute, dude, did you just call me long in the tooth? Hmmmm.

Drill Baby Drill (40 days ago)

My face has not fallen off. I am still on drugs (as you can probably tell). There is apparently not a single dentist in the tri-state area who has office hours on Friday. My dentist is opening his office at 8 tomorrow morning--which reminds me, I forgot to ask who's bringing the coffee--to rectify the situation.

Yeah, my face is still swollen, and I'm having fun scaring the cats. The ice pack is delightful, the percocet is even better, and apparently being slightly delirious doesn't affect research on A Midsummer Night's Dream at all, because the play itself is so trippy.

That's the scoop from here.

The really good news about temporary disfigurement is that, really, I haven't had to go out in public. I mean, I've had to go to Shakespeare class three times, but....I mean, it's grad school. They've all seen me in worse shape than this.

We Are No Longer Amused (42 days ago)

Well, the painkillers are mostly working (though, as many of you know, they have amusing unintended side effects and I apparently am much more fun when improperly medicated).

Apparently the antibiotics are not. I woke up at ten minutes to six this morning, not because there was a furry one-eyed monster tap-dancing on my head and meowing that it was breakfast time, but because I tried to roll over onto the right side of my face.....and it wasn't where I'd left it.

I have swollen up like a balloon. Or, more precisely, half a balloon.

Excuse me? I'm taking 1500 mg of amoxicillin a day, and 800 mg of ibuprofen (an anti-inflammatory, you may recall) every four hours, and instead of better, this thing is getting worse?

Yeah, I don't think so.

However, it was in fact ten of six, so I went downstairs, did a little proactive cat-feeding, grabbed an ice pack, stuck it on my face, took four more Advil, and went back to bed for a few hours.

And woke up at 9:00 still looking and feeling like a chipmunk. Awesome. My dentist is out of town today, and the on-call guy doesn't open until 10:30. Which is good, because now I have time to shower and have my morning mug of tea so I can be human when I call him and say "OH MY GOD THERE'S AN ALIEN GROWING OUT OF MY MANDIBLE."

The good news is, it doesn't really hurt. Apparently in the course of the swelling, it must be pressing on some nerves, because instead? It's sort of...tingling. Awesome.

Yeah. So totally not the look and feel I was going for today.

So, my friend Cris (a former dental tech) was right. There undoubtedly is an abscess going on there that we just couldn't see on film. Because, really, what are the chances of an actual tooth-eating alien?

Ohmygod, I Can't Feel My Face (43 days ago)

Mind you, it's not that my face has gone numb, but get this--I'm not in mind-bending discomfort! Woooooo!

Yeah, the percocet is working waaaay better than the vicodin did. And, the antibiotics. Which, by the way, are going to kill every microorganism within a ten foot radius of my face, so you might want to keep your pet amoeba away from me for the next while.
And yes, I will be ODing on yoghurt as well, since we're in the habit of oversharing.

Oh god, I cannot tell you how happy I am that this stuff works. I'd been taking Advil all day, because my first summer session started tonight, so I couldn't take the painkiller until now. Yeah, three hours of un-air-conditioned Shakespeare on percocet? There's a fun time, no?


Yayayayayayay, I only feel moderate stupidity in the area of that tooth! Not exactly pain, more like....concentrated stupidity. And, really, I'm ok with the idea of a root canal. At this point, it will be a relief. I know people say they hurt, but seriously? Compared to last night? It'll be like a bowl of ice cream. With sprinkles, and chocolate sauce.

The Saga Begins (45 days ago)

Y'all, I have a toothache the size of Chicago. Long about Friday morning five o'clock, I realised this. My dentist, of course, does not have office hours on Fridays, so I made a mental note to call first thing Tuesday morning (since, of course, nobody works Memorial Day if they can help it). In the meantime, I dosed myself with Advil.

Well, here it is Monday night, and I can't freaking stand it. Two Advil and two Tylenol every four hours (as prescribed by said dentist for a previous weekend pain while he was away for the weekend.....did I mention I live in a really small town and actually have my dentist's cell phone number? Also, my dad is his deacon. Anyway.) has stopped being even remotely effective, as of sometime last night. Even gin and tonics weren't quite as soothing as they usually are.

But today? Oh. My. God. Before supper I was sitting on the front porch, among the begonias and hanging plants, with A Midsummer Night's Dream critical contexts (summer school's idea of fun) and a glass of white wine....crying because it hurt so bad. My dad noticed during supper and bequeathed me a bottle of leftover painkillers. Yes, I am admitting to prescription fraud in public. I'm taking my daddy's hydrocodone and I don't care who knows it.

But seriously? I took one at 7:30, right during my salad. At ten, I took another one, because it was having no effect.

I have now had 1000 mg of Vicodin (which isn't even old, it's from Christmas) and it hasn't even made a dent in the pain. I should be comatose. What the hell, yo?

13 July 2010

A Post about a Series of Posts

Since Memorial Day, I've been undergoing one of the weirdest dental experiences ever--or at least, in my limited experience. I've been updating some message board friends about the Pus Volcano Chronicles, as they've come to be rather graphically known in those parts, and apparently the story is equal parts horrifying and amusing.

Well, the Pus Volcano Chronicles came to a head yesterday afternoon (um, ew) in the form of oral surgery. So today, here I sit, with plenty of free time, a box of lime popsicles, and almost as many ice packs surrounding my jaw. It might be the painkillers, but I've decided to migrate the Pus Volcano Chronicles to this blog. Stay tuned.

05 July 2010

Land of the Free, Home of the Whatever. No, Really.

On our little plot of land, there are three or four houses surrounded by a lot of trees, a couple of cornfields, and...well, some donkeys. The neighbours on one side are Italian-American. We're Irish-American. Neighbours on the other side are Mexican immigrants. The kids are all citizens, born here in the last seven years or so. Their parents are working on it, in the slow and paper-filled process of the INS. Maybe someday. A little up the road is a family of big, honkin' Greeks. About fifteen of them. Actually, they're pretty much the whole rest of the town I live in.

Fourth of July weekend here means one thing that you can get nowhere else in the world: the town's "Big Fat Greek Festival" on one side, with souvlaki and balalaika music in one ear, and Tejano and salsa music in the other ear as Tómas keeps trying to teach me the words to his favourite Los Tigres del Norte song and laughing like a lunatic when I mess it up, while mucking out stalls and waiting for it to be dark enough to light sparklers for his sons and nieces. They used to have a barbecue on Cinco de Mayo, but lately they've stopped doing that unless it falls on a weekend. These days they celebrate the Fourth with us, because "my kids are American, just like you. And me? Me maybe someday too."

18 June 2010

Welcome Home

I had a bit of a surreal experience today. I walked into a local antique store, just browsing. I turned a dark, rickety corner around a hatrack and a stack of old 78s (remember those?) and saw this hanging on the wall:

Those of you quick on the uptake might recognise this dwelling. I, in fact, recognised it so well that it took me a minute to notice that there was something peculiar about it. Like, the fact that it was hanging on a wall in some stranger's business establishment (well, that and the fact that they took liberties with the location of the outhouse and the enormous pine tree).

Have you ever walked into your own life head-on, and taken a moment to register the fact that it's indeed yours, and that to everyone else you are just a stranger? My best friend has this happen to him all the time, both because of his father and because he's pretty well-known these days in his own right. But it's never really happened to me before. My friend Noni (hi Noni!) says it's a sign from the cosmos, and I agree, but I'm not sure what it might be saying other than "You are about to be $175 poorer."

Maybe it's just a reminder, though. Either that we are all outsiders, looking in--or that we are all insiders, coming home again to a place we know so well we forgot how to look.

17 June 2010

Perchance to Dream

I just spend some time catching up on my friend Al's blog. Haven't been there in far too long, apparently. Oops. Either that or I think everyone's a slacker like me. Anyhow, it made me think about just how slack it is, exactly, I've become. And it led me (among other things) to ponder this.

One of the reasons I feel like a slacker (other than, of course, my complete inability to update my blog on anything resembling a regular basis) is the fact that I sleep noticeably later than everyone in my household at the moment. In part that is because the other two members of it are in their sixties and have embraced that transition to late-adulthood known as "Getting Up at the Ass-Crack of Dawn Because Your Body Has Decided It Is Done Lying Around," but it is also apparently because (I have figured out) I set unrealistic sleep expectations for myself and then get angry and down on myself when I don't fulfill them and get up as early as I've set the alarm for. How's that for fucked-up stupid? To be angry about myself for needing sleep. Especially since my sleep needs were radically altered twelve summers ago by that teeny niggling thing known as, oh, cancer. Yeah. Amazing, the way that six-letter word fucks with even the most unrelated, teeny aspects of your life that you didn't realise were so precious to you. Like the ability to recognise when you are hungry, or tired, or hanging upside-down from a tree branch over the Delaware River in your undies.

Ok, I'm making that last one up. Or if I'm not, I'll never admit it in public. You can't prove it was me.

However. Back to the sleep thing. The reason I figured this out on this particularly (lovely, breezy) June morning is that I was going to meet my dad for a run today at 9, which involved getting up at 7. Which is totally doable, I left the house at seven for an entire semester this spring, and seven was an unheard of luxury back in the days of community college teaching, remember? Maybe not. Me either. It was a long, horrible winter or three. Anyway. I stayed up until 10:30, which actually isn't necessarily too bad, but then I tossed for a bit, and because of the antibiotics and stuff, got up to use the bathroom about forty-seven times, one of which was at FIVE AM (totally annoying because my body goes all neolithic-circadian on me and is, "Oh! Daylight! Try to wake up!" Um, how about no.) So I turned off my alarm at ten to seven. In my infinite wisdom. Because I needed more sleep. This seems normal, right? But this is where it gets stupid.

Because I realise part of this is the antibiotics I'm currently on for a dental mishap that ganged totally agley, but a good part of it is the inability to go to bed at 10:00, or even 9:30, which--let's face it--is just how much goddamn sleep I need. And for some reason, I can't get my brain over that. WTH?

Oh, yeah. Speaking of which. The antibiotics? I stopped taking them yesterday. I'm not done them, and I know that's a medical no-no, but seriously people. I could not eat. This is the stuff they give people with giardia, or flesh-eating bacteria that's trying to take their face off. (Oh, wait.) And a dinner of baked chicken thigh and boiled sage potatoes? Made me nauseous. The only thing that hasn't made me nauseous in five days is yoghurt. And that one bowl of Lipton's chicken noodle soup, though I did get fairly urpy during class that night.

And the kicker--the worst part of all of this--is that despite my inability to eat, and my massive ability to eject food from every known orifice with remarkable speed and consistency (me, not the food)--I haven't even lost any weight.

No wonder I woke up this morning dreaming about homemade gourmet ice cream.

02 June 2010

Everyone Should Have a Samira

Sadly, I don't get to take credit for most of this post. Most of it originated with my friend Samira, and the number of times she's had to listen to the story called That Time in Grad School (Round One, MFA) When I Walked into the Comps, Got Handed My Questions, Turned to the Person Next to Me, and Said, "What the Fuck Is Anaphoric Free Verse?" (Needless to say, I have never again forgotten in the intervening years, probably never will, and my current graduate advisor for the MA program is fond of teasing me about it.)

Anyway, earlier today I got an email that eventually morphed into this list.

Anthropomorphic Verse: Poetry read by a mouse wearing a waistcoat and horn-rimmed glasses

Anthropogenic Verse: Poetry that causes global warming

Anagrammatical Verse: Poetry that sounds exactly the same when read either forwards or backwards

Amphoric Verse: Poetry stored in large earthenware vessels

Anaphylactic Verse: Poetry that makes it so hard to breathe, you’d rather stab yourself with a needle

Anaphasic Verse: Poetry that suddenly, and inexplicably, splits itself in two

Antibiotic Verse: Poetry that fights infection (this one was in response to a concurrent conversation about my recent dentistry woes)

Antidisestablishmentarianism verse: the longest poem in the English language, but nobody knows what it means or how to use it in a sentence

Nota Bene: Amphoric Verse should not be confused with Canopic Verse (poetry that has been prepared for its journey through the afterlife)

Mangia Bene: Italian restaurant located on the state highway in Three Feathers

Also not to be confused with Cannabis Verse (poetry written by Bob Marley)

Apopleptic Verse: poetry that induces fits

Amphibious verse: poetry written by frogs; alternately, poetry to be read one if by land, two if by sea

The best part about this whole thing is that Samira was never even an English major and doesn't consider herself well-read, an opinion I personally do not share. She knows more about Jane Austen than I do, for heaven's sake. So what if most of it comes from the BBC Colin Firth version of Austen, not the Jane Austen version of Austen? A better Mr. Darcy there could never be. But I digress.

Every once in a while, someone enters your life who just gets you on a molecular level. Samira is so often that person for me.

30 May 2010








26 April 2010

The World's Largest Doily




21 March 2010

Well Played

(Scene: Kitchen. Intricate choreography of two people fixing breakfast, gone awry to the point where ME is now puckishly anticipating HER moves and consciously getting in HER way.)

Me: It's a good thing you love me....otherwise one of us would probably be in jail by now.

Her: Well, it wouldn't be me. In my case it would be justifiable homicide.

24 January 2010

Stepping Out From the Page





How can we bear to turn away?





How can I bear to turn away?