in a room without a window in the corner

I saw the doctor yesterday, and he used that thing from Total Recall to suction about 90 pounds of extremely disgusting stuff out of my head. (Please note that certain aspects of these reports may be exaggerated for various reasons, mostly because I find them amusing.)

He told me that I have to continue Operation Do Nothing At All, I Mean
It Nothing At All And I Am Not Even Joking About This for another week, at which time he’ll take the
splints off my septum and probably clear me for driving and other
normal activities, which makes me even happier than my impending return
to Guinness consumption.

My sinuses look good, and most of the discomfort that was lingering has gone away, so I’m finally off all the pain meds and things that were making me feel stupid and disoriented and, well, like an idiot on drugs. My strongest painkiller now is extra strength Tylenol.

I still get tired easily, and I’m still easily irritated and irrationally annoyed by random things, so staying off the internets is probably a good idea for the next few days. My doctor says that this is also entirely normal and part of the recovery process, which is quite comforting and makes me feel less looney.

So, since it’s unlikely I’ll be updating my blog for a bit, I found the perfect picture to leave here for a few days:

i don’t want to go on the cart

I feel happy! I feel happy!

In all seriousness, I’m recovering at exactly the right pace, according to people who keep score on this sort of thing.

Warning: this is about to get gross.

I’m off all the meds, except for some stupid steroid for swelling that makes me really fucking irritable and regular Tylenol for this very minor headache that I guess is also pretty normal, once you’ve had a bunch of stuff the size of a Weighted Companion Cube yanked out of your head, and a "major septoplasty". Oh! and the most awesome thing? The stuff that looks like chicken liver that comes out of my nose about four times a day.

My doctor says I have some kind of post-surgical hypertension, which is why I can’t do a damn thing other than sit here and watch movies for another three or four days, so I’m starting to get <i>really</i> bored and antsy. And irritable. Goddamn am I irritable. So don’t fuck with me, or I’ll shoot chicken liver at you from my nose gun.

Oh! You know what I learned a whole bunch about on TV yesterday? Trains during wartime and secret underground Cold War tunnels. Exactly WTF I’m going to do with this knowledge, I don’t know, so I’m looking forward to removing it from my brain with Guinness once I allowed to drink alcohol again . . . in three goddamn miserable weeks, because alcohol makes me bleed, which remains bad.

Did I mention that I’m bored and irritable? Because boy, howdy.

However, I can smell things again. I can taste things again. I can sleep through the night without snoring, and I don’t regret having this surgery for a single moment. Sincerely, I don’t. And my doctor is some kind of superhero, who I think came from space and the future to carve a 4x5cm chunk of polyp-covered Horta from just one of my sinus cavities. There’s more, but I think I’ve been gross enough for one day.

Thank you, everyone, for all your get well wishes, here and at Fark. That was really, really, cool. I totally broke the "just sit here and continue to do a bunch of fucking nothing" rule during breakfast this morning so I could check up on e-mails and stuff.

I better go back to the couch. My couch groove is starting to lose its shape. Have a nice weekend, everyone.

is there anyone home?

. . . yep. But my doctor says that talking on the phone, sending e-mails, posting in my blog, and spending too any time doing much more than watching TV (I’m still too drugged up to fucos — I’m not changing the spelling on that because it’s so goddamn funny — on reading this big stack of graphic novels I bought for the recovery) raises my blood pressure dangerously high, making me bleed a lot. I guess bleeding a lot is something I’m supposed to avoid for the next few days, so it’s me, the couch, and the TV.

I’m trying to get Anne to guest post while I’m drooling on the couch and watching Modern Marvels, so maybe there will be something worth reading here in the near future.

Thanks for all the get well wishes you’ve all left in comments and sent via e-mail. That’s very kind of you all.

just nod if you can hear me

I spent the last four days in Bat Country, while recovering from major sinus surgery. I’ll spare the gory (and oh my god are they gory) details, but when all this packing comes out of my sinuses on Tuesday, I can look forward to not snoring all night and waking up with a skull crushing sinus headache for the first time in about ten years. I’m planning a party, all by myself with some toast and a cup of coffee.

I don’t think I’ll be posting much until I’m back to normal, but I didn’t want anyone to think I’ll fallen down a well next to little Timmy ~~Turner~~.O’Toole. (My bad. I’m so full of painkillers and meds that all I can do ism,nsdnsakazza,mmp.)

Unless Sting wants to write a song about it, in which case, please send your love down the well.

I voted today

I cast my vote for Barack Obama in California’s primary this morning.

Here’s a major reason why I did:

“When I am this party’s nominee, my opponent will not be able to say
that I voted for the war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the
benefit of the doubt on Iran; or that I supported Bush-Cheney policies
of not talking to leaders that we don’t like. And he will not be able
to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it
is ok for America to torture — because it is never ok… I will end the
war in Iraq… I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I
will finish the fight against Al Qaeda. And I will lead the world to
combat the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons and
terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. And I will
send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that
says, "You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is
now.”

Patrick Nielsen Hayden, (via John Scalzi,) put my feelings into words, so I’m going to borrow them, rather than struggle to come up with my own:

I’m for Obama knowing perfectly well that, as Bill
Clinton suggested, it’s a “roll of the dice”. A roll of the dice for
Democrats, for progressives, for those of us who’ve fought so hard
against the right-wing frames that Obama sometimes (sometimes craftily,
sometimes naively) deploys. Because I think a Hillary Clinton candidacy
will be another game of inches, yielding—at best—another four or eight
years of knifework in the dark. Because I think an Obama candidacy
might actually shake up the whole gameboard, energize good people,
create room and space for real change.

Because he seems to know
something extraordinarily important, something so frequently missing
from progressive politics in this country, in this time: how to hearten people. Because when I watch him speak, I see fearful people becoming brave.

We’ve been afraid for too long, and it’s cost us dearly. Karl Rove and George Bush and Dick Cheney will have many disastrous legacies, but one of the most despicable and enduring will be how they used fear to deeply and deliberately divide our country.

It’s going to be a huge challenge for our next president to heal this nation, and end the Culture of Fear that’s been created by the Bush Administration. I believe that Barack Obama is the best candidate to do that, and I was proud to vote for him today.

It felt so good to cast a vote that I was proud of, in support of
someone, instead of resigning myself to voting for the lesser of two
evils.