wednesday

i like the word wednesday. i like the way it sounds. i like the muted middle syllable. and hey, today's wednesday.

so i'm up to 11,209 words and stuck again. shannon's been interviewed by the police and she interviewed helen. i'm afraid the helen scene does sound more like an interview than a conversation, and that's not so good. that scene will need serious tweaking, but not yet. i have to keep moving forward, though i don't yet know what's next.

shannon and helen talked about seeing dallas where she works, at the strip club. though i was thinking i wasn't ready to write that scene, maybe i should go ahead and write it. i was thinking something had to come before, for the benefit of pacing, but maybe i'm wrong. pacing is something i struggle with.

yeah, and speaking of pacing, i'm debating doing nanowrimo (50,000 words in the 30 days that constitute november) again this year. i did it last year and that's when i wrote the first draft of this thing i'm rewriting now. i like the idea of doing it, so i'll probably do it. it was fun. but i'm not going to start a whole new story. what i'll probably do is just keep writing this current thing, but at a more breakneck pace. and then in december just continue on.

can anyone believe it's the end of august already? i'm getting whiplash.

i'm definitely going to need a new chair. i'm sitting in this $40 chair for 9 and 10 hours a day and it's not pleasant. my body hurts. i'm not young any more. friday i'm going to go look at chairs.

last evening kara and i tried pizza hut's new sensation, the lasagna pizza. i do not recommend it.

paris blues

dad and mom in france, 1969.

aches/pains

taste my workday today:

• a 7-year old boy goes to the emergency department because he had a 9-minute breakthrough seizure; he has benign rolandic epilepsy.

• a 49-year-old woman undergoes 24-hour ph/impedance monitoring because she has acid reflux.

• a 70-year-old woman undergoes the same thing.

• a 32-year-old woman, 24 weeks 5 days into her pregnancy, had premature rupture of membranes; this is her 6th pregnancy and she has one child; delivery is imminent.

• a 7-year-old female has a new onset of diabetes.

• a 16-year-old female also has a new onset of diabetes.

• a 49-year-old male has hypercalcemia secondary to sarcoidosis.

• a 22-year-old woman is 21 weeks pregnant and has malodorous vaginal discharge; pyelonephritis versus pelvic inflammatory disease versus appendicitis; she is admitted to the hospital.

• a 17-year old male, in attempting to keep his girlfriend from going to work, jumps onto the trunk of her car; he falls, sustaining cuts and bruises; he is seen by a social worker and denies being suicidal.

• a 38-year-old woman is 2 days status post total abdominal hysterectomy, and doing well.

• a 25-year-old woman is 2 days status post repeat cesarean section, and doing well.

• a 12-year-old male has diabetic ketoacidosis and is admitted for glucose and insulin infusions.

• a 5-year-old girl has intractable vomiting and is admitted for rehydration and antiemetics.

• an 89-year-old man has intractable vomiting and is admitted for rehydration and antiemetics.

• a 48-year-old obese woman has hidradenitis suppurativa, with open wounds on her pannus, buttocks, buttock crease, rectal area, and legs; she is admitted for hydration, pain medication, antiemetics, and antibiotics.

• a 38-year-old woman has endomyometriosis, uterine enlargement, uterine fibroids, and menometrorrhagia, and is scheduled for a hysterectomy.

• a 28-year-old woman undergoes spontaneous vaginal delivery and has a baby girl.

• a 4-year-old boy has an atelectatic tympanic membrane and is scheduled for tympanostomy tube placement.
  

• a 5-year-old boy has dental caries and undergoes dental restoration under general anesthesia.

• a 59-year-old woman has stress urinary incontinence and undergoes placement of a pubovaginal sling.

• a 76-year-old man has an abdominal aortic anurysm and is scheduled for repair.

• a 60-year-old woman is dischaged from the hospital; she has lung cancer, nephrolithiasis, and an e coli urinary tract infection.

• a 55-year-old man was found down in a museum bathroom; he died; his wife is seen by a social worker.

bad movies, etc

we saw some totally crappy movies this week. oh my. poseidon and silent hill. i was kind of looking forward to both, which perhaps now is embarrassing. the the poseidon adventure remake starred josh lucas (right), a favorite of mine not only because he's allegedly the son of one of our emergency room physicians; i tend to like his acting and i think he's pretty fine. he's made some good choices in his career but this wasn't one of them. the movie, no pun intended, tanked. radha mitchell (left), another favorite actor and a fine-looking one, was in the other movie, also a thorough waste of time, perhaps even worse than poseidon. there was just no call for another in the series of "where's-my-daughter" films (see, or, rather, don't, the forgotten, flightplan, and the dark, and probably others as well that don't immediately come to mind).

anyway. we cleansed ourselves yesterday with a disk of "24" episodes. one more disk and we'll have finished season 2.

it's weird how the mosquities now seem to be focusing all their energies on my right arm. my left knee looks a bit like i've had arthroscopic surgery, but it's healing well. only the new bites itch and i'm doing okay at not tearing them apart. i wear long sleeves when i go out, to cover the unsightly scabs. i long for autumn.

we bought a faucet online yesterday. i think it's nice. it's a bridge design and looks a little something like these. when it comes we'll get a sink that will look nice with it. it's too bad our bathroom is so small; it limits our choices significantly.

kara works the swing shift today and tomorrow, so i have the evenings to myself. i'll do a bit more writing and then i'll read. i want to finish the maugham. i'm enjoying it. it's lighter than i had expected, breezier, but i haven't been making much time for it lately. which is too bad.

dorothies

hi. it's dorothy parker's birthday today. she'd be 123. kara and i watched the big sleep yesterday evening and the during the scene in which humphrey (apparently) gets it on with the tasty bookstore clerk (dot malone), we quoted parker: "men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses" - for, rather stupidly, humphrey didn't notice the clerk was foxy until she took off her pince-nez and loosened her hair. (please note that this is hardly my favorite parker doodad but it's the one that came up [i like the one about if all the yale girls were laid end to end she wouldn't be the least surprised] - what's your favorite parker doodad?) long live dots. i'm feeling a little bleary this morning. and itchy. i dreamed of hiding in the woods with kara, in mud up to our mid-shins. then our dog sagan found us and i found a litter of newborn dogs by my foot. there were a dozen or so tiny dogs the size of the palm of my hand, pink and hairless. mom sent me this and it's pretty fun; why not check it out? take a minute and play. it's tuesday, the midpoint in my workweek. (i like that my workweek ends on thursdays - it feels early.) i've decided that my character shannon definitely does have a tramp stamp but i don't know what it is yet. but i write on. not so much today, though. i'm between chapters at the moment, ready to commence chapter 3, and i am not sure what's next. raymond's dead, dallas could be a suspect. detectives just questioned shannon. perhaps it's a question of exposition versus action. i suppose i'm taking a day off from writing. i'll be back at it tomorrow. don't all yell at me at once.

wings

i'm having trouble with this fellow. night before last i got chewed but good. it had been a couple years since a skeeter really got to me, but when one gets me, it really gets me.

i count 7 bites on my right arm, from just above my elbow to my wrist. there are 6 bites on or around my left knee. man they itch like crazy. and i'm the type that tends to scratch, so wounds get opened up real nice.

i saw the bugger in the bathroom this morning. when i took a swing at him, however, it took off and a moth began its attack. i can't deal with moths flying around my head so i had to retreat. i'll go to the bathroom later.

faucet

i saw this faucet online (at faucet.com no less) and i rather like it. you?

we're in the market for a bathroom sink. one we like. there's one at lowe's we like (though i don't see it on their site) but last saturday the sales person in the sink department was busy. perhaps they've hired a second in the past week? we might go back tomorrow and see if we can actually talk to someone. we didn't particularly like any of the faucets lowe's offered. home depot's selection was even slighter. long live internet shopping!

oh, and rumble is home again. the woman who runs the grooming place was impressed with her (rumble's) girth. she (rumble) howled all the way home but now she seems fine. all clean. she feels nice. ass nicely shaven, fit for kitty porn.

ouch, sorry about that.

friday

okay. i've been working at home a full 2 weeks now. it's really rather great. not only can i work in sweatpants and tee shirts, but i can belch. i don't know what's the haps with my gi tract, but the last 3 or 4 days i've really been letting them rip. it's been comfortable.

kara was asked the other day if she liked her new job and before even thinking about it she said, "yes!" isn't that fantastic? it's a good kneejerk response to have about what you do 40+ hours a week. it's been a long time since she's been able to say that.

about an hour ago i took rumble to get groomed. she's so huge she can't wash herself well. lately there's been fecal particulate in her nether region, so i'm having that part of her shaved. while she's at it she'll have her nails done.

she howled on the way to the place and i hope she's not still howling. i hate making her howl, but it's for the greater good. i tried to explain it to her but i don't know if she was with me.

she should be ready to come home in about 2 hours. i love my rumble.

lumbosacral

this is fairuza balk, actor. i think she looks quite fine, and i like her work, but i don't know if i particularly go for her tattoo.

i'm sitting here trying to decide if shannon has a tattoo across her lumbosacral area. i figure the odds are that either she does or dallas does. or both - it could be something they share, as they both have the fashion sense to leave that part of their anatomy exposed more often than not.

for years now - years! - i've been trying to understand the fascination i have with the lumbosacral. it can be overwhelming, the fascination. quite a shape, the lumbosacral.

there is also an interest in tattoos. i don't have any tattoos, and there are two main reasons for this. the first is that i don't know what i would get, and i don't want to get something inane or common.

the second is that i have this ocd-esque scratching issue, and would likely excoriate the artwork beyond recognition before it has a chance to heal. that wouldn't be attractive.

if shannon has a tattoo (or multiple tattoos), what ought it (they) be? and where? these are not minor questions. is she the sort of person to call extra attention to her body? as if the halfshirts and low-ass trousers aren't enough?

some people, apparently, shannon and dallas among them (dallas works in the sex industry, remember), don't think so much of showing so much of their bodies, being looked at for their bodies.

i'm not one of those people, and maybe that's why those people are so interesting to me - and why i continue to write about them.

i like the word "feral"

here's a newly-shaved eliot, coming at you. better duck. oh, what a fine little man he is. elly-belly, goofy little boy. ha! actually, that's all i have to say about him for now.

i think i'm going to start reading 1776, take in a bit of history, learn something, what? nothing wrong with that. i was reading the brecht and it got a little one-note. then i picked up gorky park; i saw the film several years ago, though i don't remember much about it. the book i found a little plodding, so i set it down. i don't have qualms about that. maybe i'll try the film again?

kara and i are still watching "24"; we're on the second disk of the second season. for me, it's a bit less gripping than the first season so far. kara loves that john terry is in this season (he's on "lost" sometimes too!) and we both are fond of the woman who plays nina; i'm glad she's back, even if her character isn't quite as nice as we had thought. she looks good without makeup, or at least with the pasty-faced makeup they have her wearing this season. anyway. we're enjoying that.

we saw brick the other night and it was very good. also from netflix we have the new wim wenders film don't come knocking. maybe we'll watch that tomorrow.

kara has her eye on a bathroom sink we saw at lowe's; we might get that this weekend. we picked out a new front door last weekend but i think we'll wait until next month to buy it and put it on.

we're having meatball sandwiches for supper tonight; i have them cooking in the slow-cooker. low-fat and yum! i hope.

oh - i nearly forgot - i've been working from home this past week. i put in my 42.5 hours right here at this desk. i love it! gosh, it's weird how much i love it. there is a danger, as has been pointed out to me, in my going feral, given that i'm spending lots more time with the cats and my human contact is largely limited to kara. all week long i didn't shave or cut my fingernails. but today i did, cleaned myself up, before going out and doing errands. i growled at no one. maybe i'll be okay. it's only been one week though.

stay tuned!

home office

so things are set up here. at the end of my workday thursday a man from the geek squad came and did something mysterious to my pc. i emptied my desk and brought everything home. even before i left, people were vying for my cubicle - apparently it's something of an in-house catbird seat (no relation) as it's by the window.

pictured is the current stage of evolution of my home office, for working and writing. i have it pleasantly rigged with one keyboard, mouse, monitor, and pair of speakers hooked to two computers. i push a handy button i affixed to the monitor to switch from one computer to the other. it's terribly handy indeed, and terribly exciting.

tomorrow is my official first day of working from home. i checked everything a couple of times to make sure the pedal works (is "foot pedal" not redundant? everyone calls it a "foot pedal," including me, until now, unless someone corrects me) and to make sure i can "get voice," that is, hear the dictator through the speakers and earphones. everything does seem set. as i say, terribly exciting.

i'm not working today, though. today kara and i are going to look at doors. our front door is rather a mess. in the winter, when it's wet, the wood swells and it's difficult to open. talk about annoying. of course kara doesn't want a fiberglass door; she wants a wood one. a treated wood one. we'll start looking today. i'd like to have something installed before the monsoon season, assuming we have one this year.

couple dreams

this morning i had a weird dream about the old dog. i dreamed his entire skeleton was being surgically replaced with red titanium balls, of various sizes, linked together somehow. i don't know if there was a ball-per-bone replacement, but the surgery would take care of his arthritis and general lack of physical integrity. no more pain, no more slipping on the stairs. cutting edge veterinary medicine, it was. he'd be like a young pup again. and it was something, seeing the balls placed inside him and learning how they would work. the replacement process, the surgery, was violent, and a bit scary. it also seemed his brain would either be replaced by a ball or placed inside a ball; there was some confusion there.

i've been having odd and vivid dreams all week. night before last i dreamed that actresses hilary swank and kirsten dunst and my sister jennifer were involved in a story/joke-telling contest. now, i don't know about those other two (i'm a bit turned on to swank these days but dunst lost me some time ago), but jennifer can tell a story. i wasn't present, in the dream, at the contest, but i learned afterward that hilary won. later on, there was a bit with high-speed sleds zooming over deep snow, traveling across the country. it was cold.