Month: November 2006

We were in Chiang Mai, Thailand two summers ago. In my box of ephemera and mementos from the trip, I have this tourist magazine with tips on, you know, where to go, what to do, what to see, etc. Helpful, touristy tips. Maps. Shops. It was pretty generic, really, considering it came from Chiang Mai, Thailand. You could probably get something similar if you were visiting Cleveland or Walla Walla. So I was flipping through it the other day, thinking, “Hm. I wonder why I kept this. There’s gotta be something here that’s — ” I flipped the page — “ohhhh. NOW I remember.”

I saved this whole tourist magazine for that one page, right near the back. It’s an illustrated glossary of common ailments, complete with a list of Thai fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices known to have beneficial effects on these particular illnesses. So …. I offer this series, anxious world traveler, to assuage your nerves about ever traveling to Thailand. Travel in peace, knowing that whatever may befall you, the freshness of Thailand is at your service.

For instance, say you become bloated and Buddha-like while in Thailand. Rather than being savvy enough to recognize an obvious opportunity to be worshipped, suddenly, there you are, randomly squatting in front of strangers and passing huge clouds of gas with great hostility. Never fear! Try some Holy Basil! Some Thorny Tree! Some Zingiber Casamasablaaabbbh! That’ll cure what ails ya.

They make no promises, however, to cure your appalling self-control issues or the bitterness that would cause you to use your bloated body as a biological weapon instead of an object for bronzing! And offerings! And adoration!

Oh, you silly.

Seriously, WHAT??

Okay. I’m officially sick. I shouldn’t blog on Nyquil, I’m sure, but …. eh.

This time last year I was sick as a dog with The Pneumonia. Went to the ER. The year before that — in November again — I had The Dreaded Obli. Went to the ER.

November now makes me very nervous. November means I go to the ER and I make an ASS of myself. As we all know.

But this latest malady has made me remember something from last year’s little pneumonia visit.

I ended up in the ER early Sunday morning. I had spent all of Saturday splayed and wheezing on our couch downstairs. MB was on a shoot all day, but before he left, he’d set me up to basically LIVE on the couch: books, magazines, tissues, OJ, bottles of water, DVDs, remote control. I imagine I could have lived there the rest of my life. We didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just had a bad cold, right, involving recurring bouts of not being able to breathe. Nooo biggie. We also couldn’t find our thermometer to take my temperature. Whatevvvver. How high could it be?

But that afternoon, I didn’t read any books or magazines. I didn’t watch any TV or DVDs. I didn’t need to because the raging, GLORIOUS hallucinations kept me spellbound. They oozed and undulated across my field of vision, great technicolor waves of nonsense. Breathlessly — literally — I slurred in and out of consciousness that entire afternoon. I was quite happy, really. Conscious? Great! Unconscious? Great! I was sick as a dog, but utterly blissful. Delirium seemed to suit me. Who knew that, all along, a higher state of being had beckoned from a bottle of Robitussin DM? Who knew?? Well, that was it. A light broke through the swells of nonsense: Helloooo, new life! I giggled to myself.

See, delirium really suited me.

That night, my convulsive growls sent MB flying from the bed to seek refuge on The Happy Couch.

Bye (rowwrrowwrrowwufff), honey!

Sorr-(wheezewheezeagghh)-y!

I barked the entire night until one particularly violent coughing jag finally knocked me out around 4:30 a.m.

5:30, I woke up. Somehow found the thermometer. Took my temperature. 103.7. Oh, these stupid digital things. That can’t be right. I chuckled, then coughed, then collapsed. Ten minutes later, I took my temperature again. 104.

Hm. Okaaay.

Tippytoe tippytoe to the top of the stairs.

“Honey?”

“Honey?”

“Whhhe?”

“Um, I think my temp is 104.”

“WHAT??!”

“Should I go to the ER?”

“Get dressed. We’re going right now.”

At the ER, I got the usual stuff done by a nurse first.

“Your BP is kinda low.”

Huh? Wha? Words just floated past me. I felt almost outside my body, except for the full-body slam coughing. I answered in a weird, sing-song voice, like a pre-school teacher:

“Ohh-kaaay.”

“And your pulse is 149.”

“Wow … ohh-kaaay.”

“Your body must be fighting something.”

“Ohh-kaaay.”

“And, yes, your temperature is 104.”

“Oh, so our themomenner wasn’t wrong.”

“Nope. Okay. Let’s get you a chest X-ray.”

After the X-ray, we waited in our ugly curtained cubicle. Strange shapes and colors still waved at me from the corners of my eyes. Finally, the curtain parted, in walked the doc.

“Okay. I have your X-ray. And, yep, you definitely have pneumonia.”

He slapped it up on the view …. thingie, started pointing.

Here’s your lung … blahblah …. see this dark area? well, that’s the infection …. blahblahblahdieblah …….

It’s not that I wasn’t interested and, yeah, I could certainly SEE it, and yeah, it was like, 3/4 of my right lung, but, frankly, I could not take my eyes off a strange blob to the lower right of the pneumonia lung. It looked like this:

Now, naturally, when you go to the ER for some basic antibiotics and discover that your body is hosting an alien life form, a ghostly presence, a fuzzy howling head, it’s disturbing. You might freak out. You might immediately ask the doctor, “Uhm, excuse me? Doctor? Yeah, uhm, what’s that Mr. Bill thingie under my lung there??”

Well, maybe you wouldn’t say the “Mr. Bill” part out loud. Or …. maybe you would because you have a 104 degree temperature and body-convulsing coughs and oozing hallucinations and you’re sorta outside your body, which means you’re kinda outta your mind.

So I heard myself saying:

“Uhm, excuse me? Doctor? Yeah, uhm, what’s that Mr. Bill thingie under my lung there??”

He whirled around towards me. I remember it made my head hurt how fast he turned around.

“What’s that again?”

Oh, now, seeee, Tracey? You have the chance to say it again — without the Mr. Bill deal. Okay. Do-over. Great. So …..

“What’s that Mr. Bill thingie??”

Holy God in heaven. I’m an idiot.

The doctor stared at me. Then he stared back at the X-ray and started to laugh.

“Ohhhh, that. Well” — he pointed with his pen — “this is some gaaaas and that’s a little poop.”

That word, “poop,” just hung in the air between us. I couldn’t even look at him. I stared at the floor. Everything was so hot, fiery hot, deathly hot. The heatwave of embarrassment surged up from my gut, through my chest, out the top of my head. I was going to die, implode — right then and there — because I just had to ask the doctor about Mr. Bill. Because I was outside of my body and had no self-control. Because I was, at the very core of my being, a deeply invested MORON.

My alien life form was gas. And poop.

And I remember exactly how he said it. Explaining to a child, in soothing tones, stretching out the word gaaaas, relaxed, like the actual passing of gas; pinpointing the word poop in a high-pitched burst, pushing the “p’s,” his mouth like the tiniest of sphincters.

“gaaaaaaas”

“pp!”

“You’ll probably have a visit from them later,” he chuckled, as he wrote my prescription, bid me farewell.

He was still laughing as he walked away from my curtain, leaving me alone with my gas and poop.

Thank GOD!

I think I’m coming down with a little somethin’. My head feels fuzzy and full of fluid.

I’m also having a case of what I call Retro Rage.

These two things will combine tragically, I’m sure, to make an unreadable rambling post. But I imagine that won’t stop me. Sad.

All right. So anyhoo …. Retro Rage is when you are reminded — totally out of the blue, this is key — of something that has pissed you off in the past, but you don’t generally think about it, and then — KA-POW! — you realize that you are in NO way over it and could easily go off on a rant about it — oh, and the more minuscule and irrational, the better.

For instance, maybe you remember you’re pissed off about soy milk. (I am.)

Or maybe you remember you’re enraged by that little strip-of-movie-film cartoon guy that romps about during the “Keep your yaps shut” part of the movie previews at your local theatre. (I totally hate that little Filmy. I will not even LOOK when he is on the screen. I cannot explain my hatred, but I hate everything he is and does. And it’s SO stupid. He’s a cartoon character who’s on the screen for maybe 90 seconds, Trace. Please calm your wild ass DOWN.)

Or for instance, right now, this exact moment, you may be having a Retro Rage attack about panda bears and “panda people.” Like me.

Just out of the blue, I sit and remember that they piss me off. So excuse me while I manage my Retro Rage attack by ranting my way to “clear,” mmkay?

Look, pandas are slow-moving, stupid lumps who are only “cute” because of three things: Their black-and-whiteness, their fuzzy lumpen-ness, and their perceived cuddliness. And perceived cuddliness really chaps my hide. It’s not fair. If you think a certain animal is cute and lovable because it seems cuddly, because maybe you could get widdat in a snuggle-wuggums way, YOU, my friend, are clearly a cuddlist. You are basically deeming other animals not worthy of your love and support because THEY seem LESS cuddly.

And remember Timothy Treadwell, people. The notion of perceived cuddliness drove him more and more bonkers til it got him killed and EATEN. Now a panda may not kill you and eat you — they are too slow-moving and stupid — but they might clonk you on the head with a bamboo shoot. Not very cuddly, huh?

Three asinine things coming together to make people insane: black-and-whiteness, fuzzy lumpen-ness, perceived cuddliness.

That’s gotta be it. That combo. I mean, where are the people going berserk about zebras? They don’t exist. Why? Because zebras, while also black and white, have no attendant fuzzy lumpen-ness or perceived cuddliness.

Where are the people wanting to snuggle the killer whale? Nowhere. No fuzzy lumpen-ness. No perceived cuddliness.

Look, I see this panda mania a lot. (Do NOT make a pun about panda-monium in the comments. I will go on a statewide killing spree. I swear.)

The World Famous Zoo here in my town is always hosting out-of-town pandas in ridiculously posh digs complete with their very own color commentators. I know. I’ve seen it. There’s always some khaki-bottomed zoo person describing every move of those lazy black-and-white fur cookies. Do other zoo animals have constant commentary from boring, khaki-bottomed people? No, they do NOT. They are discriminated against for their lack of black-and-whiteness and fuzzy lumpen-ness and perceived cuddliness.

You want some color commentary, people? Okay. Here’s your panda commentary:

Okaaay …. now he’s eating …… ohhh! look at — noooo, eating some more ….. chhhewing ……. you knnnow, pandas eat 12 hours a day …… (YA THINK????) so, um, come back in 13 hours and ….. ummm, maybe he’ll be doing something else.

But lemme tell you this — one thing they definitely won’t be doing is having sex, which is what they’re supposed to be doing, but their slow-moving bodies and stick-filled bellies make them too sluggish to do what the whole damn world wants them to do. I mean, lots of money is changing hands here, Gao Gao, for you to get bizzy wid it, not just roll and waddle and chow down on weeds.

Shiftless, frigid lumps.

Don’t believe me? Okay. Fine. Go watch this.

I remember a few years back, when one of those panda freeloaders bunking at The World Famous Zoo was about to be deported back to China, people here went absolutely crazy with grief. I mean, I could tune into the local news on any given evening and watch people, grown-up people, normal-looking people, standing at the panda mansion, weeping pathetically, “Bu-bu-bu-bye, Hua Mei! Oh, we’ll miss you SO much!!” As if the bear was understanding them, taking their ridiculous grief under advisement. As if publicly blubbing like a baby would actually MOVE the panda to change her mind and STAY. “Gee, that Donna’s really broken up. Maybe I should rethink this.”

I LITERALLY THOUGHT I WOULD GO CRAZY WATCHING PEOPLE GO CRAZY!!

Then it got worse. These same people, having flushed themselves far into the insanity sewer, started WRITING FAREWELL NOTES TO THAT DAMN LAZY BEAR! They read them on camera, weeping, weeping. They drew little drawings, weeping, weeping. They were so swept away with disproportionate grief they had no idea the real tragedy taking place was the on-camera cracking of their entire psyche.

Don’t bid some sad farewell to the stupid, shiftless bear; kiss your freakin’ sanity goodbye, Slappy.

Please, please, listen to me: Panda bears are VERY dangerous animals. They take people to the brink of crazy and push ’em over with a stick.

And they totally piss me off.

Okay. There. I actually feel better now. Clearing …. clearing …. annnnd clear.

From Aid to Artisans, some beaded sparklies for your — or a friend’s — tree. Go check them out. They have some cool things there.

(I removed this post. We inadvertantly discovered the real person in a link in the comments section. Which is funny, actually, if you saw the name.)

Oh, all right. I took it with one of those one-time use cameras and I am the world’s most-hopeful-she’ll-improve-with-minimal-effort photographer. Eh. And MB is not wearing a jumper. Nor is he shaped like a giant rectangle. But lemme tell ya, that man has the best calves I’ve ever seen.