I remember another potentially interesting hospital story. It doubles as a drug story which are also popular or ‘hip’ among teens and twentysomethings. I hope it isn’t one of those ‘you had to be there’ tales.

For a week after my surgery I had to stay in ICU (intensive care unit) full of tubes of various shapes and sizes and textures. I also had those little cardiogram stickies all over my chest with wires leading into a heart monitor. This bothered me because I would set off an alarm if I shuffled higher in bed. But the most important part of my ICU experience was the morphine they fed me for my sore, stapled up belly.

One day the fine people at silverorange tried to come along and visit me. I don’t remember this (damn morphine) but I guess I was pretty out of it that day, and they weren’t allowed in. BUT they were nice enough to leave behind a delightfully stuffed ape-monkey thing wearing 3d glasses. It was placed on a shelf in my room and somebody explained to me how it was a present.

By now I was used to hallucinating at night (I’m not sure if it was the morphine or just sickness). I would have trouble sleeping because I had 8 people in my bed with me who stole my pillows and kept singing the chorus from Coolio’s “Fantastic Voyage”. That made perfect sense to me at the time.

Then, one night the gift monkey spoke to me. It scared me deeply. I don’t remember what he said but it was threatening and abusive. I eventually had to ask to have it hidden then taken home. I left ICU a few days later, and haven’t seen anything nonexistant since.

don’t you miss ralph nader?

Living in the busy world for so long, then taking a vacation of sorts from the horribly stressful life known as ‘web programming’ one comes to appreciate the simpler things in life.

Not 5 minutes ago I arrived back in my room after occupational therapy (where I thoroughly enjoyed a round of beanbag tic-tac-toe) to find two Kraft Handi-Snacks (those cracker/red stick/PB or cheese things).

I felt like a five year old on Christmas morning. Handi-Snacks are amazing and deserve a better web site.

I’m afraid this is about as exciting as my hospital posts are going to get. Wait, maybe not, a dude with green hair just walked by my door.

Rock:
The hour is ungodly late and I am still awake. I have a cold. It would not be so bad – it is “reading” week and thus there is no school and no need to get out of bed, or even wake up – except that my nose is a tap, and the constant dripping makes it nearly impossible to sleep. That and the sneezing. Also the sore neck from the sneezing. Send help.

Pimp:
The inimitable Kent Bruyneel and the uncomparable Mike Lecky have combined forces to bring the world Forget Magazine. It is a national webzine of the highest cultural importance. It also looks pretty. By pure coincidence, today it is featuring an article written by yours truly, titled: How I Inadvertently Came to Understand the Appeal of Stompin’ Tom Connors, Canadian Icon.

Unrelated and Incidental:
The snowplough is doing that thing were it leaves a giant stripe of snow down the middle of the street. Later the dump truck and snow blower will be along to collect it. I love that.

I went to Pat & Willy’s, a local Mexican restaurant to celebrate a birthday (don’t even get me started on the bizarre market for faux-Mexican/Texan motif dining on Prince Edward Island – it boggles my mind).

They have a promotion where you get a free meal on your birthday. The idea, no doubt, is that you’ll bring your friends and they’ll bring their wallets. Fine idea.

They used to include a free piece of cake for dessert. This was a nice little treat. Tonight, one of the guys at my table jokes that you get a free Joe Louis for dessert. We all had a good laugh. Then, at the end of the meal, the waitress came with a plate with one lonely Joe Louis with some whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and a sparkler. When I say Joe Louis, I am talking about the cheap chocolate cake things you buy at the 7-11 (a close relative of the Wagon Wheel, often found in Junior High School brown-bag lunches)

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Let me be absolutely clear. It was not like a Joe Louis. It was a Joe Louis.

Witness The Editor hard at work.

Is it school work? Is he drawing a picture or writing a poem in blank verse? Is he actually editing something?

No, The Editor is hard at work putting the final touches on a Valentine’s Day card for his honey, whose arrival is eminently immanent.

It is worth describing this Valentine’s Day card. It is not of the standard Hallmark variety (though due to liberties taken with trademark, Hallmark is written across the back). The card is in fact four cards, cunningly arranged so that they form a book of sorts. The four cards were handcrafted by Mr. Campbell and Mr. Lecky (both of boxlor fame), as well as Mr. Coll (he of the Cadre) and yours truly.

It is worth describing their contents in some detail. The cover of Lecky’s work reads “Happy Valentin Day,” the inside of Campbell’s piece is adorned with the words “wet my fatty,” and Coll’s oeuvre consists of a photo-essay in which people (the four mention above) are punching The Editor in the arm. Mr. Coll’s card does deserve some extra explanation, but will not get any.

My card, in its entirety, reads: “Baby, I could really go for some eggs. How’s come I don’t smell nothing cooking?” Please note that this card reflects no misogynistic tendencies on my part. I would have anyone cook my eggs, rather than cook them myself.

Ok. I’ll admit that I’d rather have a woman cooking my eggs, but simply because if she is willing to cook my eggs there is a chance that she might also be willing to have sex with me (how’s that for logic?). While I might have equal chances vis-à-vis sex were it a man cooking my eggs, I am not so much interested. I am concerned that the phrase “cooking my eggs” has taken on new, and not entirely wholesome connotations. But I digress.

So the card has been assembled, and The Editor has added his words. He is smiling and pleased and none of us know why, as we are all certain that he is a dead man.

Lest I leave you with the impression that The Editor is unthoughtful or unkind, I should point out that he did enclose a ten dollar bill with the card – something the rest of us would likely not have done. Something we suggested that he might not want to do either. But what, in the end, do we know? He is The Editor.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Thieves broke into Oscar Lim’s house and made off with, among other things, Oscar’s DVD player. Among the things they left behind was Oscar’s webcam.

Go here to see stills or video of Oscar’s house being robbed as captured by his webcam.

So I was lying back in my en-f*cking-joyable HMCS Charlottetown room in heart of a big f*cking hospitial, when the doc shows up.

Doctor says, “You have one f*cked up intestine”.

I say, “Get it the f*ck out of me, mofo”.

I was on an operating table shaped like a cross – with my arms out (cause they was full of tubes and wires and sh*t). I outrock those wussy “I rock because I lost an infrequently used organ” sh*ts, because I didn’t get morphine until I woke up.

I now have a giant f*cking zipper-like wound, with not four, not five, but twenty-nine staples keeping my guts in. On top of that, two f*cking eight- centimetre giant stitches that keep the little sh*t staples together. They shoveled out three to four pounds of my misbehavin’ guts.

Unlike all you weak suckers out there, I have four feet less digestive tract. I have no large intestine. I rock harder.

Happy Valentine’s Day,
Robert

Note: Swearing has been carefully edited as Valentine’s Day is no time for swearing. There will be no exceptions, especially none for me.

I can’t immitate Matt’s style. I just can’t do it justice, so forgive the traces of lameness in that post. To understand, go read this.