a traumatic experience.

I got shots and blood drawn yesterday. Anybody who knows me knows how much I hate needles. Mom said I should write about it, so I did.

Needles



Foreboding, but without the normal anxiety. It’s a dull, apathetic feeling, like a prisoner being sent to the electric chair who doesn’t care to live. Past times, I have had major anxiety. Almost attacks, before. Mother tells me not to worry about it until it happens. I push it from my mind, but it tries to crawl back into my consciousness, but without fervor. I fight back feebly. I am lying on the bed. I fall asleep. I drift in and out of consciousness. I am a rag doll, tossed carelessly on the floor. I feel nothing. My mother wakes me by turning on the television. She was watching her soap opera. The actors are terrible. Finally, we leave. I read a book in the car, and try to lose myself in it. When we get there, Mom realizes she has forgotten the forms and sends me in without her. I wait alone in the lobby, then am called back. We have to get started, the nurse says. I fill out the evaluation, then the doctor comes in the room. She says the dreaded word. “Vaccines.” No. Oh, no. My breathing quickens. She says we’ll wait for my mom before the needles. That was good. Mom comes. We go through the exam. It feels like a dream. Surreal and difficult to concentrate on. Then the woman came in to draw blood. The same nurse from before is with her, and holds my hand. I lie on my back and look up at the mobile above me. The person pictured on it is bald and has very thick eyebrows. When the strip of elastic is tied around my arm, I begin to panic. “Mom!” I cry. The needle plunges into my arm. “You’re doing good,” croons the nurse. I don’t feel like I am “doing good”. I don’t even mentally think to correct her. I feel the blood draining from my arm. As she slides the needle out, I can feel it leaving my body. A strange experience. Then there is a cotton ball and tape, and it is done. But it isn’t done. I have two shots I have to get next. The moment they leave, the tears well up and come cascading down my cheeks. My mother comes over to me and encircles me in her arms. “Cry,” she demands. I weep, and sob, and wail a bit. Then come the shots. The nurse is very kind about it, and has me breath in and out while she does it to keep my mind off the needles being jabbed into my flesh.
I am very proud of myself. I did not pull away once. And granted, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But my arm still hurts.

Kurt Vonnegut

I just finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. It was beyond amazing. It was spectacular. It was ingenious. I cannot say enough good things about this book. As in most Kurt Vonnegut books (at least every single one I've read), the hero is less than perfect. Actually he's pretty repulsive: drunk, fat, and challenged hygiene-wise. But he sets out to do something beautiful. Vonnegut philosophizes about the distribution of wealth, socialism, and idealism. He also touches in the important issues of family history, broom sticks, volunteer fire-brigades, and ungrateful orphans. Read it. That's all I can say.

Creative Outlet

She followed him up the stairs.
"John. Speak to me." He turned around. His face was pale and wan in the moonlight. She could see the lines beginning to grow on his forehead and under his eyes. Not laugh lines, but worry lines. His clothes hung on his gaunt frame as they would on a clothes line. Tears began rolling down her cheeks involuntaryily. He turned around and continued climbing the stairs. "John, you can't do this," she sobbed. He did not even turn around this time. She started hiccuping like a child, and sat down to weep on the cold steps.
The gunshot made her jump and cry out in anguish at the cold moon.
Up in the attic, John was slumped over in his favorite chair, blood pooling from his temple. In his limp hand was clutched his prized revolver. In his skull, the tumor shuddered and died as his brain did.

Note: I'm not in a very cheery mood, just in case you haven't noticed.

Here's something to make you feel better:

Close Encounters of the Fox Kind

If you understood the allusion in the title: Get a life.  

The creation of the blog indicates exactly how self-centered our culture has become.  There is nothing more narcissistic than arbitrarily assuming that the whole world wants to read about one's pathetic little life.  Hence, I am embracing the blogging culture whole-heartedly.  I honestly don't care if people actually want to read this, or not.  I'm just incredibly bored.

For those of you wondering what the title means (having understood the allusion; I assume anybody reading a blog has no life), it is reference to the wonderful experience I had today involving foxes.  Last Saturday, two of my friends and I saw four foxes.  They were about a hundred feet away from us at all times, but it was still pretty cool because they were FOXES, and I had never seen them up close like that before.  They didn't even try to run away when we called to them (at first I mistook one for a corgi.  She was sitting down!).  Today I went down to the same park and saw (I assume) the same foxes.  Only this time, there were five.  FIVE.  I decided to see how close I could get to them, so I started off across the baseball green.  The vixen (or the assumed vixen) would stop and stare at me every-so-often, so I would stop and sit down to calm her fears.  Once she seemed comfortable again, I would get up and move until she tensed.  She had a little kit that stayed with her, but all the rest left after about five minutes.  I don't blame them.  There were screaming kids playing baseball.  I wanted to bolt as well.  Finally, the kit got so curious about me that he decided to check me out.  He came within at least twenty feet, before sluicing (I love that word!) back into the undergrowth.  I sat with them for at least a half an hour before they got bored and left.  It was pretty awesome, though!

Now see how bored you've become?  That's why blogging is so fun for me.  I can cause undue pain to people I will never meet.  Huzzah!