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Use it or lose it

…And speaking of big furry butts, I underwent a hemorrhoid rubber band ligation procedure Monday. It’s so interesting what they do—the doctor places a rubber band around the tissue and it falls off after about four days. I’m on day four and pretty uncomfortable, and nothing that I know of has fallen off yet. It feels exactly like what you would imagine having a rubber band tied around part of your body until it falls off would feel like.

In the doctor’s office on Monday, the Doc asked me, “What are the symptoms?” I had no idea how to answer that, and said, “There’s a hemorrhoid.” “So what are the symptoms?” “Well, I recently planted 4 really big trees and it seems that in lifting them I exerted too much pressure down there–it comes and goes.” “What comes and goes?” “The hemorrhoid.” We went back and forth, the doctor getting more and more obviously annoyed with me, until I had to ask, “Could you tell me what the vocabulary is for this? I obviously don’t know how to answer this question, what do you want to know?” and finally he asked, “Is there swelling, does it hurt?” I think gastro-whatever doctors are all sadists. He didn’t add that in the “only” three or four days that it takes to fall off, there would be such incredible discomfort. And pain, like unbelievable pain—a new threshold of pain: If I ever am lucky to have another boyfriend, I will never again scream get off me you fat bastard.

I woke this morning to an almost unbearable pain so went to see the doctor again, fearing that something else had fallen off. He bent me over the exam table and rammed his crystal viewing tube thingy so hard up my sore little pearl-beyond-all-price that I started screaming. “Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! Doctor, that’s really uncomfortable, now that’s really painful, aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!” While I was screaming, I thought that this must be what childbirth was like. “No, Chris,” the Doctor said, “not short breaths, deep ones.” I tried to breathe deeply but another scream came out instead. Then I cursed my parents for bringing their hemorrhoid-prone genetic material together. He pulled the device out, much to my relief, then immediately rammed another device up there, but this one metal and cold. I almost fainted. I screamed again. I yelled for help. I told myself that not even childbirth could be this painful. He withdrew his device and announced that I had two new thrombosed hemorrhoids, one on either side of the tied-up one “which seemed to be doing fine” he added chirpily.

By the time I got home, I was so swollen from the examination/torture that I popped some ibuprofin and acetaminophen and jumped back into the tub. I called Bob and told him about my experience. “Oh, that’s awful, what did you do to deserve this?” he asked, and then quickly added, “I mean, down there…”

Addendum

If for some reason you’ve landed on this entry not because you’re a gallery director looking for a hot new talent for your stable, but someone who has perhaps entered “post hemorrhoid rubber band ligation” into a search engine, then let me share some of what I’ve learned here. The day after surgery don’t run around town dropping off film at labs and shopping for dinner for Dean Smith—stay in bed. Don’t invite Dean Smith over for dinner and a movie, ask him to bring you dinner and serve it to you in bed and then watch an even shorter film than Ozu’s Good Morning, and without subtitles so that you could lie flat without straining to read them. Come to think of it, ask Dean to ask Doug to cook dinner. Take 4 sitz baths/day; add plenty of natural fiber to your diet, plus 1 tsp. psyllium husks in at least 8 ounces of water, twice a day; drink at least 5 glasses of water/day; and take two acetaminophen and two ibuprofin every 4 hours if you experience any pain or discomfort or swelling. Ask you doctor ahead of time to write a prescription for a lidocaine and prilocaine (2.5%/2.5%) cream that completely deadens any pain from the swelling of additional thrombosed hemorrhoids that might appear post-procedure and on this side of your sphincter. It’s great—like touching someone else’s butt.  But it’s attached to you!

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Post Birthday Post

Sheesh, I just looked at this blog and realized I have written hardly anything this year. What’s the deal? Well, the turns that life has taken this year resemble a bit too closely the turns taken last year, and the year before. And probably the year before; trips to the south, the midwest, dates with all the wrong but-incredibly-sexy guys, Big Chrissy, Dean, the theater, opera, movies, expensive restaurants, visiting europeans, art… I’m clinging to the tail end of my mid-life crisis, the point where resignation and contentment are supposed to align and the new era begins. I see myself teetering, ready to roll into new experience, but held back by the comfort of the familiar and the dogged determination to not let go, not just yet. I might be consoled by the cyclical nature of my unfulfilled desires and experiences, but writing about them again and again is just going to be boring for you, gentle readers.

Yesterday was my 43rd birthday. The weekend was pretty fabulous, with many dinners, a carrot cake (like last year), a chocolate raspberry mousse cake, loved ones, barbequed oysters, the Sonoma Coast, movies, the Legion of Honor… Big Chrissy surprised me by purchasing most of the books on cooking that I don’t yet have that were mentioned in the recent article in The Art of Eating titled “Throw the Rest Out.” Tonight Bob’s taking me to the Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant to continue the birthday season. Imagine Mandarin Chinese food, but with lamb and middle eastern spices.

I want there to be more films by Fatih Akin. They’re about how life is, not how we want it to be.

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Sing Me a Song, Mr. Painter Man

My painter is outside my window, singing a Spanish love song, unaware, due to the translucent plastic stretched across the interior of the window, that I am right next to him. His happiness is infectious, and today I feel fine about being a barren spinster.

We’ve had this horrible sun storm the past few days. I installed an umbrella over my recently-, and overly-pruned daphne, trying to protect my beloved’s tender new leaves. My new neighbors are sun bunnies, and have been clearing the bamboo and towering Irish yews that have provided shade and a romantic privacy to my yard the past 20 years. Now my neighbors behind, as well as the sun bunnies, see directly into my bedroom and kitchen. Big Chrissy says I should try a Richard Hatch on them, as they just acquired a new baby–perhaps they won’t be too thrilled about a naked neighbor parading his furry nudes in front of their little innocent? I’m totally going to be one of those awful old bachelors who complains about everything, so I’m going to shut up now.

The painters are very sweet, but they’re in and out all day, which makes it hard to photograph, so I’m putting off work on the final piece for my October show until the house is finished–hopefully no more than 3 more weeks.

Santos has joined his amigo, and now I am being serenaded by a duet. I love them.