Friday, November 30, 2007
So bored and full of apathy today. I just don't care. And what's more, I don't want to care. I just want to go somewhere and read and think and figure things out. I feel it almost impossible to care about this shit today. I don't care about depositing checks or cameras today. And I sure as hell don't want to answer the phone. I just want to be left alone and do my own thing. God damn it all. At least I have wall size plate glass windows and a door to look out of. A beacon of hope. Damn, these days drag on forever...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The music just keeps on rolling along
Pain. The pain in my head. I don't want to take more vicodin because it's making me sick. But it's the only thing that's helping the pain.
I find it funny that old Scooby Doo episodes have a laugh track. And it's after almost every line the characters say. It's just not that funny, man. And I dig me some Scoob.
Burnt popcorn is depressing.
The Dennonites are invading D-land tomorrow. I was supposed to go but my surgery was rescheduled. Boo. I know they'll have a great time. It may even rain which equals even more fun because all the kids go home. I went once in the rain. We were kings. I was really looking forward to going. I haven't seen all the updates they've made to Pirates. And I really wanted to check out the pirate shops and have a mint julep in the French Quarter. The Haunted House still scares me. And it was going to be fun to be there with a big group of friends. Possibly drunk. Goddamn the timing. Sometimes it feels like the world is against me.
Shades played Wildcat tonight. I haven't been to the shitty kitty in ages. Same surgery/world against me situation. Not that I've never seen them play but they hardly play at all and there is no live music in this town or Santa Barbara so when a show comes up it's a rare treat and one I like to participate in. And they're my boys. I like to be social. A lot. And it's a tough thing to do in this bullshit of a town/area. So I mourn the loss of a good night of live music. Woe is me. "Whoa". Joey? Keanu? Hmmmm.
Where's my damn remote control? I liked that game show. They should bring that back. You know Ken Ober needs a job. Was Collin Quinn ever funny?
Bravo is obsessed with Blow. Dude. I like the movie too, but could you lay off playing it back to back to back to back? Is it national Blow month or something? Blow appreciation day? Did I miss something because I was too whacked out on drugs? Damn.
I need another pill. Now.
I stood and swayed in my bedroom for minutes. Lazily scratching at my satin PJ pants. You know what I am? Decidedly unhungry. I think I ate twice today. Food is so unappetizing. I wish I had a king-sized bed in my backyard I could lay on during the day. It's so nice out and I don't want to be in my room anymore. I can't breathe in any other part of the house. I love my parents.
I want to go back to Vegas. I want to live in Vegas. I want to roam from casino to casino, drinking and eating and seeing shows and just never stop. I think that would be a hell of a time. I could live like that. For a long time I figure.
My Nano is dangerously close to full.
I should be sleeping. The sport of champeens.
I'm over dramatic. And overly sensitive. That's a molotov cocktail. Not nearly as tasty as an Irish Car Bomb, but just as entertaining.
There's only one man I call Baby. And he'll never know I call him that.
I want to find a Pollock at a thrift store. A first edition "Slaughterhouse Five" at a yard sale. Not my favorite artist or my favorite book. A Waterhouse and "Cats Cradle" would be my holy grails. Among them, anyway.
I need to go to a museum. When was the last time I was at one? I think it was my 27th birthday. In Phoenix. There was a Frida Kahlo exhibit. I hear there is a Dhali exhibit at the LACMA. I have still not been to The Getty. I went to the J. Paul Getty Museum when it was still at his mansion on the cliffs in Malibu. It was fantastic. I've been to The Met, Musee d'Orsay, Rodin, The Tate, I stood outside of The Louvre... I've stood in one room with a Van Gough, Rodin, Monet, Picaso, and Rembrandt and I think my head almost exploded. I love standing infront of a painting knowing that the artist stood right where I am, looking at it just as I am now. See how they held their brush, how they laid the paint on the canvas. Or to pull up some grass next to The Thinker and blush like a voyeur at The Kiss. Running through The Tate I skidded to a halt in front of one of my favorite paintings I didn't even know was there. The Lady of Shalott. It was huge and I had to sit down and soak her in. Simply magnificent. And on the other side of the museum was The Rosetta Stone. THE Rosetta Stone. Holy buddha christ. Drool. HAD to have my picture taken with THAT. I live in a town of nothing but art galleries but I have a hankering for a good museum fling. A notch down from pretension or the height of it? Or D, none of the above. Black patent leather heals, a long black coat, a feathered fan, dripping emeralds, French twist, smoldering behind dark glasses...such over dramatic hilarity would be so fantastic. The pomp. The circumstance.
I need a man who can put on a suit and look good. Work it. Own it. Enjoy it. Sophistication is sexy, boys. Class, Character, Style. Sweating like a dirty bastard and rolling through the mud is sexy, too. I enjoy that as well. But I find few men can really do a suit justice, pull it off with panache. Reckless courage is irresistible.
It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.
So much more to do...
I find it funny that old Scooby Doo episodes have a laugh track. And it's after almost every line the characters say. It's just not that funny, man. And I dig me some Scoob.
Burnt popcorn is depressing.
The Dennonites are invading D-land tomorrow. I was supposed to go but my surgery was rescheduled. Boo. I know they'll have a great time. It may even rain which equals even more fun because all the kids go home. I went once in the rain. We were kings. I was really looking forward to going. I haven't seen all the updates they've made to Pirates. And I really wanted to check out the pirate shops and have a mint julep in the French Quarter. The Haunted House still scares me. And it was going to be fun to be there with a big group of friends. Possibly drunk. Goddamn the timing. Sometimes it feels like the world is against me.
Shades played Wildcat tonight. I haven't been to the shitty kitty in ages. Same surgery/world against me situation. Not that I've never seen them play but they hardly play at all and there is no live music in this town or Santa Barbara so when a show comes up it's a rare treat and one I like to participate in. And they're my boys. I like to be social. A lot. And it's a tough thing to do in this bullshit of a town/area. So I mourn the loss of a good night of live music. Woe is me. "Whoa". Joey? Keanu? Hmmmm.
Where's my damn remote control? I liked that game show. They should bring that back. You know Ken Ober needs a job. Was Collin Quinn ever funny?
Bravo is obsessed with Blow. Dude. I like the movie too, but could you lay off playing it back to back to back to back? Is it national Blow month or something? Blow appreciation day? Did I miss something because I was too whacked out on drugs? Damn.
I need another pill. Now.
I stood and swayed in my bedroom for minutes. Lazily scratching at my satin PJ pants. You know what I am? Decidedly unhungry. I think I ate twice today. Food is so unappetizing. I wish I had a king-sized bed in my backyard I could lay on during the day. It's so nice out and I don't want to be in my room anymore. I can't breathe in any other part of the house. I love my parents.
I want to go back to Vegas. I want to live in Vegas. I want to roam from casino to casino, drinking and eating and seeing shows and just never stop. I think that would be a hell of a time. I could live like that. For a long time I figure.
My Nano is dangerously close to full.
I should be sleeping. The sport of champeens.
I'm over dramatic. And overly sensitive. That's a molotov cocktail. Not nearly as tasty as an Irish Car Bomb, but just as entertaining.
There's only one man I call Baby. And he'll never know I call him that.
I want to find a Pollock at a thrift store. A first edition "Slaughterhouse Five" at a yard sale. Not my favorite artist or my favorite book. A Waterhouse and "Cats Cradle" would be my holy grails. Among them, anyway.
I need to go to a museum. When was the last time I was at one? I think it was my 27th birthday. In Phoenix. There was a Frida Kahlo exhibit. I hear there is a Dhali exhibit at the LACMA. I have still not been to The Getty. I went to the J. Paul Getty Museum when it was still at his mansion on the cliffs in Malibu. It was fantastic. I've been to The Met, Musee d'Orsay, Rodin, The Tate, I stood outside of The Louvre... I've stood in one room with a Van Gough, Rodin, Monet, Picaso, and Rembrandt and I think my head almost exploded. I love standing infront of a painting knowing that the artist stood right where I am, looking at it just as I am now. See how they held their brush, how they laid the paint on the canvas. Or to pull up some grass next to The Thinker and blush like a voyeur at The Kiss. Running through The Tate I skidded to a halt in front of one of my favorite paintings I didn't even know was there. The Lady of Shalott. It was huge and I had to sit down and soak her in. Simply magnificent. And on the other side of the museum was The Rosetta Stone. THE Rosetta Stone. Holy buddha christ. Drool. HAD to have my picture taken with THAT. I live in a town of nothing but art galleries but I have a hankering for a good museum fling. A notch down from pretension or the height of it? Or D, none of the above. Black patent leather heals, a long black coat, a feathered fan, dripping emeralds, French twist, smoldering behind dark glasses...such over dramatic hilarity would be so fantastic. The pomp. The circumstance.
I need a man who can put on a suit and look good. Work it. Own it. Enjoy it. Sophistication is sexy, boys. Class, Character, Style. Sweating like a dirty bastard and rolling through the mud is sexy, too. I enjoy that as well. But I find few men can really do a suit justice, pull it off with panache. Reckless courage is irresistible.
It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.
So much more to do...
And it cuts like a knife
Wednesday was one of the longest days of my life. The emotional exhaustion really gave the physical a run for its money.
They scheduled my surgery for 1:30 in the afternoon. Not cool. I was expecting 8am, get it done and over with. But no, I wouldn't be that lucky. I couldn't eat anything after midnight and could only drink 8oz of water. Awesome. Food is for poor people anyway. I started the day off in a zone. A serious, impending doom zone. I got dressed and looked in the mirror knowing I wouldn't look in the mirror again at the same face. Pushed those thoughts away. Both of my parents drove with me down to UCLA. Neither one of them know how to drive let alone how to drive in LA. I want to kill them both before we even leave. I praise the mystical powers that be for my iPod and just turn the volume up. And without being able to stifle them, tears steam down my face. I am shuddering with sobs. I am terrified of this surgery. Bad memories from the first time I had a surgery like this have scarred me. Being awake while they cut on your face is, contrary to popular belief, not fun. Hearing everything the doctors are saying and doing, feeling blood dripping down the side of your face, these are bad things. I could not get past these thoughts and the immobilizing fear of them happening again. The music washed over me with a perfect numbness that ebbed and flowed with each song. A part of me, thankfully, shut down.
We got to UCLA an hour and a half early. LA. Traffic. You never know. They check me in, I've got my wristbands, I'm in line for the ride. The nurses see I am in a funk and they reassure me that my doctor is fantastic and that everything is going to be fine. They are sweet and make me laugh and distract me for a while. But I keep coming back to ground zero. It's 1:30 and I am called into the pre-op room. Wow, this is really happening. Was this all a dream I kept expecting to wake up from? I get dressed down and the nurse sets up my IV in the bend of my arm. My least favorite place. Rad. One try, I thank her for that. And I ball uncontrollably. My left arm plastered tensely to my side, Kleenex clutched to my face, I sit there waiting in this horrible state of vulnerability for an hour and a half before I am taken into the operating room. Nothing but complicated memories of all kinds pinballing through my mind that I can't turn off. I mutter the strains of Green Day's "Macy's Day Parade", the last song I heard on my iPod. I try to think of a more upbeat song but the melancholy tone just fits, and it's all that's holding me together at this point.
They finally come to get me at 3pm and wheel me into the operating room. The anesthesiologist and I go over the drugs and how it's all going to work and he's a good man. He was my man for my last surgery and he remembers me. I explain to him that I need as much drugs as is safe. I don't want to hear anything, I don't want to feel anything, I don't want to be aware of anything that is going on. I tell him my first surgery was just awful and how terrified I am of a repeat performance and he assures me he will take good care of me. I meet the other nurses, sign one more form, and am asked a zillion different times for my full name and birthday. That's how they make sure you are you. Behind the din I heard music coming from the actual operating room and I realized it was the Counting Crows. J., I thought of you and Martin and smiled. The slightest sense of security trickled in. They wheeled me into the very cold operation room and started getting machines hooked up. There were a lot of people in this little room. "Is there any chance you're pregnant, Niki?" "Don't rub it in, doc." The Gin Blossoms filter through the radio and I just laugh. They're going to give me the drugs now and I just break down. This is it. Now I have to let go. I have never been so scared in my life.
They did a good job of keeping me under. I have scattered memories of consciousness. I think I was trying to sing at some point. I did say "Ouch" at least twice to which they said they would give me more medicine. I felt a clipping. Dull. Like wire clippers. I felt threads like fine gold wires. They pushed something dark over my eye and under my eye lid. That was unpleasant. I think I heard the heart monitor start to race. I remember them telling me it was all over and me saying "thank God".
I've been eating my 500mg vicodin like Smarties and lying in bed. Beanbag chairs also make suitable pillows. I've got three tiny incisions along my eyebrow and an incision along the crease of my eyelid. I cried heartily at my first look in the mirror. The fear has not yet left me. The left half of my head has this dull ache radiating with these sharp stabs. I can't close my eye and I have this fun goop I have to cream in there and on my incisions. Ever try to sleep with one eye open? Like Metallica suggests? It's less than easy, bordering on the difficult. I find a makeshift patch and 1000mg of vicodin do the trick for me. Send your favorite way to The Red Mail Box on Rice Rd. All submissions become our property and will not be returned. Void where prohibited. Not valid in Vermont. Or Oxnard because it's lame.
Stay tuned for drug induced observations and musings. I am sore from laying here. But I find that this much vicodin plus walking around equals barfy. So we keep moving to a minimum at this point. FeeshMoch dances in his bowl. Mr. Bun keeps me company and gets tangled in the sheets. The vice tightens on my head. Grody pictures may follow. We thank you for your support.
They scheduled my surgery for 1:30 in the afternoon. Not cool. I was expecting 8am, get it done and over with. But no, I wouldn't be that lucky. I couldn't eat anything after midnight and could only drink 8oz of water. Awesome. Food is for poor people anyway. I started the day off in a zone. A serious, impending doom zone. I got dressed and looked in the mirror knowing I wouldn't look in the mirror again at the same face. Pushed those thoughts away. Both of my parents drove with me down to UCLA. Neither one of them know how to drive let alone how to drive in LA. I want to kill them both before we even leave. I praise the mystical powers that be for my iPod and just turn the volume up. And without being able to stifle them, tears steam down my face. I am shuddering with sobs. I am terrified of this surgery. Bad memories from the first time I had a surgery like this have scarred me. Being awake while they cut on your face is, contrary to popular belief, not fun. Hearing everything the doctors are saying and doing, feeling blood dripping down the side of your face, these are bad things. I could not get past these thoughts and the immobilizing fear of them happening again. The music washed over me with a perfect numbness that ebbed and flowed with each song. A part of me, thankfully, shut down.
We got to UCLA an hour and a half early. LA. Traffic. You never know. They check me in, I've got my wristbands, I'm in line for the ride. The nurses see I am in a funk and they reassure me that my doctor is fantastic and that everything is going to be fine. They are sweet and make me laugh and distract me for a while. But I keep coming back to ground zero. It's 1:30 and I am called into the pre-op room. Wow, this is really happening. Was this all a dream I kept expecting to wake up from? I get dressed down and the nurse sets up my IV in the bend of my arm. My least favorite place. Rad. One try, I thank her for that. And I ball uncontrollably. My left arm plastered tensely to my side, Kleenex clutched to my face, I sit there waiting in this horrible state of vulnerability for an hour and a half before I am taken into the operating room. Nothing but complicated memories of all kinds pinballing through my mind that I can't turn off. I mutter the strains of Green Day's "Macy's Day Parade", the last song I heard on my iPod. I try to think of a more upbeat song but the melancholy tone just fits, and it's all that's holding me together at this point.
They finally come to get me at 3pm and wheel me into the operating room. The anesthesiologist and I go over the drugs and how it's all going to work and he's a good man. He was my man for my last surgery and he remembers me. I explain to him that I need as much drugs as is safe. I don't want to hear anything, I don't want to feel anything, I don't want to be aware of anything that is going on. I tell him my first surgery was just awful and how terrified I am of a repeat performance and he assures me he will take good care of me. I meet the other nurses, sign one more form, and am asked a zillion different times for my full name and birthday. That's how they make sure you are you. Behind the din I heard music coming from the actual operating room and I realized it was the Counting Crows. J., I thought of you and Martin and smiled. The slightest sense of security trickled in. They wheeled me into the very cold operation room and started getting machines hooked up. There were a lot of people in this little room. "Is there any chance you're pregnant, Niki?" "Don't rub it in, doc." The Gin Blossoms filter through the radio and I just laugh. They're going to give me the drugs now and I just break down. This is it. Now I have to let go. I have never been so scared in my life.
They did a good job of keeping me under. I have scattered memories of consciousness. I think I was trying to sing at some point. I did say "Ouch" at least twice to which they said they would give me more medicine. I felt a clipping. Dull. Like wire clippers. I felt threads like fine gold wires. They pushed something dark over my eye and under my eye lid. That was unpleasant. I think I heard the heart monitor start to race. I remember them telling me it was all over and me saying "thank God".
I've been eating my 500mg vicodin like Smarties and lying in bed. Beanbag chairs also make suitable pillows. I've got three tiny incisions along my eyebrow and an incision along the crease of my eyelid. I cried heartily at my first look in the mirror. The fear has not yet left me. The left half of my head has this dull ache radiating with these sharp stabs. I can't close my eye and I have this fun goop I have to cream in there and on my incisions. Ever try to sleep with one eye open? Like Metallica suggests? It's less than easy, bordering on the difficult. I find a makeshift patch and 1000mg of vicodin do the trick for me. Send your favorite way to The Red Mail Box on Rice Rd. All submissions become our property and will not be returned. Void where prohibited. Not valid in Vermont. Or Oxnard because it's lame.
Stay tuned for drug induced observations and musings. I am sore from laying here. But I find that this much vicodin plus walking around equals barfy. So we keep moving to a minimum at this point. FeeshMoch dances in his bowl. Mr. Bun keeps me company and gets tangled in the sheets. The vice tightens on my head. Grody pictures may follow. We thank you for your support.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
How to Kill a Ninja
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR68W56DCBU
This is my favorite Ask a Ninja question. If you've never been to http://www.askaninja.com/ then you just haven't lived. And you may die after going there now. Be adventurous, people.
How to be, or just look like, a Ninja
Stuck on the floor
In my bean bag chair with my knee propped up because it's swollen to the point of bursting. Awww yeah. I decided to take a full force running crash into a sneaky pumpkin hiding in the last row of corn three Fridays ago working the Boccail's Haunted Hayride. The things I do to entertain the masses. Everything was fine until this last Friday night when I went out and got my groove on to Shades of Day at Wine Lovers. Then it all got worse Saturday night when the more intense grooving got on. Now this whole "walking" thing has become a drag.
Boo!
*throws popcorn*
Boo!!
I waltzed myself into the ER tonight to check things out. I found my entire leg swollen today. Totes awes. I had my knee x-rayed and thank God there is nothing torn. I couldn't begin to wrap my brain around another knee surgery, another surgery of any kind, especially to my good knee. I am out of knees. The tendon running along the outside of my leg got banged up pretty good. I didn't think I could take any good drugs because they would make me bruise worse and for longer after my eyelid surgery next week. But come to find out, Vicodin and steroids aren't on my list. Sue-pah Sweet.
And I think they just kicked in.
Float with me.
Boo!
*throws popcorn*
Boo!!
I waltzed myself into the ER tonight to check things out. I found my entire leg swollen today. Totes awes. I had my knee x-rayed and thank God there is nothing torn. I couldn't begin to wrap my brain around another knee surgery, another surgery of any kind, especially to my good knee. I am out of knees. The tendon running along the outside of my leg got banged up pretty good. I didn't think I could take any good drugs because they would make me bruise worse and for longer after my eyelid surgery next week. But come to find out, Vicodin and steroids aren't on my list. Sue-pah Sweet.
And I think they just kicked in.
Float with me.
Third Eye
Ahhhh, UCLA in the fall. I don't even know what that means. I don't have much of a frame of reference to make a sentimental statement like that. But I was back down there yesterday, this time to meet with a plastic surgeon about fixing my eye lid. Now, I'm not an easy, normal case where I just have droopy old man's eye lids and want a lift. I'm rocking a sweet disease that's pretty much never going to stop rocking ME. That complicates things. The doc told me he could do a procedure on my eye lid that would lift it but that he couldn't make it look just like my right eye. AKA normal. There was talk of a few small incisions and using my eyebrow muscle as it's stronger than my eye lid muscles and before I knew it I had an appointment for Nov. 2nd. I'm sitting in a daze with the woman who is schedualing my appointment and I'm absently yet frantically scratching the back of my neck and trying my damnest to hold back my tears. I don't know just why I was so upset. Why I am STILL so upset. I'm scared and I'm anxious. I feel like God DAMN, didn't I just have this dealt with?! But I didn't. And this surgery will be another one I get to be awake for. Joy. I feel like I should feel like this isn't a big deal, I've done this before and that first eye lid surgery was way more complicated than this one will be, and I'll be fine, and that I should be glad there is something they can do for me. But I don't feel that way. I just feel scared and anxious and terrified to my bones that I will wake up looking worse than I already do. I know, I know. "Niki, I don't even notice your eye!" Liars. No, I'm sure there are people who don't. I am, unfortunately, not one of them. Then again, it's my face. And I want my 15 year old face back. And I'm never going to get it back. And that makes me unbelievably, uncontrolably upset.I don't want to be laid out on the couch for another week, unable to go anywhere and in pain and black and blue and awesome looking. It's such an emotional toll and I've been tapped enough in that department over my eye this year. I'm wandering around the eye institute, crying behind my sunglasses, on the phone with my dad who feels a thousand pounds of guilt over me having this problem, trying to tell him what the doctor said and trying to understand why I'm so upset and trying to grasp the fact that I am going to have to have this surgery again in a few years and have that eyeball surgery again in a few years and that this isn't going away....helpless. Small. Scared. Alone.And the bright yellow drops they put in my eyes to take their pressure are streaming down my face and out my nose. I was a sight to behold. I'm tired. And I'm terrified. And I can't seem to get settled inside or stop the tears. Damn it all.
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