I Came to Bring the Phunking Pain

Pimp

I'm walking again, at long last. It was 16 weeks, 3 days between steps. Last thursday, my doctor removed the largest screw holding my fibula in place by connecting it to my tibia. That was the last obstacle to walking. In the hospital, i took my first step, which was toward the bathroom.

In fact, easily the biggest inconvenience has been the bathroom. I can exhibit remarkable control in a pinch, but I often wake up having to use the loo, so this whole roll-a-bout thing was quite a hassle. Of course, now I'm either crutching or caning to the john, but it's a trade-off between difficulty moving forward, or difficulty turning. And beside, as a man, there is something primal in planting both feet in front of a toilet.

I have a new cane, but I'm not quite ready for it. I was going to go pimp, but the pimp-style canes don't have the cushioning and support I wanted. I got one of those cool aluminum telescoping trekking poles from REI. It has a shock-absorber and a camera mount on top.

It hurts like hell to walk. It feels like I've been working a 12-hour day on my feet, or rather foot. Pure agony. I love it. As a lazy-ass couch-potato, I'm proud to say that I missed walking even more than I myself would have expected. The way I think of it, every bit of pain I feel today is pain I don't have to feel tomorrow. Today, though, my foot is soft and dainty, almost japanese in its pleasantness. It's almost nice enough that Nadine would touch it, but not quite.

I was awake for the surgery. It wasn't that bad, they gave me valium to chill me out. I remember it all, but it wasn't unpleasant. I've had dental surgery that was far worse. Actually, that's not true. My father is my dentist, and he's fantastic. He hooks me up with the nitrous, so every visit is like going to a good outdoor concert. And, he's fast as hell, so even the worst grinding and drilling is over quickly. I joked with him that my leg surgery was only a little longer than his average root canal, about 15 minutes.

Today, I'm in school on Percosets for the second time ever, the first being last friday. I'm not a fan of pills, I don't find Percosets all that interesting, but I do feel a little more mellow than usual. In any case, if any of you reading find out that I bludgeoned a poor schmuck for talking too much in class, please don't mention to any prosecutors that I was on drugs at the time.

New Plasma TV arrives tonight. For such a techno-geek, you would think I would have bought a nice TV before now, but the woman thankfully keeps our budget on a short leash. Nothing huge, it still has to fit inside our wood cabinet, but after spending 12 years watching the same crappy old 20"-er, I can't wait. If any of you need Hi-Def buying advice, I did a hell of a lot of research, and I'm a Consumer Reports subscriber now, too, so I can help you out.

Bonnaroo this weekend, I've never been, and I'm not going this year. Aaron and Dave left for camp. What the hell happened to my summers?

Radiology

I hate radiologists. I think, of all the Medical fields, radiology requires the highest level of sociopathy to enjoy. There's something slightly off about every Surgeon I've met, especially the lucky few who have cut me open, but they were never offensive. Radiologists, on the other hand, had always pissed me off.
Just after I had stomach surgery, I needed an upper-GI. The radiologist had to position me just right under the machine (x-ray?) so that, as I swallowed a barium milkshake, it would be recorded. He pushed and pulled me every which way. He stuffed me into a gown that wasn't half large enough, then contorted me until it was barely on my shoulders, let alone covering the rest of me. Then, he poured so much barium down my throat I puked on him, and his little gown. Score one for the patient.
I just had more x-rays. What don't these people understand about "non-weight bearing"? Again, contortions, discomfort. Thankfully, my clothes stayed on, but not the darth vader boot, so my poor little foot, and it is quite little now, was exposed to the harsh elements. And she wasn't gentle. I asked her to photograph my x-ray for me, and she claimed she couldn't work my camera. Then she hid behind a door and took my x-ray with a multi-millioin-dollar-looking machine mounted to the ceiling and floor. With one button to press, I imagine my camera would be easier to use, but perhaps her machine has a half-button. Or maybe it works when you yell at it.
They never give you answers, either. It's not like they don't know what bones look like, or should look like. I'm not asking if the tumor has shrunk, I'm asking if two parts of my leg that are normally touching each other are touching in the detailed picture she just took.
And it wasn't even a good picture. The plate is blocking a key part of the bone, so I need a CT scan tonight. Then, i need yet another Doctor's appointment so the Doctor can read the CT scan. In other words, I won't be walking until at least Monday. But, I can finally stand.
My doctor said I can put half my weight on my leg. How do you know how much half your weight is? Easy, you get out the scale, and you put your bad leg on it. Then, push down until the scale registers half your weight.
Your homework: Anyone have any good brownie recipes? We're having a mock-competition in my English department. So far we've had frosted and lavendar-s'more brownies. They were both good but, come on, I'm Phil, certainly I can come up with a kick-ass brownie recipe that tops purple marshmallows. I'm thinking molé brownies, or some deconstruction. If only I knew a professionally trained chef...
So, what's the best brownie you've ever had?

73 Inches

Before I got there, I thought the strangest thing about going back would be the students. Students sometimes have strange ways of showing that they like you, that they missed you. They're awkward (as are their teachers), and so sometimes, like boys do to girls they like, they hit. I was expecting more ribbing, more hassling, but it was generally very pleasant. Pleasant, hell, it was almost ecstatic. There were hugs, even from students I didn't feel liked me, or hug-liked me.

The strangest thing about being back is being short. I'm in a wheelchair. Honestly, I don't have to be, and I know this is horrible, but I feel like my recovery and coming back should be a gradual process. First, I'll sit. Then, I'll roll-a-bout. Then, once I can put my foot down, I'll be standing, but probably not for long periods, and maybe with a cane. A pimp cane. But for now, I'm short. I didn't notice unitl I was rolling with my principal toward the elevator. She is about 5'8" or so, I don't know, I can never judge a woman's height, but she's shorter than me. Today, I realized I was looking up at her.

It hurts classroom management to all-of-a-sudden be shorter than your students. As I even told one class, usually I can stand up, and my hulking presence in front of the room will calm things down a bit. I'm not a mean look guy. I used to be, at sleep-away camp. I could shut a kid up across a dining hall with a sharp glare. Somewhere along the line, I lost it. I tried it on a kid once who told me that it was gone. He said: "you don't have the anger behind it anymore." I guess that was a compliment. And besides, I don't know if I want to be throwing that kind of anger around, real or perceived.

I miss being hulking. Now I'm all dufus-y.

Movies. I finally saw the Godfather. The original, which I had never seen in its entirety. I think that hearing all the references and quotations, especially on Stern, actually enhanced the movie for me. The subtle nuances that everyone loves were highlighted because I was so familiar with Artie doing his impressions almost every day. Also, Brazil, which is a Terry Gilliam film. If someone can explain it to me, please do, though it was fun to watch. Twin Peaks is moving along, slowly.

Your homework is to give someone who doesn't know you like them a hug.

Acceleration

I was expecting Netflix today, it didn't show up. Tomorrow, expect reviews of Ringu, Oldboy, and Annie Hall. Today, no movies, though I did watch two episodes of the greatest show on television. No, seriously, it is the greatest show on tv. It's like the West Wing in space, but back when Aaron Sorkin was in control. Seriously, I'm not one to watch the crappy sci-fi shows where its just people with crap glued to their heads.

So, instead of Netflix, my Roll-A-Bout arrived today. It's pretty funky, like a one-legged scooter. Or like a high-speed step-stool. It has no turning radius, you must pick it up to turn it even a degree. Tomorrow, a wheelchair. I didn't want one, but my physical therapy nurse said it was free. She suggested I park it in my living room, and just use it as a comfortable chair with arms and a leg rest. I should have had insurance by me something more my speed, also with arms and a leg rest.

Oh, and on the 6 degrees, you guys are cheating. Erin, you can't use television shows, and you shouldn't use movies that aren't out. Dave, it's barely legitimate to use Directors.

The correct answer is:
Kyle M to Gina Gershon (Showgirls, oh yes I did!)
Gina Gershon to Tom Cruise (Cocktail)
Tom Cruise to Kevin Bacon (A Few Good Men)
Three degrees.

Your homework for tonight: Connect Dirk Benedict to Kevin Bacon. I'll allow television shows that have starred Dirk Benedict.

On Being a Ghost

A good friend of mine with a penchant for melodrama and a complete lack of the ironic predisposition that comes from years of being babysat by television recently asked me: If I could have one superpower, what would it be?

That's easy. I would fly.

Invisibility is a close second, but in many ways I have been invisible now for years, just slowly, and not all at the same time.

I have a history of not showing up on film. For years, at summer camp, during the end of the year slide show, we would watch carousel after carousel of slides that somehow managed to omit me. This isn't suspicious, I don't look very good in a bathing suit and I was on the soccer field too little to be photographed. But telling people, as they pointed their cameras in my direction, that I don't show up on film became something of a catch phrase for me.

In another way, though, I have a tendency to disappear, to which some of you can attest. I have a habit of leaving a place suddenly I thought I would live a long time. This started when I fled Northeastern. I wasn't into New Historicism or staying awake for their self-involved lectures, and they weren't into me teaching the freshman, so I left in a hurry to go to Carnegie Mellon. I don't even know if my friends down the hall knew I left, I think I made the decision after they had left from summer vacation. They may have simply returned to find me gone, or perhaps, as I have done with a few students this year, they simply recollected me later as a phantom of memory: "Hey, remember that guy down the hall? The one with the big green hat? Whatever happened to him?"

I was only in Pittsburgh a year, but I met some interesting people and spent a good deal of intense study time with them. Then again, at the end, I disappeared, and I couldn't tell you their last names, or where they are now.

My New York friends never knew I moved to Jersey, and to my Brooklyn co-workers, though they new I was heading north, I am just a picture in a stack of yearbooks they had trouble finding after I left. When I was involved in a Mob Scam Lawsuit, I went down to Brooklyn for my court appearance, and I stopped in at my old school. Some students passed me in the halls and nodded as though I had been there all along, they just hadn't run into me.

I am moving back to New Jersey, from Boston, in July. I wish it were somewhere warm, but Nadine was offered a great job (or, I should say, was made a great offer at an okay job) in New Jersey, not San Francisco, but who can say what the future holds. I have already told my department (except for one member who is sick and probably finding out as she reads this) and my Principal that I am leaving, and so now I am worse than a ghost. I feel like a condemned prisoner, waiting in my cell of a class room (which is cold and has no windows), and watching the world going on around me knowing that I won't be able to affect it in only a few months time, and knowing that my opinions will sound like clemency pleas.

My friend decided upon teleportation, of which I hadn't even thought. I think that would be easier, because then I wouldn't have all this packing to do.

Marriage

A friend of mine recently accused me of being pro-marriage. He is with a woman who is slowly (but surely) becoming "the one." I was grilling him on their future while my wife was, unknowingly, distracting the woman. He said something like: "The only people who ask me when I'm getting married are my married friends." This included me, another friend, and his mom. I was being accused of pressuring him into marriage for the sake of knowing other married people.

An especially timely conversation, considering Nadine and I just went away to celebrate our fifth anniversary, which is actually October 22 (Double-Deuce, for Aaron Obstfeld's enjoyment). In retrospect, it has been an easy five years. I say this not because it was easy, in fact marriage, like all relationships, is a lot of work, change, compromise, etc. I think that my feeling now that the marriage has been easy has to do with looking to the future. When I look at the next five years, I think that it will be a cinch.

Nadine and I have been together for 10 years as of this February. That's a weird anniversary to celebrate, but it's hard for both of us to give it up, although it is accusingly harder for her. When do you stop celebrating the 'dating' anniversary and devote yourself solely to the marriage anniversary? Whenever you want. Probably whenever you both want.

This brings me back to my friend, Dave. I do want him to rush into marriage. I want him to be happy, and I think that solidifying the relationship with a marriage contract increases our sense of security, which leads to happiness. I think marriage, like sobriety, works when you work it. But I also think I'm rushing him because I've monogamous been with my wife for 10 years, and it's easy for me to forget the formative stages of our relationship. The excitement, the awkwardness, the adjustments, the fiery moments when we both thought the police might have to get involved.

I resisted even talking about marriage for a long time, because i take it very seriously, and I didn't want to make a promise to which I couldn't commit. I believe that the moment you first ask yourself or your partner why you are not engaged is the moment at which you are engaged. Once you start talking inclusively about your future, you are already there, because at that point, the loss is the same. The stakes are the same for a couple who have planned out their future together but not gotten engaged as they are for a couple who have reached the proposal stage.

Nadine and I are way past this, though, so it's easy to pull someone else into our world. I have this great idea, its already working for me, I want to share it with you, by force if I have to. Suddenly, I sound like the Communist Bloc. But I'm not pushing the idea because I'm married and lonely for other married couples. I have cool couple friends who are not married, and with whom Nadine and I have a great time. When I have kids, then the loneliness will truly begin.