i dunno man, this seems almost *too* on brand, even for me. i have a smooth brain and at this point retain almost nothing, but here is a loose (lmao) rundown of recent gastroenterological events:
one a couple weeks ago i went to the doctor. i hadn’t seen him in a year because other than dropping my bad ass dog at daycare i have become a full tilt agoraphobic over the last year, but i was having some weird circulatory drama and as inconvenient as it is he can’t fix that over the computer. i went in, double masked because covid is still exploding in michigan, got a diagnosis i don’t love, went home and went back to my true love watching tv but then
two a few days later i had the kind of pants-shittingly horrible diarrhea and a fever that makes you want to lie down forever. it was bad! but not uncommon for me!!! there was vomiting and uncontrollable shaking and i got a drive-thru covid test (negative) and talked to me doctor who was like “food poisoning, you’ll live.” which was fine because
three i did live. and the symptoms mostly cleared up. i vowed to never ingest a fresh piece of fruit again and went about my life until
four sunday i started feeling pretty bad again. runny shits and body aches and i was like “what the FUCK” because after the first wave i had tossed everything in the fridge and freezer that i’d so much as looked at so how could i still be jacked up??? i vomited all night and nearly prolapsed my rectum wringing bile through my asshole, then the sun came up and i barfed up a bunch of blood. i don’t scare easily, not when it comes to my various corporeal nightmares, but i saw that and was like “let me go check into the morgue right quick”
five i’m not sure how out of control covid is elsewhere in the country but here it’s so bad that you have to go into the emergency room alone, so kirsten dropped me off at 7am and i will skip the long and boring hospital saga except for this: i had two male nurses who both looked like paul hollywood (at least from what i could see around their hazmat suits) and were so hot if the circumstances had been different i would’ve begged them to eiffel tower me. RANDY and KEVIN, can you even believe??? anyway one was in the room with me when i was like “hey dude i’m ready to give you a sample” and i went down the hall and collected my own stool like a pro (i am a pro tbh) and when i came back the other was in the room and grabbed the biohazard bag with my specimen cup in it and screamed “THIS is your URINE?????? this is awful!” and i had to be like “no kevin/randy that’s poo” and he looked at me with big sad eyes which, frankly, i enjoyed. i love sympathy!
six i laid in the hospital bed double-masked up and leaking orange liquid from all my holes (at this point, they’re indistinguishable), reading hunter biden’s good as hell memoir for four hours while the pumped fluids and toradol into my veins until finally the doctor came in and told me i have some horrible subspecies of e. coli (if you love yourself, don’t click that) and asked where i had recently traveled. i was like “ummm, the dunkies drive thru?” and because he was not funny, he did not appreciate my hilarious joke. seriously though, i haven’t been anywhere. 3 times a week after i drop the dog off at daycare i get a drive thru coffee but i don’t go to, like, the places the beans come from to get it?????????????
seven i came home with cipro and zofran and steroids and strict orders to bleach the toilet every time i use it and scrub my hands down to the bone 700 times a day. the first day i laid on the couch in the room that doesn’t have a tv in it (i’m down bad!!!) and listened to my insides sloshing around like a dishwasher and was in the bathroom every half hour alternately shitting my internal organs out and praying to pass away, which
eight is a joke but also i mean it. every time i move or breathe or think a spicy thought i leak orange water out of my butt and that’s gross. i shit the bed twice in the middle of the night, which is wild because i slept through the shitting!!!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW SICK YOU HAVE TO BE TO SLEEP THROUGH POOPING. i’m messed up, baby! (i’m *more messed up than before, because if i wasn’t already a chronically ill piece of garbage i might not have even gotten sick in the first place, baby!)
nine i’m still not better and the good news is, i’m not gonna be great for months. alsooooo, i’m now paranoid out of my mind because i have no idea whose poop i ate or the vehicle through which it entered my body, so i have turned into the kind of person who scrubs the outside of the apple juice bottle from the grocery store because there might be poop on it. there’s shit on everything, all the time, and if you aren’t careful it will get in your body and poison you and you will shit on the dog in the middle of the night because you forgot to put a towel down. the antibiotics have given me the yeasty beasties, there’s a tear in my esophagus, my butthole is tore up, BURY ME.
ten life is a horror movie!!!! and not the fun kind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
books
well i got a bunch of books from the library because i have a lot of time on my butt, and i’m making my way through them but also, like...what if they have poop on them?
anyway, in the queue:
the night always comes willy vlautin
mating norman rush
consent annabel lyon
truevine beth macy
caul baby morgan jerkins
snacks
lmao yeah right, i am never eating food again!
softcore
here are some songs i am listening to on repeat to drown out my internal screaming:
bird of beauty stevie wonder
needy molly burch
workin’ on a dream bruce springsteen (you don’t like it? let’s fight)
slush puppy king krule
get sun hiatus kaiyote
same old news lake street dive
replay lady gaga
drunk in LA beach house
time flies drake
home soon vagabon
rainforest noname
dying in the subtlety cautious clay
ok love u, talk soon, wash your hands, boil your foods!
sam