Baby, It's A Gas!

I know that it's probably really self-centered of me to announce an absence from the blogosphere. It's like being at a party and announcing to the room that you are going to the bathroom or off to the buffet. In reality I guess those of you who stop by here and see that I haven't posted will be able to gather that I am not posting. But here I am. I guess the self-centered gene that compells me to write out my thoughts for public dialogue is also compelling me to announce that there will be a few days' lull.

In just over a bit I'm headed to Summit for The Dreaded (Minor Outpatient) Surgery. A bit more tricky than wart removal, a bit less tricky than an appendectomy. Still, it involves a general anesthesia, which freaks me out. Aunt B. mentioned a few days ago that she doesn't respond to anesthesia, and wakes up during procedures. That's always been one of my fears. But I'm good, because I've got the Anesthesia Anxiety covered from both ends. Either I won't be knocked out fully, or I'll never wake up again. One of my favourite guilty-pleasure authors, Olivia Goldsmith, went into a coma from anesthesia and subsequently passed away. The thought of that just freaks me out.

And then there are the horror stories of the people who don't fall asleep and don't have the numbing agents working, but do have the paralytic agents working. So they lay there unable to move or speak to let the doctors know they feel and hear everything. Dear God. That right there is one of the living definitions of hell. And then there are those who wake up in the middle of it all.

Great. Now I'm cheered up. So far I've been under general anesthesia 5 times since I turned 21, all in the last three years. And each time the wierdest thing is the feeling of being THERE one minute and then just slamming into a steel wall of oblivion. Then you wake up with tubes in your nose and some grumpy man in scrubs poking you in the arm and telling you to stay awake. Great, first you want me asleep, and then you want me awake. Make up your minds, medical people.

So, anyway, that's what I'm doing today. And then tomorrow I'll probably be in bed reading a book. Saturday and Sunday I'll be up watching hours and hours of The Wire on HBO OnDemand. None of this will be blogworthy material, I assure you. Well, except for The Wire. Which those of you with Netflix should endeavour to catch from the beginning. It's like a gritty crime novel in TV form--an American version of Prime Suspect. I recommend it, if you can tolerate the very HBOness of it. I swear to you, I've watched all of Season One and sure, didn't they find a way to get at least one nekkid boobie in each episode? They even went so far as to have a closeup of a guy reading a girlie magazine in the one episode that didn't have an excuse for an actual bit of mammarial goodness. I imagine that piece of information will keep all of you away from the show in droves. If there's one thing I've learned about the American culture it's that no one likes to look at naked women here.

Ah well. This is it for me. I'm shutting down the Mac and headed up the road to meet with destiny. Have a good one!