Green Marmot Vexed By An Hundred Sandwich

One of the most interesting things you will ever go through is a colonoscopy, although this is hearsay on my part since I went through mine passed out cold. From what I am told, I woke up midway through the procedure (I have no conscious memory of this whatsoever) facing the screen where the drama of my lower intestinal tract was showing and loudly exclaimed 'Is that me? Oh wow! That is so cool!' and then fell back asleep. Now I wish I'd been awake enough to remember just what it is I saw that was so interesting. It could have been Amelia Earhart. I'll never know.

As it turns out I have four diverticules. A diverticule is a pocket-like rupture in the tissue of the intestinal lining.

OK fine. You know those big innertubes you use for river rafting, and how they'll get a weak place in the rubber and get this big weird bulgy part that bloops out? That's a diverticule. Or it would be if it were a colon. And what we should all take away from this is that you should never use your colon as a form of alternative watercraft.Of course you should bring your colon along; your colon wants to have fun too, but I mean you should use an innertube, and if in the interim you should have cause to use your colon, then for the love of Pete go ashore. It would be gross if you just stayed there floating down the river grunting out a dump. Instead, do like we did back when I was a kid in Oregon: crap in the front seat of someones car. Some moron always forgets and leaves their window rolled down; it's private, and it's a hell of a lot more convenient than duckwalking up and down the bank all bent over looking for a restroom since most rivers don't have them. The river will still be there when you get back, and nobody will know it was you who hung a loaf on their front seat because you'll be way downstream by the time they find it.

I am given to understand that the major cause of diverticules is too much red meat in the diet, which simply doesn't apply in my case at all. I was a vegetarian for years, and I still avoid animal for the most part. Now as a child of the 60's and 70's of course I ate more than my share of cow, but in my case it had been pressure cooked for three hours beforehand. The result might best be described as slippery; I don't see how it could have massed up enough to blow out the colon of a vole, let alone a person. Still, the fact remains. And theres photographic proof.

Oh yes!

I was offered copies of these Polaroids, in fact. Now what in the hell would I do with something like that? Send them out as Christmas cards? Which now that I come to think about it I wish I had. They were kind of Christmassy. You know, all red and kind of....red, and stuff.

Insides are really red, too. I mean, REALLY RED. I figured they would be pale pink. You remember those medical books with the layered transparencies and how the intestinal tract was pink? Those are wrong. They're red.

When you get a colonoscopy the first thing they do after they pump you full of anaesthetic and you say a bunch of weird stupid shit that you think is really funny but probably isn't and then pass out, is they take an air hose and pump a couple of blasts of air up there to inflate things. I was kind of appalled at how much inflation they can get by doing that; Jesus CHRIST. Take it from me, you could stick a lot of stuff up there and never notice it unless it was square. But if it was stuff like old rubber gloves or margarine you could walk around with that all day long and never notice a thing until you took a crap, and then you'd probably scream.

Anyway, once that's done they take that hose out and then stick another different hose up there that has a fiber optic camera in it. It has a little headlight on it too; and what it lights up is shore nuff red, like I've been saying, and shiny, too. Theres all these little red spidery veins all over the place. To tell the truth though, it pretty much looks like guts. Or one of those party balloons that are all lumpy and are about 2 ft long? If one of those was big enough to walk inside of, and the inside was all covered with wet spar varnish, and was red, and had scary eyeball veins, then that's exactly what it looks like.

Before all this takes place though you have to drink this liquid laxative stuff called phosphorescent citrate of manitoba for two days. This is so they can see the forest through the trees, or at least the forest without all the bear crap laying all over the ground or however that goes. Man does this stuff clean you out. Much to my surprise it tasted pretty good. Kind of like Squirt soda, appropriately enough. You should plan on taking your pants off altogether and sitting on the toilet for that entire couple of days while this stuff does its job since as soon as it goes in, it comes RIGHT OUT. At velocity. And it ain't over till the fat lady sings...or in this case, till the fat lady shits clear for at least an hour. And the fat lady did. The fat lady about took the shine off the enamel. All the trees in that forest blew down.

Besides diverticules I had a couple of polyps. This pleased a certain dark, vile, Lovecraftian part of my psyche: ewwwww. Polypsssssssssssss.

It sounds like something with tentacles and slime that barfs up corrosive acid like those gross deep sea fish that glow in the dark and sneak around at night and lick your steering wheel and go 'wghnnnnn' because they're mutated? And if you have to have something potentially life-threatening growing in your butt it might as well be something with a cool disgusting name, like 'polyps' instead of something with a lame boring name, like 'Dave'. It would be humiliating to die from butt Daves.

Intestinal polyps supposedly can turn into colon cancer. I have no idea how this happens or why. If it actually were a mutated deep-sea fish that barfed up corrosive acid you could appease it with blood sacrifices, but its not, which is why they have to inflate your butt and stick a camera up it. Life is a mystery. In any event they took this electrified cautery thing and lassoed the polyps and sent a charge through and the polyps went 'PFFFT'. I can't say I was displeased at all. When you consider the fact that this completely obviates the need at some future date to remove several yards of colon, sew the anus shut and cut a hole in your side so you can shit in a bag, you got to figure you don't have a whole lot left to bitch about anyway. The disgusting practical joke potential is of course astronomical, but I'll shit in that bag when I come to it.

This procedure takes about an hour, all told. You are completely empty; not having eaten anything for 24 hours will do that to a person. Thanks to modern medical science and a small compressor you now also contain the cubic air mass of a military weather balloon. Combine these factors with the unmistakable aroma of vaporized ass growths and you are now primed to cut the fart of a lifetime. As soon as you wake up and turn over EVERYONE in the office will know what kind of a procedure you just had. And everyone in the parking lot. And passengers on commercial flights. And scientists aboard the international space station. It is both awe-inspiring and humbling.

The human body is a miraculous thing, kids.

Quaint Vignettes From My Charming Rural Idyll

I remember my ex-husband the way he looked when last I saw him 23 or so years ago: a sweet little catamite angel, pretty as an elf. Naturally platinum blond, with sculpted lips, bone structure forever, chocolate brown eyes, slim, athletic and stylish (and trying to choke me out and kick my legs out from underneath me while I held our infant daughter in my arms. Ahem.)

Time, as they say, wounds all heels. I finally saw a picture of him taken about a year or so ago.

The guy looks exactly like a really mean hard boiled egg.

I could not POSSIBLY be more delighted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
_______________________________________________________

The swine and their so-called flu which has the brain of a duck you know have been defeated and I once again reign supreme, striding unseen and foul through the waste places of the earth. I thought it was gonna kill me. I can see why this shit is taking lives-even with good nutrition and timely medical care I was left feeling like I'd had a giant horrible leech sucking my will to live. The only other time I was left feeling this completely beat up and exhausted was after I'd given birth. It scared me badly.

From what I read swine flu heads straight for the lungs and creates all kinds of havoc there. I am here to testify to that fact, chillun. I went straight from it to bronchitis and pneumonia without stopping at GO. I could not walk across the room. I felt like-no exaggeration-I was being shot in multiple places all over my torso and upper legs with an industrial pin nailer every time I coughed (yeah I know I already said this in my last post but it bears repeating. It HURT.). All I can say is thank God I finished my Christmas shopping early because one trip to the seething dish of agar and pestilence called the ladies room at WalMart would have flat killed me. Just touching the latch on the stall door. BOOM. Dead. On the floor.

My advice to you is: don't get swine flu. And if someone offers you some swine flu, like say at a party or on the elevator or something, just say no.

____________________________________________________

This past summer the Yummy Biker decided to take a mental health holiday from work. The Playboy of the Western World was kind enough to leave us more than enough wherewithal (which is French for 'massive cash') to take a few months off and enjoy life. We did a little recreational spending, travelled around, took a few road trips on the Victory, and hung out with degenerates. It was awesome!

Whats not so awesome, at least as far as my ego is concerned, is that suddenly the Biker has blossomed into a world class chef.

Here's the deal: I am the queen of cuisine around here. ME.

When I first met this man he was doing lame bachelor white trash things like eating dehydrated mashed potatoes and putting brown sugar into marinara. Meanwhile its been me who cranked out the serious chow and garnered all the applause and had to pretend to be all humble and shit. Sure, I'd let him mess around and make a few side dishes and stuff or do simple shit like roasts. I even let him keep his gimpy kitchen tools in my kitchen; it made him happy. And its not like he didn't have native talent; once I'd introduced him to the concept of respect for ingredients (and hidden the brown sugar) he demonstrated an amazing gift for flavor combinations and textures, better by far than mine. Still, could he make bread? Deep fry? Knock out a hollandaise, or put together a pate brisee or make a comfit or do any of that fancy technique stuff? No way.

Not then.

Here I thought he was laying on the couch all mokin da doink and reading American Iron. I was wrong. What he was actually doing was laying on the couch mokin da doink and watching Food Network and taking notes.

No kidding. I've found notes.

I'd be outside working in the garden, feeding stray cats into the chipper and meanwhile his ass was in the kitchen making fucking tapanade. I come in and he's all like "Oh here," and hands me some dish of amazing miraculous amazingness. "I made dinner."

I put on ten pounds in three months.