They said the pain was from some kind of infection, some kind of bacteria, when I get home I realize all my symptoms are those of tetanus booster aftermath, the lump under my arm, the soreness and the way my bone hurts.Googling one's diagnosis is generally a bad idea, though this time I wish I had. So I'm on some antibiotics, and they took some blood sample and my conclusions are less scary than they were even if I now feel like a grudging vaccination paranoiac because it really did freak me out how much it hurt. It's sore, but it's movable, nothing torn, I can still play guitar and do everything needing to be done, and spent last night curled up in blankets reading King Leopold's Ghost for class and marveling and the general creepery of humans.
I played music this morning.
I played music this morning.
nothing like an undiagnosed illness to crank up the anxiety, hope things are subsiding a bit, hang in there the days are getting longer...
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of my youth I feel sorry not for myself
but for my body. It was so direct
and simple, so rational in its desires,
wanting to be touched the way an otter
loves water, the way a giraffe
wants to amble the edge of the forest, nuzzling
the tender leaves at the tops of the trees. It seems
unfair, somehow, that my body had to suffer
because I, by which I mean my mind, was saddled
with certain unfortunate high-minded romantic notions
that made me tyrannize and patronize it
like a cruel medieval baron, or an ambitious
English-professor husband ashamed of his wife—
Her love of sad movies, her budget casseroles
and regional vowels. Perhaps
my body would have liked to make some of our dates,
to come home at four in the morning and answer my scowl
with "None of your business!" Perhaps
it would have liked more presents: silks, mascaras.
If we had had a more democratic arrangement
we might even have come, despite our different backgrounds,
to a grudging respect for each other, like Tony Curtis
and Sidney Poitier fleeing handcuffed together,
instead of the current curious shift of power
in which I find I am being reluctantly
dragged along by my body as though by some
swift and powerful dog. How eagerly
it plunges ahead, not stopping for anything,
as though it knows exactly where we are going.
"Mind-Body Problem" by Katha Pollitt
Robinson in ruins:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sockshare.com/file/C0F293D685A40375#