desarraigo

February 23, 2004 - a night to be remembered. A woman, no - a girl, only a week before having bared herself physically and emotionally to the man she thought she loved is sitting in bed eating brownies. Earlier in the day she was at her friend's house eating Greek honey from a monastery and complaining about how her sinuses were blocked up. Her friend suggested that she clear her sinuses with hot steam. Several hours later she would completely get over her cold - due to experiencing severe physical and emotional shock. Having boiling water in a bowl in front of you while you're sitting on the edge of your bed with a towel over your head is - in retrospect- a very stupid idea. Needless to say - the bowl of boiling water was somehow spilled into said girls lap.

So I did what I could - I was wearing pyjama pants and quickly shucked them off - running half naked to the bathroom. I turned the shower on and thought "yeah, I can do this - I'll stand in the shower and cool these burns off and I'll sleep on it and be fine". It wasn't until I heard Niall's voice in the other room on the phone with emergency services: "Hi, yes, my girlfriend burnt her vagina!" (I really didn't) The operator's response: "Was it intentional?". Seriously? Actually? By this time I was basically hyperventilating and my heart rate was starting to go through the roof. I sat on the toilet and Niall came in to turn the shower off. Emerg was on their way. And I had scalds on my inner thighs - and they were stinging like hell, and I was half naked, for maybe the second time in my life in front of this man - who I sort of lived with. In a few hours my "shame" or whatever you like to call it would be semi-permanently removed from me.

Three minutes later there was a knock at the door. And a man came in, and the part I most vividly remember is how he looked at me, in the tiny bathroom illuminated by a red Japanese lantern which cast a pink pallor over everything, with so much concern in his eyes and began talking to keep me from going tachycardic. His name was Mike. He assessed my situation - he wasn't with the ambulance - he was with one of the Emerg. 4x4's that responds immediately to these situations. He took out a paper blanket spread it over my lower half and dumped basically a liter of cool saline over it in the next 5 minutes while we waited for the ambulance, albeit gently. He held my hand.

I walked up the stairs and out the door to the ambulance - making jokes the whole way - that's how in shock I was. And I remember the burning sensation, it was horrible and wouldn't go away - yet it wasn't the worst pain in my life. But perhaps the body forgets. The worst part was they couldn't do anything for me - they couldn't give me anything until I got to the hospital. But they stayed and held my hand and talked. They assured me that I wasn't an idiot although I really felt like one - I struggled with that for a while afterwards.

They saw me naked in every sense of the word. Once I got to the hospital they had to leave for their next call - I think I felt separation anxiety. So then I got catheterized (convenient) and had an IV drip of fentanyl (woot woot). Let's just say it was a very interesting 2.5 weeks at Sunnybrook Women's College Hospital. I had my own room - it had a view of the helipad. It was a learning experience. One I'll never forget.

It's interesting how my relationship with Niall was bookended by visits to the hospital via Ambulance. It's also funny/queer that both of my paramedics names were Mike. The second time I took an ambulance was when I lived with Niall and my best friend Skye. There was a long day at work followed by eggs benedict at Fran's, I'm not really sure to this day whether it was actually food poisoning or just heat stroke or something, but by 9pm that night I was feeling horrible. Coming back from a bookstore by streetcar was a dangerous ordeal - I felt nauseous. I assumed it was just me reacting to the heat of the day and the smells of the streetcar but by the time I got home I was ready to expel the contents of my stomach. So I did. More than several times over the course of the night. By 2am I was incredibly dehydrated and couldn't keep water down - no matter how thirsty I was, I kept throwing up water. Finally I gave in and called Telehealth and they told me that I had to visit a doctor within the next 4 hours. Even when my stomach was empty it was trying to empty itself and the cramps were getting so bad that my abdominal muscles hurt for the next few days. I felt so nauseous that I could hardly get up from a curled up position on our couch. So I dialled 911. Niall just kind of gave me a look of disbelief and was like "Seriously?". It was late August and Toronto was in a heatwave so I was only wearing a shirt and tiny shorts, he kept telling me to put some pants on but I was too far gone.

And that's how I met the second Mike. This one I remember more clearly - I had some sort of confusing attachment to him for the next few days. A crush, I suppose. He had blonde hair in a ponytail and was just great. He held my hand and a bucket for me, offered to carry me down our stairs, but again I walked. We made hilarious smalltalk in the ambulance - I was charming even as I was feeling like shit. He couldn't get the IV in. I guess I was too dehydrated. He tried 3 times - but we were in a moving ambulance. Got to the hospital and I felt sick again, he got me a sick bag and stayed with me while I went through the motions. (Niall was skulking in the background) At one point I was dry heaving so hard that it brought tears to my eyes continuously so I was technically crying. He smoothed my hair away from my face and wiped away my tears. It was totally the stuff romance novels are made of. He was reluctant to leave, but he did, and the nurse finally found a vein and the sweet delicious saline dripped into me and it felt like nothing else in this world.

So yeah - those were my two experiences with paramedics - I was lucky enough to be at least semi-cogent during both of them, and each time I was stunned at how great these people were, truly a rare breed of human among us.

If I'm gonna die, I want to die comfortable.

Rarely am I completely and utterly blown away by a film like I was tonight. I finally watched the Hurt Locker. I remember wanting to see it around the time District 9 came out and never getting around to it. I feel like I can't even string together a coherent sentence about it to capture exactly how I feel. It is akin to falling in love. Being completely sucked into something and really revelling in the way it makes you tingle from head to toe. My brain was working completely overtime while watching this movie. It's far from being pretty - but the cinematography was beautiful. I guess everybody takes away what they can from what they see and there are a million sociological and psychological reasons as to why we react and how we react to things but...it just struck something in me. I told my roommate that I felt as though I had eaten a giant meal and had to work on digesting it. So satisfying.

And I'm not even saying anything about the actual plot of it. Which is fine because I don't want to give away the ending or ...whatever. There were so many things running through my head as I watched it - mostly about sappers, (which by the way, 6 degrees of my mind - the sapper character in The English Patient and the crossover with Ralph Fiennes being in the movie adaptation and then in this) about those crazy suits they wear when they're disarming the bombs in terms of logistics of the suit etc. What kind of state of mind the main character was in - why he was the way he was - the idea of psychological/emotional compartmentalization and whether the development of it is more of a nature or nurture question. I hope I love it just as much when I watch it the second time.

the sentimental engine slayer

My last post was 3/4 - today is 3/15 - that's not so bad but I seem to be getting lax lately.

So - what's new with me? Let's just say that I've been handling a very interesting dichotomy in the past few months. I started seeing someone new and it's been going extremely well. However, being the way that I am this can be...detrimental. Being diagnosed with major depressive disorder is no piece of fluff but I suppose this is where this story begins. Every now and again I feel really down. Incredibly, horribly, devastatingly down. So normally this is alleviated by me spending time with friends or reading or doing something. Being with someone again always makes me forget that I'm in this situation and that even though I'm on meds for it - it surfaces in different ways - my lack of ability to concentrate on schoolwork, my lack of ability to get up in the morning, etc. I have also noticed that I've had a hard time reading books lately - I've started maybe four of them and they're all half read and I just keep picking up new things. It's strange.

See I'm halfway through this post and all I want to do is go to McDonald's and have a burger - something about their food gets my endorphins going. Anyhow so - being with A is amazing, but sometimes I worry that it's too good and the comedown will be bad and I try to occupy myself with other things - namely not homework. So this is how I'm two weeks away from finishing this year with two overdue essays and one due in a week and a half. Obviously I'm a champion. I struggle with the notion of dropping out of school - it will never happen but it's such a temptation. I feel that I'm not cut out for institutional education. I want a program that caters to my strengths and subtly works out the kinks of my weaknesses. I need some sort of cognitive therapy to instil in me the homework habits that should have been drilled into me when I was young. (I was virtually ignored as a developing student by my parents, make that just plain IGNORED) And look at me - all I'm doing is placing blame, when it's really just me, I wish there was some sort of mental version of a slap in the face to get me going.

And then on top of that I've been not writing, at least not here, oh who am I kidding - I compose lengthy blog entries in my head but then I refuse to type them up because they're incredibly personal and explicit and people who read this will be like "ew, TMI" or something. Although I guess I could start another more anonymous blog for that. And I don't want to be all weak and mushy - although that's how I've been feeling these past few weeks.

I think the bottom line is that school might be depressing me. I'm gonna go out on a very very very narcissistic limb and just say that I'm too much of a renegade genius for institutional education. Yep.

Don Draper saves the day

I don't think it's ridiculous to assume that we're looking for other planets because.....this one will.....end... - Don Draper

My day today was somewhat farcical. I woke up and decided not to bother with class, so I slept for a while and made a grilled cheese sandwich. Then I went to work - I was half an hour late and it all went downhill from there. Nausea? Check. Spilling boiling wonton soup on my left hand? Check. Matthew spilling water all over my phone? Check. Staying really late when I'm tired? Check!

So now I'm at home and all I really want to do is watch mindless or maybe even mindful television but I've got this clunker of a 6-8 page Shakespeare essay that was due Wednesday and I want nothing to do with it. Nothing. My mind keeps wandering - I can't seem to decide what I want to do. Time seems to slow down when I'm with other people but when I'm alone it goes too fast. I can't seem to stop and enjoy the air. Can you believe there's only a month of school left? I've got 3 assignments after this one and I have no idea how I'm going to cope with it. Not to mention I've burned through a stack of money like it's going out of style.

What am I doing? Mostly living in la-la land, reading comic books and James Ellroy, taking baths and that other thing grownup people do. You know which one. Yeah that one. Obtuse enough for you?

I am constantly in a state of having to get my shit together. On the one hand it's pretty good, I've got a hold of it, but on the school front - I just don't want to deal... and it just gets worse every year.

Here's to the summer school 4th year George Orwell seminar - you are my saving grace (hopefully).

Incidentally the second most lulling thing in my world at the moment is listening to Draper's voice.

The first one would be the boy, or the boy bearing cupcakes. Om nom nom.