But a new. sinister player has appeared.

Today was officially my last day on IV antibiotics.

Which is a sad.

But at least I got to thank the nurses for the great job they did making me feel relaxed and comfortable while I was there.

It came out sort of sideways and awkward, but what the hell, it got the job done.

Got to consult with Doctor Vortel one last time. He reminded me that if I want my wounds to heal, I need to fight the stasis dermatitis by sitting with my feet above my heart whenever I can.

And I probably can do this, but I am not yet certain how.

The obvious and uncomfortable way would be to sit with my legs up on a box or whatever when I am on the computer. But there is nowhere near enough room under my computer desk for me to get my feet up high enough.

Dang these long and lanky legs of mine.

That leaves the unpalatable option of sitting with my legs up on a box or whatever and my torso and head perpendicular to my computer,

This strikes me as hilariously awkward and uncomfortable and probably very very painful and unhealthy in the long run.

And the idea is to get healthier. Severe torso pain is counterproductive to that goal.

The other solutions are worse still.

Like somehow moving myself lower, thus lowering the bar on “above my heart”. But then I would be reaching up awkwardly to use the keyboard and mouse. and the monitor would be way too high for comfort.

Ditto if I was to somehow make the desk taller. Same problems.

No, I think the only solution is to rearrange the items on my desk so that the monitor, keyboard, and mouse are in their proper places when I am sitting (as it were) side-saddle to the computer desk.

There would still be somewhat of an angle due to my current tragic inability to phase through solid matter (some day!), but I think the angle would be small enough that I could get used to it without a period of spinal trauma.

Otherwise a pretty radical redesign of my living space would be required.

Something involving hanging things from the ceiling like in some avant garde art installation in a hip museum.

Either that, or getting a monitor big enough that I could still see everything clearly despite it being the length of my legs away now.

Given the current state of my vision, it would practically have to be one of those enormous screens they have in sports arenas.

Still, it could be done. Solutions are possible. And who knows, maybe I will have one of my rare but spectacular super clever ideas that makes it all work perfectly.

My others stop today, besides going to the bank and finally cashing those checks, was a stop in with Ray at Coastal Sleep so he could give me the bits n’ pieces to upgrade my old CPAP machine with a brand new hose and a nose-only mask.

Humorous : the business part of the nose-only mask fits over my nose like a clown nose. Not what I was expecting. But I am determined to adjust to it and make it adjust to me until we reach some pleasing equilibrium.

I want to breathe in my sleep. Is that so wrong?

More after the break.

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Hello darkness my old friend

First, the obligatory link :

Corny intro aside, I’ve been in a bad state emotionally lately.

The tidal waves of despair are back, but I don’t take them, seriously. They are nothing but meaningless fluctuations in mindless brain chemicals and I am content to let them wash over me and through me without content or conflict.

Well, that’s the idea, anyhow. I’m working on it.

The important thing is that I don’t give a shit. It’s not important. It’s just bullshit.

More troubling is this creeping anxiety that is stalking me. It really gives me a feeling of being hounded by a nameless dread in my own mind. Like the second I let my guard down, a demon is going to get me.

And that makes a fella kinda tense.

And I want to stop running and, as Nietzsche said, “reach out a hand to the ghost that haunts me”^[1]. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

I can’t get off this crazy ride until it’s over, it seems. Can’t stop dancing until the music stops and we can all go home.

But who knows. Maybe at the right moment, I will suddenly turn to face that pesky demon directly and let it have it will all my suppressed fragments of id and echoes of emotions past and all the other random scraps of soiled documents in my mind in one enormous primal SCREAM that blasts the goddamn thing into bits.

One gigantic heavy metal howl that scares the birds out of the trees so badly it looks like the trees spit them out. One that makes your teeth vibrate in your mouth and your jewelry ring like a struck bell in sympathy and the dust of a hundred years puffs out of long forgotten cracks and crevices to fall like snow upon your furnishings.

The kind of sound that pierces so deep into the soul that it makes complete sociopaths wonder what they did wrong and opens a wellspring of joy in the hearts of misers and cuts one clear safe path through the walls of shadows oppressing the depressed.

The coast is clear. Run for it!

Or maybe just the act of giving myself pretext and permission to let my hot n’ fervid creativity run wild with imagistic madness for a while will do the trick.

I should try being a poet.

It seems to come naturally to me.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.