Early Dog Days

There are places where I’m allowed to pee and places where I really like to pee. I’ve actually heard a real live person say that. He was getting arrested at the time. He also said a bunch of things about the cops’ respective mothers and something about owning the property. I was there at the time, but, for those who weren’t it made the first page of the Metro section in the Oregonian.

What I’ve never heard a real person say, but hundreds of movie characters say: I (you, nobody, etc.) wants to die alone. What the fuck does that really mean? It’s a secret desire of screenwriters to die in large groups? Hmmm, maybe it’s a secret desire of audiences that screenwriters die in large groups. If I’m not dying alone, I’d prefer to die with strangers and not loved ones. The only scenario I can think of that I’d prefer not dying alone is like in section eight housing with thirteen cats and nobody finding the body for a month when the rent is due. Ok, it’s not the only scenario, but I don’t like any variations (log cabin, forty hamsters, pent house, rabid racoons, etc.) and the other scenarios aren’t bloody likely (cast adrift in space, last person on earth who loses his can opener, that sort of thing).

I don’t really have death fantasies or phobias. Although both are common, I think they probably aren’t healthy. The common cold, by definition, is common, and whereas it might not kill you, it’s not something you pray for. Um, ok, scratch pray, I don’t really know what the hell people pray for, though, I think it’s common to ask god for shit, personal positive outcomes. I just mean common isn’t always good, often we use the word to mean ‘nothing to worry about, people get this all the time and live to tell the tale’. We also use it often to mean ‘You are not a unique snowflake …’.

I like the saying about peeing. I think it’s more indicative of the hearts of men than dying alone. If every third action movie had that saying in it people would begin to think it’s a common truth, people who had not, heretofore, known it to be true. I think women are less likely to fight for the right to pee where they wish, but, I honestly don’t know. It takes more talent for a girl to pee, balance, and … something else, I’m sure. It’s so effortless for guys they can do it even when not planning to. Um, when everything is working right.

My American Medical Ass-ociation paragraph for the day. At fifty years old any US doctor insists men get a colonoscopy. I was reading somewhere that in this one town the incidence of colon cancer dropped 75%. The secret? They quit doing colonoscopies based on age and gender. My dumbass redundancy blood work showed a lower white blood cell count than three weeks ago, but, the pathologist, ever quick on the draw, thinks I have a viral infection or blood cancer. Why? Low red blood cell count, not fragile or ridiculously low, but, low enough, I reckon, to do further testing. They also want to do surgery on my ulnar nerve again. I said no. I’ve gone from ambiguous malice to overt disdain. One day superfluous tests will need be covered by mal-practice, or, hopefully, nationalized medicine will change the face of defensive medicine. I think that’s misnamed; it’s offensive. Oh, and to tie in this paragraph with the general theme, it’s been suggested I have a UTI. It would make sense to ask me if there’s been a change in my peeing habits. Yes, yes there has, I don’t pee where I’d really like to quite as often as I used to. It only burns when I pee to close to the fire and the frequency increases when I’ve been drinking.

Oh, yeah, we’re under an excessive heat watch warning. Mid nineties and high humidity through the weekend. It’s not like it drops much next week, the degree to which one is a warning and the other ‘pleasant’ is slight. Crack of noon, high eighties. And I’m spent.