I have not done anything exciting in a while which makes blogging a challenge. I could just write what’s on my mind at the moment. It’s pretty hard to think past the Eggo Thick & Fluffy Double Chocolate Waffle I just ate. I love that there are these simple relatively inexpensive, easy to make foods that can give so much pleasure. All I put on it was butter, good butter, Finlandia. It’s just as good as Kerrygold but less expensive; pay for quality but not for a brand name. I wonder if I could get paid for product placement in Wise Madness. The problem would be that you might not trust me as much if I did.
More product placement. I have been spending time home because of my health and watching lots of TV. I finished watching the third season of Daredevil; it was the best yet. It gets down to what Daredevil is about, moral choices. The Daredevil series follows the same theme as the first two Mad Max film, the moral fall and then redemption of the hero. Sure there are amazing fight sequences, anything where it’s Daredevil vs Bullseye is fun to watch, but that’s not what draws me to the show. I very often start looking at things on my computer during action sequences, they have to be exceptional to hold my attention.
Now on to my health; sneezing, nose running, portion of my cold ended quickly but I still have the residual deep cough. I’m fine most of the time but every once in a while my lungs need to be freed. That’s how coughs usually affect me; it’s not unusual, it’s not something to be concerned about. It is damned annoying. It doesn’t help that there’s ragweed pollen in the air triggering my hay fever. It’s not systemic, I don’t feel it all the time, so I don’t consider it being sick. Jonathan Miller who was part of Beyond the Fringe the influential British comedy troupe and Monty Python precursor had a marvelous TV series, The Body in Question. He is also an MD. I learned a tremendous amount for the series including that being sick is a decision we make. That’s not to say there is nothing objective. For about a year I objectively had a staph infection on the skin of my legs. That’s objective. I didn’t consider myself sick, that’s subjective. I always have Crohn’s disease but I don’t think of myself as sick except when I’m having an attack. It’s important to not judge other people’s reactions to physical problems, the fact that something you consider an annoyance, as being sick, is not the other person being weak. You don’t know what their subjective experience is. I passed a kidney stone, thought it was nothing. For others it’s excruciating. This goes double for mental illness where the terms are used far more broadly.
I just looked at my calendar. I’m pretty sure I’m busy on Friday night but I don’t know what I’m doing. In the process of looking I saw that I have my appointment with a gastroenterologist on Tuesday. That’s exciting. I haven’t seen one in a decade. I should be seeing one a few times a year. I’m sure she’ll schedule a colonoscope, I need one. Some people would be worried that it will discover cancer, I’m at elevated risk. Some people would be distressed by the procedure, it can be uncomfortable; I’m fine with it. The prep is unpleasant but I’ve been told it’s much better than it used to be. I don’t think I’m even distressed over making an appointment for it, my Medicaid coverage has been worry-free. Now my anxiety is finding out if I need someone to go with me because of the effects of the anesthesia, and then asking someone to do it. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Some things have changed for the better. When I first started to get colonoscopes I didn’t get anesthesia. Then came a period where I had to fight my insurance company to get it covered.
I’m proud of myself over something most of you would take for granted. I ordered a non-stick frying pan from Amazon. I had very high hopes for it, the specs made it seem exceptional. The specs were wrong. Sure it fried food but the non-stick was pure fiction. I had to soak it to get the food residue off it. If I wanted to do that I could just use stainless steel. Yesterday I made an omelet; I couldn’t get it out of the pan without breaking it up and the pan was covered with egg. Even after soaking I couldn’t get it clean. The part that I’m proud of is that I returned it. That’s not easy for me. I had an issue, I must have done something wrong because instead of getting a shipping label that I could affix to the box I mailed it in, I got a code to use at UPS. I brought it to the UPS outlet a few blocks from me and they had no idea what to do with it. They said they needed a label. I had to go to a full-service UPS store. The closest was in Inwood in Manhattan. It took me 40 minutes by subway and bus to get there. Once I got there it was a breeze. I showed them the code on phone, they scanned it, gave me a receipt, and sent me on my way. I got my refund immediately. There is a reason Amazon owns retail; Jeff Bezos built a better mousetrap and the world beat a path to his door. I have issues with them, until just recently they didn’t pay their employees enough, they have taken advantage of the monopoly and monopsony powers to the detriment of others. But I’m still glad they exist. They are going to make decisions based on their own benefit like the rest of us. That doesn’t make the evil. It does mean they should be a target of regulation and watched. The government is our representative to look out for our interests. We only have the resources to deal fairly with corporate giants when we band together.
I never got to writing about my evangelism, that will have to wait for another time. I also need to write another installment of You Probably Haven’t Heard. Singing the praises of musicians is my favorite thing to preach about.
Wise Madness 