Facebook exposes me to things that I wouldn’t otherwise experience. Like everyone else in the world I live in a bubble, I interact with a limited number of people and they are far from a random sampling. On Facebook I see posts from people I wouldn’t talk to and see otherwise hidden sides of people I do know. I will often rant about people’s lack of rationality, but it doesn’t surprise me. I’m rational enough to know that people aren’t always rational. But on FB I see people say things that are not driven by emotion and prejudice but by brains that work in ways utterly alien to me. I’m not talking about serious things; I’m not talking about misunderstanding complex topics. I’m talking people who say things that leave you wondering what exactly goes on in their head. I don’t want to embarrass anyone so I’ll make up an example to illustrate the point. In a discussion of greatest presidents of the United States suggesting Mary Queen of Scots. He’s clearly aware she’s a queen not a president and from Scotland not the U.S. but somehow thinks it an appropriate response. We aren’t talking some sort of brain glitch, missing the question. It’s a miracle that democracy works as well as it does. There is a significant amount of randomness.
Yesterday I had my bimonthly visit to the Montefiore Medical Center infusion center. I used a totally useless word there, bimonthly. Its definition is:
adjective
adjective: bimonthly; adjective: bi-monthly1.
done, produced, or occurring twice a month or every two months.
“a bimonthly newsletter”adverb
adverb: bimonthly; adverb: bi-monthly1.
twice a month or every two months.
“the magazine appears bimonthly”
Can’t we come to an agreement on this? I get mine infusion every two months. If I got it twice a month I’d say semi-monthly; or is that the other way around?
My infusion is Entyvio, a gut-selective anti-inflammatory. I take it to control my Crohn’s disease. It’s very safe and very effective. It’s also a pain in the neck. I don’t mind getting the infusion. I sit in a very comfy chair and sit there for half an hour while I receive the infusion intravenously. I don’t mind the tiny prick of the needle. The most painful part is ripping the bandage off my hairy arm but as I always say; “If that’s the worst part of my day it’s a pretty good day.” It’s not the worst part. The worst part is the waiting around. My 30-minute infusion takes over three hours. The two plus hours is sitting in the waiting room. I forgot to bring a book to read and finished reading the New York Times online. There’s only so much social media you can take it During the actual infusion I listened to Folk Music Notebook but when I’m waiting I don’t want to risk missing them calling my name. I started composing the letter of complaint to the hospital. Why can’t they do their scheduling better? The wait is for a chair in the infusion room. The infusions take different amounts of time, that makes scheduling difficult. Then to make it worse they don’t start preparing your infusion until you are in your seat. The infusions cost from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars and don’t last. It’s use them or lose them.
When I started getting the treatments I asked, why don’t they start preparing it when you sign in? I was told it was because people leave and then all that money is wasted. My annoyance was at a high level when my name was called after waiting two hours and twenty minutes. Then my annoyance dropped precipitously. I didn’t have to wait for them to prepare my infusion. They now trust me to stay and it was ready when I sat in my chair. Then the nurse, Kathleen was wonderful. She not only asked if I wanted a pillow, she also brought me a sandwich. She was delightful even though very busy. So now my only complaint is that they don’t give me the option of confirming by phone than I’m coming and start preparing my concoction then. Or at least let me show up and check in and tell me to come back in two hours. But I understand, there is so much money involved they don’t want to take the chance. We are not talking nickels and dimes. I appreciate that they learn to trust the regulars as much as they do.
How did I spend the rest of the day? I went shopping, I was out of bacon!, watched the Met game, they lost, and finally watched Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. It was very Tarantino; it had his usual brilliance and his usual excess.
What I didn’t do is prepare another edition of Gord’s Gold. I’ll do that today. I have a few artists that I can write and record something immediately and a few I wrote to inquire when they will have new material. I’ll try and time the segments to coincide with the album release date. I want Gord’s Gold to be a success and to eventually program an entire show. I’m fantasizing about a career in music, I would like that to become reality.
Wise Madness 