how much stress can i inflict on myself?

this is esp relevant when im trying to rest and heal. but lets run down why im climbing walls today.

1. i have almost no money in my bank account. i mean, i have enough really, but its all accounted for settling things between john and i. but on top of being literally broke, my credit card statement is at about 9,000. this sucks. i can wiggle a bit here - i am owed about 4,600 dollars from various sources right now. and i get paid in about a week. still. creeping towards a debt of 10k isnt my idea of a good time, even if part of it is 'fake' debt. oh, and my credit card payment was late - i forgot about it with chris here. so thats a 50 buck late fee ill incur. awesome.

2. when i was in vegas, i passed some blood. this also rules. i dont think it is colitis rearing up somehow, but im worried ive strained myself or something. apparantly i could get a hernia from lifting. blah. and my dr is on vacation this week, so i cant easily check on it with him. though i have called to talk to whommever is filling in for him. and ive sent him email.

3. im just tired. i think im going to pack up my book (still finishing 'the wolves of calla', then its on to the new nicholson baker book, then an orson scott card book, then 'bringing down the house', then rucker's 'wetware', then who knows what.) and head to the coffee shop with the ipod. maybe a nice iced chai and a book will help me breath deep.

* * *

holy crap.

some nights, you have a plan. a thing to do. and you do it.

and that plan spirals into something amazing. take tonight for instance.

flavorpill sent me the weeks events. tonight was a res presentation at the egyptian. there were some nike shorts and some videos (rjd2, !!!, wagon christ and felix da housecat among others). and tino corp was playing in the courtyard afterwards. 10 bucks.

met kurt et all there. pay the 10 bucks and go in. and find they are offering catered dinners (fresh moz and tomato sandwiches, popcorn and chocolate). yum. watch movies. also tasty. find out they are giving away free copies of the latest issue of res. yum. go watch tino corp outside. yum. one of their video samples was the janet jackson superbowl bit. word. ben stokes tosses out the tino breaks 6 - halloween dub cd and i catch one. score.

so for 10 bucks, i saw movies, had a tasty dinner, saw djs and got a free magazine and cd.

not only all of that, but it was totally inspiring. kurt and i agreed to a project…one john and i had begun to kick around (in our typical larger-than-life planning). we agreed that over the next school year, we would make a movie a week. alternating weeks and finishing the year with 30 short movies, 15 by each of us. on a dvd. (one of the many dvds i am authoring over the next 8 months.)

it gives me a great excuse to go back to my animations and video work, while not really having to produce anything more than small experiments.

it also gives me an excuse for this - i want a creative posse. (you hear me goose - the faggy massive might be reborn.) everyone i know is creative, even outside this site. i know so many music makers, designers, story-tellers…so if youre interested in working for/with me on a short, let me know.

so many thoughts in this here head of mine right now - about movies, interactive stuff, social connections and transparent lives. whew. overwhelming.

its sunday morning, 11.00 am. and i am a free man once again.

im home, out of the hospital.

what does this mean?

it means i live not only with john, but for the next few days, i live with both of my parents here at the apartment. they will drive me crazy.

it means i have internet again. this is a good thing.

it means that i wasnt in very long. the surgery went smoothly and quickly on wed and things progressed pretty quickly from there. though i didnt respond well to the morphine this time and threw up a bit on fri morning. all this means that its only been 4 days since i was cut open and rewired again. i havent had too much time to heal. so im sore, tired, on pain meds and get pretty awful cramps when i eat. but my insides seem to be slowing down some, so i think in the future, the frequent bathroom breaks souldnt be too awful.

the hospital was much more boring this time, the drugs were worse and it just wasnt a real fun time. so im glad to be home but want desperatly to continue improving quickly so i can be at some level of normalcy before i try and make it up to seattle next week.

more later i am sure. (also, as i will have little energy, im sure ill be within reach of my laptop the next week. so if youre bored, feel free to chat me up. goodness knows ill be bored a lot i imagine.)

* * *

so im miserable and bored. i tried laying on my side a little while ago and it felt like my insides were coming out. or at least shifting like mad. so thats out. i spent the afternoon in bed, reading 'knightfall' (which isnt very good) and catching up with people. there is no tv in here and i simply couldnt sit in a chair anymore. so it seems ive traded the joy of tv in bed in the hospital for my own bed and internet. sure, its nice to be home. but i feel pretty darn rotten. no, not rotten. sick. sore. knotted inside.

for those of you keeping score though, i went to the bathroom only 3 times yesterday and only once so far today. thats good. (though im tired of everyone asking if im excited about being able to poop again. seriously. ive been asked this by almost everyone. frankly, i havent really missed it. too much info: i had to give myself enemas during the last few months and that part of my body was still producing lining even though poo wasnt going through. so stuff was still coming out of my ass. so no, i didnt miss poo coming out. and im not all that excited about it coming out again. though when you consider what kind of hell i went through with the blood and all coming from my ass, its no wonder i could take it or leave it. im just surprised at how many people asked about it.)

something to do very soon - move my writing playlist to this machine along with the mp3s on it. though being able to stream from my other machine through itunes is soooooo sweet. if it would only mark the songs as played when i played them over a network connection. im so fucking picky.

ok, maybe it was the mold. but i dont think so. i think my kidney stones are moving a bit and i think something isnt sitting right in me. i feel worse than i have in weeks.

but ill get through it.

in semi-related news, my mom told me last night that she has heard of 4 other people in our area, my age, who have either crohns or colitis. that brings the total of kids my age with digestive illnesses (ibs/colitis/crohns) in my neighborhood area (say, within 2 or 3 miles the way the crow flies) to 6 (that i know of). plus ian, who hasnt been fully diagnosed and grew up farther away.

perhaps im being paranoid, but it seems odd that a bunch of us at the same time get hit with this crap. i cant imagine what we were exposed to, but more and more im leaning that way.

oh, the other day on my dr visit i was told 1. that there was only about an 80% chance i was cured - the remaining 20 was in case i actually did have crohns. (i dont buy this, i have 0 signs. but stranger things have happened.) 2. that the pictures of my colon were not normal. (duh) more specifically, the pictures were only of the outside of my colon, not the inside. and that even removed from the body, it should be pink. instead on the outside my colon looked like raw beef. red and awful. so, yeah, i was a bit sick inside.

least i weigh over 140 now. 20 pounds gained in about 5 weeks. frightening almost.

boy. im killing everyone else on posting. course, maybe its because i have very little other to do.

i felt like poo last night when i went to bed. my front abd back hurt, the pills didnt really seem to work, i felt dehydrated and gross. but this morning i seem to be a little better. i think the key to my painkillers is actually an empty stomach, so im going to plan my meals a little differently. and maybe not eat so much all at once. (dinner was pasta alfredo, toast, a glass of water, a glass of gatorade, 2 pieces of cheesecake and a vanilla milkshake. no wonder my stomach hurt.) course my sister admitted she wanted me to gain at least 5 pounds before she leaves on sunday morning. so she has ulterior motives.

i cant really imagine still being about to get out and about. we are supposed to go to ameboa records tonight for a little while - snow patrol is playing for free and id like to spend the gift certificate my parents got me for my birthday. thats a step, but still. the idea of going to work in in a little over a week is daunting.

i dropped off the cds to leslie yesterday. (holy crap the bag is grossly gassy this morning.) she kept commenting on how much better i looked, which was relieving. it was a more casual convo this time; i think mainly due to the fact she didnt think i was dying this time.

she loaded me up with 3 bags of stuff she hadnt sold and didnt want to move. movies, books, computers games and wires. it both amused and excited me. pretty cool.

i promised pictures ofmy removed colon. i havent yet gotten professional diagnosis on these pictures, so right now i cant tell you anything about them. i do know that when they snipped the last vein and pulled it out, my vitals droped from high to normal (my heart rate went from like 110 to 70 in an instant). i know that everyone invlved (the surgeon, the medicine team, even my gi dr who wanted to keep treating me medicinally rather then through surgery) all said that i had absolutly made the correct decision to have it removed. i know that there are 3 linings to your colon. and that my colitis had eaten through 2 of the said layers. i know that if it had eaten through the third, i would have had a…shoot…i forget what they are called. but it would have created a hole in my bowel, i would have leaked fluids and crap into my body. and the surgeon gave that about a 30% fatality rate. i know that usually, they remove the colon, cut it open and look at the colitis. but with me, they could actually see the colitis without cutting the colon open.

so yeah, it was fucking serious kids. but im here and recovering and im not dead. unless this is all a dream.

im not going to post the pics directly here, because they are bloody and gross. do keep in mind that this is on a table, after the operation and the large intestine is dead. dead dead dead. which explains the terrible color. perhaps. more info on these pics once i know myself.

oh - weight update. i cant read scales apparantly. the tics on mine are 2 lb tics, not 1 lb tics. so at my least, i weighed 122, not 121. and right now i seem to be bouncing between 124 and 126, depending on: pajamas on or off, morning or night and bag empty or full. or all of the above. but at least i seem to be gaining. course, living on fatty foods should do that.

* * *

current weight in pajamas, empty bag: 129. werd.

also: cabin fever is a bad bad movie. bad.

also im pretty bored. movies, books and video games only go so far. hopefully a big box of comics i ordered will be here soon. thatll at least offer some change of pace. course, thats not really the type of distraction i would chose right now. ah well.

have a safe move/flight/etc leslie.

up early, as usual. my mom has taken my sis out to see the sites and learn where ralph's is. im listening to howard stern - something i kept meaning to do when i was up early and kept forgetting to get a radio in the hospital.

so what did i do while i was there?

mostly, i watched tv. very unexciting, right?

except ive seen every commercial on tv in the la area for the past 5 weeks. no, seriously.

my favorites: the planters peanuts ads, which seem to run only on espn and espn2; the ax body spray commercials; the jet blue comercials and the tahoma truck and volvo commercials (only because have small print saying the representations of their cars in the ads dont have anything to do with their actual products).

i also got addicted to yu-gi-oh. its on 6 times a day; i think i missed it only about 6 times in the 38 days i was there.

its time to get on bit torrent and find episodes and such.

i still weigh between 121 and 123. nuts.

my back is sore. my cousin says this could last up to 2 weeks. yuck.

so heres another post from the hospital. this one is several weeks later and most certainly while i was on drugs. i scanned this one, not for legability, but just to watch the handwriting degrade.

april 17

11.50pm

a fever, 4mg of morphine, adavan and im coasting. its tough to try and be creative now the way i feel (up and down, infection, etc). but i want to try.

flying through space, feeling close and far and drifting past things i cant touch. the bed sits up and i feel locked in panaramas of dining room chairs fly through in miniture pine. where is the family to fill it? wher are we - the chairs exist in a void like me flying through space. open it up, open it up. dont let them start. i shouldnt put the pen down because that could let to ghost writing. not that i would mind.

these are the things in my head.

im so tired.

wowsers. kids, this is what drugs will do to you. burroughs it aint. but funny enough to share.

back to bed i go.

i still weigh 121. bah. my bag has been outputting stuff that seems a step backwards for a day or two. sad.

maybe itll all turn around soon. on the brighter side, that iv bruise ive had since my colonscopy is almost gone. amazing how fast your body heals when you eat real food and not through an iv. remember this kids. i also got 2 new pain prescriptions. so i have 3 painkillers to pick from, though vicadin is hardly a choice. i think the one i used today is the best - it put me down for about 45 after i took them. i feel like some sort of addict with so many choices and bottles. but if one of them helps my back and kidneys, i wont complain at all.

i have ordered a bunch of stuff online. oops.

carter gets here tonight. shes in the air now. my mom will leave in the morning. the changing of the guard. shes been great. she doesnt think so, only because she hasnt cooked. so she wants to spend the afternoon preparing foods in the kitchen.

i have 5 posts i wrote in the hospital. some were while i was on morphine, some not. ill get around to posting them all, but here is the first. its rather long and its important to realize when it was written - over a month ago and after i had been in the hospital less then a week.

'be brave, clenched fists'

april 1, 6:10am

its not a kind habit. true.

i have a lot of people i consider friends. in fact, i probably use the definition too liberallly. i trust too easily.

im not a terribly thoughtful person though. i am terrible with birthdays, dont really enjoy giving presents and dont always follow up with my friends as often as i should. (in some cases, people argue it becomes a one-sided thing, others seem as laid back as i am.)

all of these are reasons for the site. it has allowed me to have contact with the most important people in my life. (there are notable exceptions here - maybe 6 to 8 people have not expressed interest or declined when asked.)

lets come back to this. the morphine will make it easier. (i just had a hard core craving for an otter pop.)

my situation is a mess. im up and down every four hours. infection seem to be a huge deal and im on (i think) 4 different anti-biotics now. blood continues to flow out of me freely, as it has for the past week plus. there have been times, before i came in and since, where i have thought i was going to die. ive alluded to it before. it is perhaps one of the strangest feelings i have ever encountered.

i think i will be a different person in many ways when i get out of here.

back to my previous thoughts.

ive been in here now 8 days. during this time, i have watched, detatched as people move around, towards, away from me.

its been tough not judge people (friends) equally here. it seems case-by-case, which, obviously makes it more difficult.

the easiest thing sitting here would be to go down the list of people i love and how they have handled me. but thats not fair and tacky.

what i do want to say is that quite a number of people - people both close to me as well as what might be termed as aquaintances have done nothing.

im not an attention whore. im not trying to whine or guilt people. but you call me a good friend and then do nothing? ive gotten cards, plants, presents, prayers, text messages, voice mail from people.

and others have written my three fates (roxy, carter linda) to pass along a message to me.

ive been saying for months how my patience for bullshit has diminshed.

this might finally be the kick in the head ive needed to cut a lot of the bs from my life and value the people i need to be loving.

ah, hello morphine.

i wish i could share the 100 books ive written while on this drug. sadly they are lost forever - the biggest fragment i have is of the general and priest arguing.

time to nod.

i would like to point out that i was on morphine this entire time, it just put me out at that point. also, most of the people i was referring to did end up coming through and contacting me on some level. everyone has their own way and time period. i was just surprised at the time. and on drugs. my mother keeps telling me all the things they told me i dont remember. so that entry sounds a lot more bitter then it should have in retrospect. nonetheless, there are some people who hurt my feelings pretty badly. time will tell…

well, my mother woke me up this morning at 7.30 by sweeping my balcony. its tought to be mad when shes done so much, but it was the latest id slept sine i went into the hospital. so im kinda upset. i mighta made it another hour at least. i need it.

my kidneys and lower back are in pretty continious pain. im working on getting better meds from the urologlist since the surgeon doesnt want to give me anything for something that isnt his problem.

i weighed myself yesterday. 121.

seriously. what the hell? ive lost like 10 pounds since i had surgery. and thats after all the piggy, fatty eating ive been doing. yipes. i need weight stat.

now, some people have been calling me a lot. and id love to be answering, calling back, etc. but 1. my health and your timing (esp chrispy) dont seem to line up. 2. i got my cell phone bill for 3/15-4/15. i was over by 500 minutes. thats 300 bucks. it seems morphine, concerned friends and phones dont work too well together. ill prob call sprint in the next day or two and beg. its not like i really knew what was going on. so, im going to try to email and im during the day and all my phone calls will be made after 7pm my time. unless you have a sprint cell phone, then its free for me.

i had quite a day yesterday. i had gotten get well wishes from leslie winer (cough linda, who didnt pass it on cough), which was sweet and exciting in itself. but shes moving out of town and leaving her blog (too much hassle - shes had a ton of movable type issues the past few months). reading her site and trading emails, she wanted to post some of her (semi-)unreleased music. i cant host cause my stupid host wont let me. but since we are in town together, i asked if i could somehow get copies.

she told me to drop cdrs off and she would copy them for me. so out i went.

got her the cds, she actually gave me copies to copy. so i am. but i got to meet leslie.

i suppose i shouldnt be so giddy but i cant help it. she was really worried about me being out and frankly, i stumbled a tiny bit walking throught the door, which couldnt have helped my 'im ok' case. she offered tea and water, talked to me about the drugs and fretted some. a super nice woman.

then we went to borders to exchange some presents (doubles mind you, not unwanted anything). (as good as amazon lists are, i did end up with a few duplicates.)

this was perhaps a mistake. 1. borders (at least this one) is the single worst bookstore ive ever been in. i made a list of 8 books and a dvd (the office second season, which just came out). borders had exactly 2 of the books. blah. 2. i could hardly stand by the time we left my back/kidneys hurt so bad. oops. but i came home 2 books lighter, 1 book heavier (the new neal stephenson, because im a glutton for punishment) and with an 8 dollar gift card. (and the books i exchanged were off amazon, but i got full price. sweet.)

today is busy - moms running out for more stuff, gotta call sprint, order supplies for my bag, wills coming over, the at home nurse is coming by, mom/i have to work on getting me a summer parking pass from school and i have to try to get better drugs. whew.

you can keep bugging me, ill answer as i can. im home.

* * *

linda points out she did tell me about leslie's email and i realized it at the time. chalk another one up to the morphine.