Month: October 2017

Hey Self – Let’s Go to School in Belgium

You’ve already met Mr. Sting and Mr. Crumpet, now meet Mr. Hey Self. This guy’s taught me a lot of lessons over the years. The comic above portrays one of my favorite.

For a bit more context on this, Mr. Hey Self and I were roommates for a year in Leuven. In our building, there was an elevator with a mirror. Two things happened every time I rode that elevator with him:

1) He would turn to the mirror and say “hey self”. This usually amused me, but every so often, it would get on my nerves. This was one of those times, so I called him on it. I wish I could remember the exact phrasing, but he said something along the lines of what you see above.

I’d never really wondered if I had healthy self-esteem before, but his response forced me to consider it. It turns out I did not. Not enough to look in the mirror and unironically say “hey self, you look good” at least. This was an unpleasant wake up moment for me. I realized I had some work to do. It was the first time I realized how important it was for me to actually be a fan myself. It was a good lesson to learn.

2) He would get a crazed look in his eye, turn my way, then play the “I’m not touching you” game that kids play. The one where you invade someone’s physical space but never physically touch them. I’m not a super huge physical contact guy now, but I absolutely hated physical contact then. So, he’d yell “I’m not touching you” and crowd me until I was a little ball on the floor. I learned nothing from this and did not care for it.

And now you’ve met Mr. Hey Self.

Mr. Shadow – The Crohn’s Saga Part 81

I’ve heard of sick people having visions before, but I’d never experienced it myself and I never really gave it much thought. And then I met Mr. Shadow.

This is a weird one, right? Here’s the thing though – it happened. Maybe it was a dream or maybe I was having a hallucination. Sometimes I’m scared that it might have been real. Regardless, I woke one night to see a shadowy figure slowly walk across my hospital room and eventually sit at the foot of my bed. It never said anything and it never looked at me. It just sat there. And then it wasn’t there anymore. Whatever it was, I was left with an uncanny awareness that there were some seriously bad things headed my way.

I’m not a huge believer in the supernatural. I suspect that there’s something more than this, but I also think most stories about it are a bunch of crap. However, if you remember from “Premonitions“, I do trust my own feelings and intuitions. I don’t know where he came from or what he was, but after seeing Mr. Shadow, I knew beyond a doubt that the next few days were going to be awful and that I was going to suffer.

As you’re going to see in the coming posts, I was right.

Sheets – All Sorts

I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet looking for queen-sized Star Wars sheets, but I’ve never found any. It really bothers me. It’s not fair. I don’t know why, but when you grow up, they take away all of the fun stuff.

My wife and I were discussing the idea of comfort clothes the other day. Most of us have some article of clothing that for some reason makes us feel safer and more confident when we’re wearing it. Hoot Deconstructed is a judgement-free zone, so I’ll confess that I have three t-shirts that I wear when I’m feeling like I need a boost. In no particular order, they are of Sartre, Sisyphus, and E.T. Try to make fun of me if you want, but I’m Superman when I’m wearing one of those bad boys.

Star Wars sheets would be fun. They’d make me feel better at the end of a long day. But no, I’m an adult, so I have to settle for beige, cream, or grey. Whoopty Doo. Maybe the world would be a better place if we could all just be goofballs and take ourselves less seriously a bit more often. So, if anyone out there in internetland knows where to find queen-sized Star Wars sheets, please share!

 

Catheters – The Crohn’s Saga Part 82

Um, so catheters aren’t very fun. For the unfamiliar, a catheter is when they insert a tube into your urethra to drain urine out of the bladder.

Here’s what happened. The mix of the physical trauma of surgery and all of the different medications was hindering my ability to pee. I was peeing some, but I wasn’t evacuating nearly as much fluid as I was taking in. This is common after surgery, but it can cause a lot of problems. To prevent those problems, hospitals use catheters to expel urine until the body wakes back up enough to do it on its own.

Having a catheter feels weird, but it doesn’t hurt. However, having a catheter inserted hurts like a bitch. You know how you can kind of imagine what some things might feel like? You can’t with is. It’s a mix of that wrong feeling you get when something is forcibly inserted into an out hole, but it also stings in a place where you’ve never felt feelings before. To put it nicely, it’s a very memorable experience.