Thursday, January 5, 2012

Thank me later, but you may have noticed a total lack of New Year’s resolutions this, uh, year, and the omission is by design. Normally I’d be able to milk a post or two out of whatever declaration pops into my head, but the slate is blank this year. There are no such pronouncements, save for one delivered yesterday evening, when I told my archnemesis in ping-pong that I’ve resolved to beat him more this year. Let the records reflect this.

Let the records also show that I tried the best cheesesteak in these here parts today, according to Charlotte Magazine, and although it was good, it still wasn’t the cheesesteak I’ve been craving. Most of the foods I loved from Chicago have made their way here, whether by hook or by crook, and that includes Chipotle, Giordano’s, and some big honkin’ cookies lovingly baked under the El tracks. There are two items that continue to elude me, however: Potbelly Sandwich Shop and Philly’s Best. I don’t know if I’d ever claim to yearn for the former–it’s more the fact that Quiznos invariably toasts disappointment into each and every sandwich.

But Philly’s Best! I suppose I’d be better served by hitting up Philadelphia for authentic cheesesteaks, but a general has to go to war with the army he’s got. When I sit back and really deconstruct what I miss, it’s the texture. It’s always the texture. It certainly isn’t the quality of ingredients. Let’s be honest here: “quality ingredients” and “cheesesteaks” are, as the French would say, on the wrong fuckin’ sides of the Venn diagram. There’s a reason why you never hear patrons shout, “Garcon! Some of your finest free-range steak destroyed by a spatula, please, and smothered in organic Cheez Whiz. The white kind.” No, it’s the texture–that slightly chewy bread ensconcing a veritable crime scene of cheese “product” and what appears to be livestock fed through a paper shredder.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Like a bad punchline made flesh, I found myself in the ER on Christmas Eve, naught but two days after our final post of 2011, grappling with a virus most foul. Can you actually “grapple” with something that’s definitively kicked your ass, though? Is the verb even legitimate at that point? I have empirical evidence that suggests otherwise–specifically a vomit stain in front of the Urgent Care facility I visited prior to the hospital. Didn’t even make it through the doors. I simply ralphed right there in the parking lot, broad daylight, in what may have been either a very good or a very bad advertisement for Urgent Care.

I can’t remember the last time I upchucked. It’s got to be at least 11, 12 years ago. This is ridiculous, but in the back of my mind I’ve always regarded it as one of the weaker sicknesses, an ailment that can be overcome by sheer will alone. Well, lesson learned. It’s not a contest! I also learned to despise the IV, which essentially turns you into a spigot. Blood out, fluids in–my life was on tap for an evening.

Thankfully the staff was competent to the utmost. There were no scenes even remotely approaching the one I detailed in my last post. But even then, the hospital experience offered little comfort to me. I remember laying out my exact concerns to the doc: to ascertain that I hadn’t created some new strain of salmonella or E. coli. And if it was truly a virus, my homegrown diagnosis was that I’d have to “shake it off,” right? In medical parlance? She nodded. Turns out it was a virus, in fact, and in hindsight I probably should’ve spent those few hours sleeping. Was the assurance worth it, though? Was it even assurance, or was it just a different type of not knowing? Jury’s still out on that one. There was a time when leeches were prescribed for pretty much everything, and the only certitude I gleaned from my brush with modern medicine was leeches, if no one else, can breathe a little easier nowadays.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, January 03.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

In the normal course of a year, I make it a point to avoid circumstances that might put me near or in a hospital, a policy which has served me well so far. But on Monday, buoyed by some vestigial notion of being a good brother, I accompanied my sister to her tonsillectomy, making sure to take detailed mental notes along the way. It was an early start to the day, the unwelcome din of the alarm sounding at an ungodly hour, and what I divined through the haze, roughly 30 minutes later, was how primal the hospital feels.

Let me explain. I’m not referring to the technology, obviously, because that was present in spades. It was more the frame of mind needed to function in this environment. There wasn’t any latitude for social niceties–only a desire to make it to the next milestone, the next dotted line to sign, the next time staff calls your name. I had set up shop at a round table and fired up my laptop, when an old dude rolled up in my peripheral vision, stood there for a few seconds, and then remarked, “You like that stuff, huh?” He meant well enough, and I knew the question was a conversation starter designed to highlight the generational divide, an implicit admission that all this newfangled technology was simply mind-boggling.

“Yeah, just a ton of work,” I exclaimed with a sigh. “So nope,” I continued with a chuckle, “I don’t really like the stuff.” He acknowledged the importance of work, seemed almost apologetic, and shuffled away. I felt like a douche, because in truth, I was just checking my personal e-mail and browsing the Battlelog to see what had transpired in Battlefield 3 the night before. But the fact of the matter was I didn’t want to connect, didn’t want to swap life stories and discuss what kind of surgery his wife needed. Me and mine–that was the mandate of the moment.

This insularity carried straight into the recovery ward, a sight in and of itself. It was a meat carousel, with groggy patients being swapped out like light bulbs, who all frankly looked like shit. It was a strange juxtaposition of suffering and sterility, set against a chorus of beeping heart monitors. There, too, I wasn’t in the best of moods. After watching the nurse incompetently futz around with the IV drip, then ask me to fetch two alcohol wipes for her, she started to prattle on about cookies she had brought to work. I wanted to shake her, tell her to shut the fuck up and get back to work. But instead I went through the motions, marshaled the few shreds of social decorum I had left at that hour, and affected interest, approximately 6 CCs worth.