I’ve just endured the most traumatic experience.
It’s why I’ve gone over a week without writing anything.
Yes. It was that traumatic. My fingers couldn’t touch these keys. It was that bad.
If you’re still reading you must be wondering what I endured. What I survived.
And I’m about to tell you.
In another line or so.
(Pause for effect…)
I went a week without my computer.
Ok. So maybe I’m being a little dramatic about the trauma of not having my computer to bang away on like I’ve done for years. On some days I did send that rage to my typewriter.
Yes. I own a typewriter. It’s actually where I tend to start most of my stories, before moving over to this computer where the words pour out over a sky-scraping waterfall.
A writer without a computer is like a painter without a brush.
It is the 21st century…
You feel like there’s something that supposed to be in your hands, but there isn’t, so you notice that void all the more.
It’s like sleeping without a pillow. Eating soup without a spoon. Driving a car without a wheel.
In that sense, it’s been an enduring week.
And that’s not to mention — but to mention — that this post is fueled by an opioid haze.
Prescribed, of course.
Because going a week without a computer wasn’t the only challenging obstacle I endured over the past eight days.
Earlier this week — one of those days that ends in a Y — I went under for oral surgery.
“Went under” as in needle in the arm and anesthesia in the veins (and I wince just writing those words — I don’t do needles well at all…)
When I came out I proclaimed multiple times to Liz that I remembered what the office assistant told me before the surgery. I totally remember. I do. I have not forgotten.
I remember.
Liz fumbled to get her phone out to record me while the anesthesia was still circulating strongly through my veins and the mindless babble spilled from a mouth I couldn’t feel.
Once that camera started rolling I quickly clammed up. The memory of all those memes and funny videos of others all drugged up proclaiming crazy things is deeply engraved in my memory. I was determined not to become one of them.
Is this real life?
Fortunately Liz wasn’t recording hours later when I asked her where I was, how I got home, and when I could eat lunch.
It was 3 p.m. I had already eaten lunch — hours ago.
At some point the intense anesthesia-fog lifted, I could feel my mouth, and my feet gradually settled back to earth. Temporarily of course, because then the prescribed pain-meds kicked in and a slightly more manageable fog drifted right back over me.
I really don’t see the recreational appeal of this stuff.
I’ve lost track of days (is it Thursday? Or Friday?), occasionally forget why I’m in the kitchen like a Sims character whose action was recently deleted, and wonder when lunch is so I can sip my way through another bowl of soup as the sun is setting to the west.
The irony of getting surgery on my mouth and not having my computer at the same time has not been lost to me.
It’s like surgically removing my tongue (which did not happen, just an FYI) — for a week I had no voice (couldn’t write.)
Perhaps it was a much-needed break, given the past few months.
Now, I emerge from this opioid-induced fog somewhat creatively renewed. Sure, there’s still a bit of a heart-beat in my mouth, and the salt-water I have to swish tastes like the ocean — but hey, the ocean, I like the ocean. I can do the ocean. I just close my eyes when that salt-water circulates through my mouth and pretend I can hear the seagulls swirling overhead while my toes are dug into the warm sand.
I do the ocean very well.
But not needles.
And if you’re wondering why I had to go a week without my computer, it’s because it needed a life-revival at the Boulder Mac-Repair shop.
In other words: my paintbrush was broken, and it needed a fixin.’
While my memory of the past week is one giant haze, I do remember what the office assistant told me in our conversation that morning of a day that ended with a Y. I totally remember. I do. I have not forgotten.
I remember.
She said: “with the anesthesia, you won’t remember even having this conversation with me.”
So yeah. It’s been a week.
This post is brought to you by Vicodin and coffee.
Photo of me with a ton of anesthesia circulating through my veins, and suspicious of this blonde-headed woman taking my photo. No. I will not become a meme…