After giving the question some thought (and some math), I would guess that I have used anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 syringes in the past four years. I have poked myself several thousand times within that timeframe. If I live to 50, I suppose I will have poked myself another 33,580 times. Give or take. (I'm not looking for symapthy: I'm used to poking myself. It would be weird if all of the sudden I didn't have to do it anymore. I'm just impressed by the numbers.)
Addendum: Who else is terrified of needles? I know I am. Every time I pay a visit to the phlebotomist I cannot watch the blood being drawn from my arm, and the pinching sensation that persists while the needle is inside me makes me feel queasy...even just thinking about it.
Addendum II: You don't need to say it; we're a bunch of pussies compared to the pain of, say, childbirth, kidney stones, or a long slow freeze.
Addendum III: ...And in all that time, I only had to reuse one syringe. I was at Denny's. I had forgotten to grab a clean syringe before we left home. There was a dirty one in the glucometer pack. It made me squirm.
2008/08/16
Opening Paragraph: The "wow" of Leonard Michaels
I can't let up with Leonard Michaels, not yet. Here is the opener of his story "Manikin"
"At the university she met a Turk who studied physics and spoke foreigner's English which in every turn expressed the unnatural desire to seize idiom and make it speak just for himself. He worked nights as a waiter, summers on construction gangs, and shot pool and played bridge with fraternity boys in order to make small change, and did whatever else he could to protect and supplement his university scholarship, living a mile from campus in a room without sink or closet or decent heating and stealing most of the food he ate, and when the University Hotel was robbed it was the Turk who had done it, an act of such speed the night porter couldn't say when it happened or who rushed in from the street to bludgeon him so murderously he took it in a personal way. On weekends the Turk tutored mediocrities in mathematics and French . . ."
"At the university she met a Turk who studied physics and spoke foreigner's English which in every turn expressed the unnatural desire to seize idiom and make it speak just for himself. He worked nights as a waiter, summers on construction gangs, and shot pool and played bridge with fraternity boys in order to make small change, and did whatever else he could to protect and supplement his university scholarship, living a mile from campus in a room without sink or closet or decent heating and stealing most of the food he ate, and when the University Hotel was robbed it was the Turk who had done it, an act of such speed the night porter couldn't say when it happened or who rushed in from the street to bludgeon him so murderously he took it in a personal way. On weekends the Turk tutored mediocrities in mathematics and French . . ."
2008/08/13
What an opening paragraph [should be]
The opening paragraph of "The Deal" by Leonard Michaels:
"Twenty were jammed together on the stoop; tiers of heads made one central head, and the wings rested along the banisters: a raggedy monster of boys studying her approach. Her white face and legs. She passed without looking, poked her sunglasses against the bridge of her nose and tucked her bag between her arms and ribs. She carried it at her hip like a rifle stock. On her spine forty eyes hung like poison berries. Bone dissolved beneath her lank beige silk, and the damp circle of her belt cut her in half. Independent legs struck toward the points of her shoes. Her breasts lifted and rode the air like porpoises. She would cross to the grocery as usual, buy cigarettes, then cross back despite their eyes. As if the neighborhood hadn't changed one bit. She slipped the bag forward to crack it against her belly and pluck out keys and change. In the gesture she was home from work. Her keys jangled in the sun as if they opened everything and the air received her. The monster, watching, saw the glove fall away."
Wow. Jesus.
"Twenty were jammed together on the stoop; tiers of heads made one central head, and the wings rested along the banisters: a raggedy monster of boys studying her approach. Her white face and legs. She passed without looking, poked her sunglasses against the bridge of her nose and tucked her bag between her arms and ribs. She carried it at her hip like a rifle stock. On her spine forty eyes hung like poison berries. Bone dissolved beneath her lank beige silk, and the damp circle of her belt cut her in half. Independent legs struck toward the points of her shoes. Her breasts lifted and rode the air like porpoises. She would cross to the grocery as usual, buy cigarettes, then cross back despite their eyes. As if the neighborhood hadn't changed one bit. She slipped the bag forward to crack it against her belly and pluck out keys and change. In the gesture she was home from work. Her keys jangled in the sun as if they opened everything and the air received her. The monster, watching, saw the glove fall away."
Wow. Jesus.
2008/08/12
How many of these goddamn things have I used in the past four years?
Here we see "The March to War." Twelve syringes marching in formation, arrow-shaped.
And here is the more traditional Syringe Bouquet. As small as it is, it makes a poor centerpiece, but a decent accent.
The 2:00 a.m. question
Now what in the hell am I supposed to do with a Ziploc bag full of 100-unit syringes? Play darts?
2008/08/05
Another List for the List of Lists
Some books the writer has read, not in part but in whole, this summer:
Joshua Farris, Then We Came to the End. At first, the first-person plural was hard to get used to. A bit annoying. But as you read on the perspective opens up to you, befitting life in an office. You are not "one of us" at first. But if you stay with it, you become one of us. We becomes like a more intimate third-person, capable of separating individual pieces of itself from the group as need demands.
Martin Amis, Time's Arrow. A book I recommend everyone read. Never before have I seen the depths of depravity turned so completely upside-down (backwards, that is) as to render the Holocaust as "the fires of creation." From a writer's perspective, the dual narrative is admirable and a great accomplishment; but I am left wondering: how could one make a third-person narrative move completely backward without relying on the narrator "speaking for"? (I am seriously considering studying Time's Arrow for the Comps.)
Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin. I have not read a Nabokov novel that I have not enjoyed immensely. Beyond admirable in Pnin is how Nabokov can get away with long, long stretches of exposition that do not bore. The details are lucid and vibrant and alive. And frankly, I don't care that I have to keep a notecard handy: so many strange and unfamiliar words, bizarre novelties they are, that I have to write down so I can look them up later. Of course, Timofey Pnin himself could be your grandpa or mine, despite (or perhaps as a consequence of) his stumbling along through small-town-college America. Artificial teeth, stubbornness, polite gruffness, gruff politeness...
Steve Almond, My Life in Heavy Metal. Henry Miller is the only other writer I can think of who so carefully believes in sex on the page. I paid close attention to the title story, in particular Almond's use of sensory verbs, the accumulation of small details, and release...of information. I can't help it: I think of this story and it's gushing Mexican mermaid, and it's so perfect that everything I read or write becomes a minor sexual pun. Almond's obsession runs through the book: the gushing lifeguard; the grimy Polish girl; two Greek women fistfighting in the street; pierced, youthful, Chinese Ling; and, of course, the Republican operative.
Tom Franklin, Poachers. This collection shows how at ease Franklin is with voice and dialect and colloquialisms. But, such is Alabama. Voices throughout the collection call to mind the variance of voice in Barry Hannah's stories (Bats out of Hell, Airships). Many of Franklin's characters succeed beautifully at failure, fail beautifully at success. But their redeeming moments are powerful. The fuel storage tank inspector, in the story "Dinosaurs," when he drives off with the gigantic stuffed rhinoceros...the moment just stays with you. The title-novella creates such suspense that all the unanswered questions don't seem to matter any by the end.
I am rubbing my hands together in anticipation. I am reading Martin Amis' Yellow Dog, roughly two-thirds of the way to the end. Coming soon in the mail: Nabokov's Glory; and Martin Amis' Einstein's Monsters.
Joshua Farris, Then We Came to the End. At first, the first-person plural was hard to get used to. A bit annoying. But as you read on the perspective opens up to you, befitting life in an office. You are not "one of us" at first. But if you stay with it, you become one of us. We becomes like a more intimate third-person, capable of separating individual pieces of itself from the group as need demands.
Martin Amis, Time's Arrow. A book I recommend everyone read. Never before have I seen the depths of depravity turned so completely upside-down (backwards, that is) as to render the Holocaust as "the fires of creation." From a writer's perspective, the dual narrative is admirable and a great accomplishment; but I am left wondering: how could one make a third-person narrative move completely backward without relying on the narrator "speaking for"? (I am seriously considering studying Time's Arrow for the Comps.)
Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin. I have not read a Nabokov novel that I have not enjoyed immensely. Beyond admirable in Pnin is how Nabokov can get away with long, long stretches of exposition that do not bore. The details are lucid and vibrant and alive. And frankly, I don't care that I have to keep a notecard handy: so many strange and unfamiliar words, bizarre novelties they are, that I have to write down so I can look them up later. Of course, Timofey Pnin himself could be your grandpa or mine, despite (or perhaps as a consequence of) his stumbling along through small-town-college America. Artificial teeth, stubbornness, polite gruffness, gruff politeness...
Steve Almond, My Life in Heavy Metal. Henry Miller is the only other writer I can think of who so carefully believes in sex on the page. I paid close attention to the title story, in particular Almond's use of sensory verbs, the accumulation of small details, and release...of information. I can't help it: I think of this story and it's gushing Mexican mermaid, and it's so perfect that everything I read or write becomes a minor sexual pun. Almond's obsession runs through the book: the gushing lifeguard; the grimy Polish girl; two Greek women fistfighting in the street; pierced, youthful, Chinese Ling; and, of course, the Republican operative.
Tom Franklin, Poachers. This collection shows how at ease Franklin is with voice and dialect and colloquialisms. But, such is Alabama. Voices throughout the collection call to mind the variance of voice in Barry Hannah's stories (Bats out of Hell, Airships). Many of Franklin's characters succeed beautifully at failure, fail beautifully at success. But their redeeming moments are powerful. The fuel storage tank inspector, in the story "Dinosaurs," when he drives off with the gigantic stuffed rhinoceros...the moment just stays with you. The title-novella creates such suspense that all the unanswered questions don't seem to matter any by the end.
I am rubbing my hands together in anticipation. I am reading Martin Amis' Yellow Dog, roughly two-thirds of the way to the end. Coming soon in the mail: Nabokov's Glory; and Martin Amis' Einstein's Monsters.
2008/07/30
Incurable Itch, Phantom Limbs, and Mirror Therapy
If you have not read this article, The Itch, from the New Yorker online, give it a read. It's all about perspective and how much our brains actually perceive versus how much our brains reconstruct from experience. I like the idea that the human brain can have a malfunctioning safety switch, like a "check engine" light that leads to $$$$$$$ repair work when the only thing wrong is the check engine function itself.
2008/07/28
Who has not read what?
Someone at Britain's Telegraph newspaper hit on the bright idea to visit the Ways With Words Festival and accost people with the question, "Which great books are you embarrassed to admit you have never read?" I recall a recent discussion, with Jorge and Dan the Camel Cricket Man and D.J., about just this topic. The Telegraph link is here; it includes a video clip (my computer has no sound, so I have no idea what all those people are saying).
Let's see what great books I have that I have not read:
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift)
Slaughterhouse-five (Kurt Vonnegut)
Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
One-Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Light in August (William Faulkner)
Finnegan's Wake (James Joyce)
Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
Also I own a copy of Milton: The Complete Poems (so complete that it includes even those written in Latin). I'll never read it. Anyhow, who has time to read everything? And why would this be embarrassing to admit? I'm not embarrassed to say what I have not read. If I do ever get around to reading Finnegan's Wake, by the way, I doubt I'll ever finish it.
Let's see what great books I have that I have not read:
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift)
Slaughterhouse-five (Kurt Vonnegut)
Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
One-Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Light in August (William Faulkner)
Finnegan's Wake (James Joyce)
Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
Also I own a copy of Milton: The Complete Poems (so complete that it includes even those written in Latin). I'll never read it. Anyhow, who has time to read everything? And why would this be embarrassing to admit? I'm not embarrassed to say what I have not read. If I do ever get around to reading Finnegan's Wake, by the way, I doubt I'll ever finish it.
2008/07/24
Great Obsolete Words That Should be Resurrected for Use in Modern English
spleck: n. A speck, a spot.
vulpeculated: past ppl. Robbed by a fox.
busk: I. intransitive verb. 1. To prepare onself, get ready. b. spec. To attire or deck oneself; to dress. c. transf. To essay, attempt. 2. To set out, go (chiefly with notion of speed); to hie, hurry, haste. 3. To busk up: to get up, rise. II. transitive verb. 4. To prepare, make, or get ready; to set in order, fit out. (Still in Scottish, sometimes with up.) 5. To dress, attire, accoutre, adorn, dress up; = ‘to dress’ in its widest sense. (Still in Scottish.) b. spec. To dress a fishing-hook. c. fig. 6. To dispatch, hurry, hasten. III. reflexive verb. 7. To prepare or equip (oneself), get ready; now esp. Scottish. to dress, clothe, or deck (oneself). 8. To betake oneself, to hie one.
[Source: Oxford English Dictionary Online.]
vulpeculated: past ppl. Robbed by a fox.
busk: I. intransitive verb. 1. To prepare onself, get ready. b. spec. To attire or deck oneself; to dress. c. transf. To essay, attempt. 2. To set out, go (chiefly with notion of speed); to hie, hurry, haste. 3. To busk up: to get up, rise. II. transitive verb. 4. To prepare, make, or get ready; to set in order, fit out. (Still in Scottish, sometimes with up.) 5. To dress, attire, accoutre, adorn, dress up; = ‘to dress’ in its widest sense. (Still in Scottish.) b. spec. To dress a fishing-hook. c. fig. 6. To dispatch, hurry, hasten. III. reflexive verb. 7. To prepare or equip (oneself), get ready; now esp. Scottish. to dress, clothe, or deck (oneself). 8. To betake oneself, to hie one.
Addition. Here are some more words we should be using nowadays.
crooken: v. Obs. 1.transitive. To make crooked; fig. to pervert. 2.intransitive. To be or become crooked; to bend.
crowl: v. Obs. intransitive. To rumble or make a sound in the stomach and bowels.
crump: v. Obs. 1.intransitive To draw itself into a curve, curl, curl up. 2.transitive (and reflexive) To bend (a thing) into a curve, crook, curl up. 3.fig.? To ruffle, disturb.
crispisulcant: a. rare Undulating or serpentine. [From the Latin.]
[Source: Oxford English Dictionary Online.]
Today's Post: WORDS THAT SOUND FUNNY BECAUSE THE WRITER IS TIRED
Impetigo
Gnaw
Moist
Crevice
Inveigle
Hoot
Floater
Vacation
Bifurcate
Tonsilectomy
Atwitter
Aquiver
Aflutter
Afluvium
Curlicue
Splatter
Prenarrative
Wag
Bigwig
Appendages
And, as an added bonus, here is some weird shit written some time ago in the writing journal I carry everywhere.
"There is this giant squid in my coffee. I can't see it, the squid. No one can. I can't taste it either, or smell it. No one can. But I hear it swimming around, jetting, propulsing itself in circles against the wall of the cup. I sip my coffee carefully, and never drink more than half of it, because I can't fathom the thought of drinking in the squid down the tube of my throat. But worse is the thought of seeing the squid not against the wall of the cup, but at the bottom, squirming in the little puddle of coffee that you can never seem to drink, no matter how many times you sip."
I don't know what that was, but it is slightly disgusting.
Addition. Some of the above words, defined (source: Oxford English Dictionary Online).
impetigo: n. A name given to various pustular diseases of the skin, and in pl. to such diseases in general. From the Latin, to assail, attack.
gnaw: v. 1. trans. To bite (something) persistently so as to injure it or remove portions of it; to wear away by a continued biting or nibbling. b. With adverbial or other complement, expressing the result of the action, as to gnaw away, off, out, up; asunder, in two. 2. Of destructive agents: to corrode, waste away, consume. Said also of internal pains. 3. fig. Said esp. of passion, remorse, etc. b. Absol. and intr.; esp. with prepositions to gnaw at, into; also in indirect passive. From the Old English, gnaðan.
crevice: n. 1. A crack producing an opening in a surface or through the thickness of anything solid; a cleft, rift, chink, fissure. b. Spec. in Mining. A fissure in which a deposit of ore or metal is found. Also attrib. c. Rarely = crevasse n., in a glacier. From the Middle English, Old French, to creak, rattle, crack.
atwitter: advb. phr. In a twitter, twittering.
aflutter: advb., prop. phr. In a flutter, agitated.
splatter: n. A spatula. Obsolete. 1. A heavy or loud splash or spatter. 2. An irregular assemblage.
Gnaw
Moist
Crevice
Inveigle
Hoot
Floater
Vacation
Bifurcate
Tonsilectomy
Atwitter
Aquiver
Aflutter
Afluvium
Curlicue
Splatter
Prenarrative
Wag
Bigwig
Appendages
And, as an added bonus, here is some weird shit written some time ago in the writing journal I carry everywhere.
"There is this giant squid in my coffee. I can't see it, the squid. No one can. I can't taste it either, or smell it. No one can. But I hear it swimming around, jetting, propulsing itself in circles against the wall of the cup. I sip my coffee carefully, and never drink more than half of it, because I can't fathom the thought of drinking in the squid down the tube of my throat. But worse is the thought of seeing the squid not against the wall of the cup, but at the bottom, squirming in the little puddle of coffee that you can never seem to drink, no matter how many times you sip."
I don't know what that was, but it is slightly disgusting.
Addition. Some of the above words, defined (source: Oxford English Dictionary Online).
impetigo: n. A name given to various pustular diseases of the skin, and in pl. to such diseases in general. From the Latin, to assail, attack.
gnaw: v. 1. trans. To bite (something) persistently so as to injure it or remove portions of it; to wear away by a continued biting or nibbling. b. With adverbial or other complement, expressing the result of the action, as to gnaw away, off, out, up; asunder, in two. 2. Of destructive agents: to corrode, waste away, consume. Said also of internal pains. 3. fig. Said esp. of passion, remorse, etc. b. Absol. and intr.; esp. with prepositions to gnaw at, into; also in indirect passive. From the Old English, gnaðan.
crevice: n. 1. A crack producing an opening in a surface or through the thickness of anything solid; a cleft, rift, chink, fissure. b. Spec. in Mining. A fissure in which a deposit of ore or metal is found. Also attrib. c. Rarely = crevasse n., in a glacier. From the Middle English, Old French, to creak, rattle, crack.
atwitter: advb. phr. In a twitter, twittering.
aflutter: advb., prop. phr. In a flutter, agitated.
splatter: n. A spatula. Obsolete. 1. A heavy or loud splash or spatter. 2. An irregular assemblage.
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