The beauty of the executioner of unrealizable ideas....

Left to sleep in the garden... :)

 There were lots of very pretty flowers.

 And also one rather ugly dog...  :p

Post op

Not too sure if I am still a bit under the influence or I am just glad to be back, but regardless of feeling - not like having LOW blood sugar but like having NO blood sugar - I am rather great. It certainly makes it all alright to be in someone's arms again, kissed much, warm and fed *anything* you desire. Me being me, having been fed only some very healthy tasteless food for the past days, I asked for the exact opposite and got plenty of McDonald's.  Heh. :p   Perks of being the patient. :))

         On Wednesday, the day I signed in, I remember being so nervous, I once stood on my own foot for twenty minutes and didn't realize it until I rendered myself immobile. But it wasn't a bad day - they took me in and were all very pleasant, changing my clothes and taking me to my room and explaining everything. Between a good book, some knitting, cell phone internet and texting with a bunch of hommies, I was copping a lot better than I would have been without. My roomies chatted merrily and there was plenty gossips going about. I now know a whole lot about other women's intimate problems, that's for sure. Am far too lazy to roam the nightly halls, explore, chat with nurses or try and do anything ink-worthy - and besides.... Anyone who's ever had to take a laxative and then hold it in for 30 minutes for good measure, knows that the longest *20* minutes of your life. I kind of fell asleep after that episode. People like me don't have to worry about not being able to sleep very often. We tend to regenerate admirably when feeling safe, warm and waiting. Any chance we get, we're out like a fat kitten.

            Supposedly Lyra, now home alone, managed to get out of the cage on Thursday morning and savagely massacred some of the trash and some of General's work documents and was then on her absolute best behavior when he got back home, but I don't remember most of that report, because I was out cold when post-op General was telling me back-home-stories. 

          The operation was rather lovely - again - they gave me a drug to calm me down (though knitting while your hands are shaking has it's privileges) and changed my gown yet again into a tiny cover-like-shirt. After that most things were ceilings and nostrils, lots of women wearing green scrubs and masks talking to me, gently, kindly, petting my arms and hair, covering me in dark green sheets... I enjoyed the rustle of linens and the massive lamps of the OR, some small talk about my tattoos and blood type and so on... The anesthesiologist lady was particularly friendly and talked me through the whole 'going under' phase - she ordered me to think of a happy place, but quickly, because I'm about to run out of time. That shit certainly works fast! None of that slowly drifting into the void that my dad is always so afraid of... I'm out like a switch every time. 

           There must have been some complications afterwards, probably just after the procedure, because I have some bruises on my arms and face and one of my eyes has a tiny pool of blood, though all I remember is that I tried to push out the tube, throwing up and they tried to push it back in. There was lots of shouting and they scraped my throat. Also, when in recovery, my blood lacked the oxygen, so I had to keep the mask on longer and I became spotty with some allergy. None of that really means anything to me. Whatever trouble I caused them, they seemed to handle it fine. I'm still here ;)

           Unlike my roommates, who were sick and couldn't sleep (and one who was just awful, behaving like a child along with her internet-hysterical parents - and we were all women around 30.  I slept all the time. I slept thorough the entire Thursday day and night and most of Friday morning. Waking up for food and to answer my phone so that General wouldn't raid the ward was more a mental effort than a physical want. With every passing hour I could feel myself getting more and more normal. Well, normal probably isn't the best choice of words. Nor is 'better'. Let's say - back on track.

          General came on Friday morning to collect me and eventually they gathered all of my clothing and paperwork and released me, but then I slept again in the car and as he had to return to work for a while, I slept during his absence also. Friends got me ice-cream and we went for a tiny walk (short, but time-consuming. Takes me fifteen minutes to get up the stairs.), mildly propelled by farting and self-demeaning cynical remarks on my part :)) Sorry I don't look like a sea-sick ballerina when I'm sick. I look as if I am really messed up, bloated, pale, my hair oily and my jaw drooping, bags under my eyes, my voice slow. But give me another good night and I should be spiff and spam and back on the street again. The catholics celebrate today as the day (3pm) their Zohan kicked it. I've an urge to watch the Last Temptation of Christ...  Also, to eat a lot of chocolate eggs. We may go to see my parents tomorrow about that. We'll see how that goes. :)

Still around :p

Off to the hospital. If I live, I'm back in a few days... Probably hungry. (There has been some mention of an ice-cream I get to look forward to.. :)) If I don't... well... It's been like all good chocolates: fierce, sticky, mysterious and gone way too early. To all the people I've met an instantly fell in love with: it has been a privilege messing with you :D To all the arseholes that made some of my days ugly: I'll have a talk with St. Peter when I get there and I'll make damn sure he pisses on you before he boots you away from the gate. Suffer well :P

A curious incident of two ice-cream eaters in the midnight :p

After-zumba-ice-cream eve produced a curious statement from my partner in crime. Before she joined me, I was waiting in the evening street (abandoned for the day but for yours truly), pressing my beak against the shop window of a frame store. I was trying to look at the street-lit pictures on display in the back, and photographs and reliefs... A woman came by, on her way home I guess, and saw me a little too late (I was a bit in a niche). I suppose she must have thought me strange and a bit suspicious, because she would stare at me for the next ten steps, even turning several times afterwards. No, it wasn't my looks that troubled her so, it was that i was looking at the paintings so closely. Yes, lady. I am the infamous old-wives-tales painting eater. I snack them down with frames an' all.

          My friend then jogged up and I mentioned what went down and she mused on how she would describe this anecdote just as it was, without any fantastic elements, whereas I instantly produced a tale of a creature that gorges art. She did it so that the vast gorge between my need for actual account and witty fiction became even more apparent... I have to think about what that means. It would be foolish to assume I can still stand on both sides as I did in younger years - or perhaps I can do that now even more easily, twisting and turning the tone of my narrative the way I see fit with the slightest of mentions?

Hospital quality time and delving into the artistic nude

I've gotta go to surgery again, this time for three days and I am fiercely looking for which book to take along the 'So yesterday'-  as I worry I may be bored at some point. (Not a fan of boredom. Probably the thing about hospitals that freaks me out the most.) Before I go, the busybee, I'm trying to get my taxes up and running on my own terms - it *can* be done, I can circumnavigate certain pointless expenses, I just need to dig a route through all the procedures and middle-men. Some people are oddly kind and helpful while I do this, others are like trying to get a joke out of a sphinx. Am also trying to get people to pay me for my services while I'm at it. Customarily, I ask, imply, hint and invite the customer three or four times, before unleashing the General upon them... Hihi, he got an entire package of large rice chocolates for his birthday from his in-laws. I've never seen anyone carry home that much and I'm a fiend for supplies! :D ...Can two people eat 36 chocolates in one week?? Dunno. But I'll let you know how I do.

           As a trial, I've shot an artistic nude yesterday. It wasn't half as awkward or odd as I was afraid - having never shot a nude before, not counting people I've been wanting to sleep with, such as my gay best friend, whom to be frank, back in the day, I never really saw much clothed. But this was rather professional by comparison, I must say... there was almost no blushing, no stuttering, no staring or trying not to stare - really no weirdness to it at all. The beautiful woman who posed was super intrigued and I was totally preoccupied with the lights and the poses and the fact General was miserable somewhere else in the apartment, locked out of the day room, unable to play on the computer or watch his afternoon leisure shows in TV. We took my record 1290 shots in about nine or ten different 'chapters' and it was magnificent. (Trust me to take *portraits* of a naked person. Honestly.) It worried me, the whole idea of it, because the nude is once again an entirely unfamiliar field (regardless of how avidly I follow Ivory Underworld Blog and study the shoots there) - who am stuck between the representative head-shots and the glamour of commercial pieces, fashion and beauty. The nude is less about the face, but more so that fashion shoots, and ALL about the light and line - the form. And you need a witty twist on every single one of them - be it lock of hair, a smile, a prop, an effect - anything really, that makes it not boring, done to death or 'safe bet' and yet entirely about the beauty dressed only in skin. I was lucky to have a truly flawless model and all the retouching goes to removing odd things hanging from the ceiling (the room IS half the size now :) Oh, and I have to stress: I am so proud of myself: it did it all, soup to nuts, with the 50mm. The wide-lens zoom never even left the table. 

          On a high note, while I'm on it :P - the first episode of The Game of Thrones is out and I will make a movie night out of it and we will both see what the fuss is about. Will we love it or will we be so bored we'll start having sex before we even get to bed?? ;))

Teatime with the girls :)

Felt like the perfect Saturday eve... :D