all your virus are belong to me

the joys of being sick:
there are none

unless you are a masochist. but that's just weird.

there are, however, potential joys in pretending to be sick. in the hopes that I will feign illness in the future, here are some symptoms that I should probably claim, because they are real.

it didn't start so bad. i just wasn't feeling so hot friday morning. i sat through lectures (though i have no idea what was said, and had to leave in the middle of pdx to go vomit. i was glad i had gum in my backpack). i went to lab (in the physical sense). went to vespers. played settlers far too late into the night.

and the rest of the weekend kinda blurs. the presence or absense of the sun had little effect on my sleep pattern, which was mostly determined by the diarrhea.

***spoiler alert***
for those of you who haven't had the dehydrating, kills-orphans-in-africa diarrhea (ORT really is lifesaving. and, fun fact, it has to do with our sodium-glucose cotransporters), it's no fun. you might have been able to guess that, but really, it's way worse than the slightly mushy stool that most people call diarrhea (just because they have to wipe more than twice).

today started a bit better. gas was gas, and not wet poo. the poo hadn't firmed up, but at least it impeded less on my non-schedule. i regained my appetite (i had gone some time, thursday night to saturday night, without eating much more than some popcorn and a bit of soup. oh and less than a half grapefruit, but i lost, best i can tell, all of that in pdx). i can almost stand to concentrate. i've gotten through half a lecture. which pretty much means that i'll be right as rain by the time 24 is on. well, maybe not rain. rain's pretty right. but railroad. i'll be right as railroad. the CRI+P. with a superchief.

on the plus side. wait, not my plus side. but it could be someone's plus side. anyway, it's a fast way to lose 5 pounds. it's also a fast way to get to feeling like your entire musculature vanished.

wow, it sounds pretty bad when i put those two statements right next to each other, for now 5 pounds = john's total muscle mass. i should have talked about other ways to quickly lose 5 pounds before jumping into the whole how-weak-i-feel aspect of the sickness. oh well, live and learn. but i am curious to see what i come up with for those "other ways" ideas.

how to quickly lose 5 pounds:
shark bite
hair cut
bowel resection
leeching
duct tape mouth
chemotherapy
enema
nature hike
sulfuric acid (you've seen those diagrams. it burns right through your hand!)
guillotine
snack in London (shopkeep may ask you for 5 quid, but it's the same thing)

it's not my Cause, but some people seem to really care about it

Today is, apparently, Blog for Choice day. I'm not really pro-choice. I'm pro-responsibility, and pro-consequences, and pro-making-things-work. Peyton Manning is probably those things, plus Pro Bowl.

I have no problem with OCPs or condoms. I have no problem with the fact that a good number of fertilized eggs don't implant in the endometrium and are therefore discharged at menses (i think this is the irregular plural of mensa). I have no problem with reality that a fetus doesn't survive well outside the uterus until it's lungs are well enough developed (at about 24 weeks, if I remember correctly, though legal viability is 20 weeks). And I have no problem with children not being able to do well without his or her parents for many years, sometimes even into his or her early 40s. Consequently, I don't see a clear line that demarcates the beginning of life. Any time point we could assign would end up being as arbitrary as calling an 18-year-old an adult.

When I think back to when I was a small mass of gastrulating cells, I distinctly remember hoping that I wouldn't be aborted. True story. Which is why my concern is mostly for the mothers (though, while I think it's the mother's decision legally, there are other parties—the dude/douche, the family, the doctor—who should get some voice. Gender-equality Donne would state that neither a man nor a woman is an island). I can't imagine that terminating a life that you are responsible is an easy decision to make or to live with, regardless of how disruptive it would be to the life of the potential mother. To me, it seems like it would be unbearable either way (no pun intended, because it's not a very funny one.) But I have no experience with this sort of situation, so will talk on it no further.

I think that it's useful to keep life as sacred, above (almost?) all things. Without that sanctity, you (and Mao and Mr. Massacre) can rationalize much (and I'm not saying this is bad, but if you do this, Jack Bauer will seek you out and dead you. Oh, Peter, here's another: If Jack Bauer's gun jams, it's because he wants to beat you with it). Logically, if one holds Truth as more important than life, one can justify killing those who oppose one's Truth or hinder one's transmission of it. It's one thing to die for your beliefs (I personally find it a bit retarded if it can be avoided. Dying is actually a rather easy way out. It's much easier to die for something than it is to really, truly live for something), but to kill for them is pragmatic at best (and I'm not really much a fan of Machiavelli.)

Fact of the matter is, even if abortion were illegal, they'd still happen, and probably in less sterile environments. And far as I can tell, pro-life means being super awesome at life, and infected vaginas have no place there.

tricksy

it's starting already. after medical school's initial inundating wave, the Waters of time are starting to draw back into the deep eternity. it's time to repair my sand castle.

everytime the keep is overwhelmed, i get a good chance to step back and see what all those spires and battlements were trying to protect. i don't open the treasury every day. it's surprising the stuff you find in there. preferences (untoasted raisin bagels, KJV, and analog watches), habits (well, i've gotten over the nailbiting, but i still practice scale and chromatic fingerings when i'm bored), old poems (The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep), plans for sky castles (the Surprise, or Kourageous Kid's Krossing. yes, it was KKK, but we didn't know about the Ku, or if we did, we didn't care. well, i still don't.), or any sorts of bits of randomness (never put bananas in the refrigerator, lightsabers add one to force drains, 40 and 40M are the cheapest buses back to U Hall and 37A also ends up at Chi Fu Landmark so I can go to Park 'n Shop and get groceries, and when it's time to play Risk, you open a sleeve of newtons—it's just what you do)

the tides erase many memories. names of places, facts about various friends, any number of experiences, book plots, general history, and the entirety of organic chemistry. they're replaced. i think i'm supposed to be sad. it's like one era has ended and a new power has ascended the throne. well, maybe the change isn't that dramatic. perhaps all we have is a new king. a successor. the boy prince is finally figuring out how to rule his kingdom.

isn't he supposed to start by restoring the temple and finding some lost scroll? or was it that he let the baobab trees take over his asteriod? or did he drive the Telmarines from his land? or maybe he just stands there as part of the chorus and says "For never was there such a tale of woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo." (yes, i did my research and it is Escalus who has these lines)

but today is not a time to survey my dominion. instead, i lace up my soccer boots. i'm trying something new today. not that i've ever dominion-surveyed before. sounds kinda fun. especially if you have Mufasa around.

Oh Peter, I love this show. Here's a gem:
Upon hearing that Kiefer Sutherland played Jack Bauer on the TV show "24," Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.

Wish list (just in time for Three Kings Day and Orthodox Christmas)

I want a coach.
I want some good sense.
I want quiet.
I want to finish this book.
I want a little illumination, or maybe some sunshine.
I want anonymity.
I want to be able to call a spade a spade. I want to be able to hate on democracy and call jesse jackson a racist and make holocaust, AIDS, and anorexia jokes and talk about suicide without the world going nuts.
I want bad drivers to just hire chauffers.
I want a plan I'm settled with.
I want to apologize.
I want to be more observant.
I want a rival.
I want another season of Arrested Development.
I want to know true happiness and true sorrow.
I want to be a better friend.
I want to be able to remember what the word incarcerated means.

Things that are on the list, but not officially (meaning, we can't talk about these, and actually I'm not sure why I'm disclosing them, but it's just late enough for me to do something I'll probably regret later. But my therapist might say this is a step in the right direction. Of course, I'd probably tell my therapist (s)he can go to hell, I'll decide what's my own right direction, and I'm doing this because it's just what I happen to be doing.)
I wouldn't mind being understood occasionally.
I wish I could buy into a more widely-held view on things.
I wish I could relate to people better.
I wish I wasn't so proud, or dark, or walled, or detached, or obdurate.
I wish I wasn't so set on being those things.
I wish I could live outside my head.
I wish I didn't care so much about being right.
I wish I was more intentional.
I wish I was more honest.
I wish I had a good reason (outside the fact that I find it useful) to believe anything.
I wish I knew how to not be alone.
I wish this didn't sound to cliche.
I wish I'd actually post this.