The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett's Journal

Mysterious Stories Of My Youth

theferrett@theferrett.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:22:06 GMT

A man summons a demon to get immense wealth. The demon drops bags of money all around him, but tells him, "You must never pass through a red door, or I will get you." The man, overjoyed, goes to the bank - and when he walks through, THE DEMON is waiting for him! "But I didn't walk through a red door!" he protests.

"But you totally did!" the demon cackles. "Don't you see? I MADE YOU COLORBLIND!"

This sounds like the kind of story a six-year-old kid would make up by a campfire, but no - it's an actual story from House of Secrets, a comic I used to read. Want another example?

A guy sneaks into a small town to discover that ALIENS have taken over! He leads a revolution of the terrified townsfolk and begins driving the aliens back, when suddenly the "aliens" take off their helmets - it's actually good ol' US soldiers, giving a military training exercise to prepare themselves for alien invasions! They have a good laugh when they realize that wait - THOSE aliens are attacking, and they're not soldiers! IT'S A REAL INVASION OMG.

But no, it's okay. The aliens explain, after a brief kerfluffle, that they were flying overhead and saw the "fake" aliens invading and thought it was real OTHER aliens invading, and came to help out the beleaguered humans. And now we're all friends!

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKING FUCK.

Thing is, you could be excused for thinking these things were written by Alzheimers-afflicted ex-Twilight Zone writers. I mean, these twists are stupid. The guy's colorblind, which presumably means that he's R/G colorblind, so wouldn't he have noticed that the cash he was diving in Scrooge McDuck-style was gray? And he's walking to the BANK. How many banks have bright red doors? Wouldn't he have noticed on his WALK to the bank that the stoplights were flashing gray at him? This is ridiculous.

But I loved this stuff. When I was eleven, these were the scariest stories ever. You had Cain, with his creepy devil's hair and his John Lennon spectacles, leering and making bad puns as people got their tricky comeuppance. In these stories, every guy marrying a woman either was out to kill her, or discovered she was a hideous beast who would devour him whole, or - best of all - BOTH. The devil just popped up all the time, eager to make bargains for souls. (It never went well.) Criminals, always dappily dressed in suits and pork-pie hats, robbed banks and double-crossed each other. Aliens slobbered, invariably hungry for human flesh no matter what those lying sacks of goo claimed.

And always, always THE TWIST at the end. You didn't see that coming, did you, children? No, but Cain did. Cain always does. Because he's THAT FUCKING AWESOME.

I really do think that House of Mystery set my writing career back fifteen years. House of Mystery taught me that characters could - nay, should - be one-note dudes with a single motivation that leads them to wherever you want them to go. House of Mystery taught me that a good plot involved a TWIST at the end that pulled the rug out from under the reader's feet, regardless of whether that rug-pulling made a blamed lick of sense. And House of Mystery taught me that stock stereotypes were your best friend - the greedy banker, the lonely mortician, the noble astronaut, the frightened horny widow, the witch-doctor with the bone through his nose and a well-honed axe to grind against Whitey.

For years, I wrote stories where the stereotype wandered into a TWIST. And it was ZOMG AWESOME. DID YOU SEE THAT COMING? NO YOU DID NOT. THAT'S A FUCKIN' STORY! I could have rocked House of Mystery, had it still been published.... but strangely enough, Asimov's was not terribly interested in my half-baked Outer Limits clones.

Even now, I love reading House of Mystery. Gini can't understand why I have the collections, reading them and madly giggling one story at a time. But in them, I see all my worst sins remembered, and realize that maybe I have to step away from Orlando to write something worthwhile.

House of Mystery's like fifteen years off my career. Some day, I'll discuss the Archie Gap.

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

theferrett@theferrett.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:58:38 GMT

It's my birthday!

I am now 40 years old - or, if I want to be a cranky old cuss (which, I mean, why not start now?), I will be one as of 10:13 p.m. tonight. I have crossed the great threshold into four-zero, and no sign of a midlife crisis yet.

The nice thing is that life seems poised to help me through midlife crises. When I was thirty and in danger of one, I got married to a lovely, wonderful woman, which made life seem all fuzzy and full of potential. I might be in danger of one this year, but my lovely Clarionmates really kicked the cobwebs off my writing and revitalized me, so I'm filled with "I-can-do-it" juice. I'm forty, grizzled, and happy. Now I'm going to go out onto my lawn and yell at some kids.

As for birthday celebrations, today will be awesome. My wife reserved a bounce house for me, where I can jump around in a kidlike inflated structure and enjoy the thrill of boinging on air. Unfortunately, the appendectomy put a cramp in that, but I will get to watch my friends make silly jumps, which is almost as good. (When I am down, nothing cheers me up more than seeing other people having fun.) Plus, I'm going to try to finagle a cake from the finest custard shop in town today, if I can get my order in in time.

What can you get me for my big 4-0? Well, as noted, go out and do something awesome for yourself. Tell me about your personal bounce house, man. I wanna know!

Failing that (and I really wish you wouldn't), if you'd like to get me an inexpensive gift that will nevertheless make me do little happydances of joy, feel free to post cheesecake pictures of yourself in the comments here. (Alternatively, if they're spicy or you're shy, mail 'em to me at theferrett@theferrett.com.) I'm a little asexed right now thanks to copious amounts of healing/Vicodin, but some people have told me they've been saving pictures for me (which is very sweet of them), and I know at some point I'll wake up again.

(Incidentally, every year I do this, some guy goes, "Oh ho, here I am! You didn't expect this!" and posts a picture of himself. And it's true that I'm straight, but a) I like seeing pictures of people anyway, b) I'm never shocked by photos of guys, and c) as far as I'm concerned, posting cute pictures of yourself where women can see them is always a good idea. So it's like whoah, you sure are alternative, buddy.)

Anyway, it's my birthday. As always, I reserve these fireworks for me.

Nobody Mentioned This

theferrett@theferrett.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:39:41 GMT

So I saw my surgeon today. After a couple of questions about my pain level and digestive habits, he took out my stitches. And filled me with terror.

See, with three stitches in my belly, my organs were held in place by wire. Now, with every step and jostle, they are about to slide out of my stomach. There's nothing holding me in but skin, sliced skin, and I can't believe my surgeon would leave me so vulnerable. Doesn't he know?

So every time I shift, I keep expecting to hear a wet squelching noise and to look down to see something glistening emerging from underneath my shirt, a ghastly birth. I don't even know what organs are on my right-hand side. It'll be like some weird slot machine payoff, where whatever slides out is both a grotesque death and an anatomy lesson.

On the other hand, when we were driving back I saw a zebra-striped piece of furniture lying on someone's curb, and said, "Hey! Free couch!" At which point Gini began changing "Free couch!" incessantly to the tune of "Le Freak." My wife, she is insane.

Jane Goodall Does Porn

theferrett@theferrett.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:59:20 GMT

In 1919, a molasses tank on top of the Purity Distilling Company burst apart, sending a dark tide of two million gallons of sticky fluid down onto the streets of Boston. Nearby buildings were swept off their foundations. Twenty-one people were suffocated in the sticky goo, their throats clogged with strange fluid, the survivors suffering sweet coughing fits for months afterwards. They had to get a guy with a shotgun to go around and put down the shrieking horses trapped in the fluid.

It's an awful image, and I keep imagining similarly dire results when my sex drive comes back online again. It's been at least ten days since my body has bothered to be aroused at all, and at this point Little Elvis is in a coma deeper than Sunny von Bulow, so I'm pretty sure that first pop will unleash a torrent of hentai-sized proportions. If the neighborhood's not in danger, I'm pretty sure I'll at least ruin a five-by-five section of the carpet.

Yet I am still downloading porn. Not because I am stockpiling for the day my libido returns - no, I have a wife who I suspect has equal needs and has been patiently waiting for systems repair - but because even in this carefully neutered state, I find looking at porn to be anthropologically fascinating.

Porn right now is like looking into a bizarre mirror universe where all the women are obsessed with sperm, trying to collect little nuggets of it with all the fervor of Ash seeking Pokemon. They'll do anything to get it, using spoons and glasses and speculums to retrieve it from locations I think most people would much rather it remained, and then make little nung-nung-nung noises at the camera to indicate their happiness.

The semen also seems to have some transformative properties as well. The more of it they slurp, the larger their breasts get - though not in a natural way, but rather like someone's stuffing sandbags behind their nipples. Their abdomens become strangely concave, like starvation victims. Their lips puff out like their philtrum's been attacked by wasps. They become hairless, and aggressive.

I can only imagine that in this strange place, sperm brings them closer to some sort of bizarre melding with some mono-faceted Goddess, an abstracted Porn Queen with tits out to Dakota - plastic, odor-free, completely Barbieized. Some of them seem to go into a trance as they work the shaft to get their milky nectar, zoning out like it's time to make the donuts; others seem to engage in a love-hate relationship, spitting on their delivery device, making angry growling noises, looking as though they'd punch every nutsack in the room if they had their druthers, screaming "Bring it! Bring it on!" as though they were giving some kind of reverse birth.

Others smile. All the time. No matter what's happening. I think it's intended to be a come-on, but it looks like three guys are humping a sex-changed Joker.

Yet I think - I think - you can occasionally see glimpses of real personality. There are state-mandated ways and positions in this porn world - people fuck in positions that make their skeletons resemble erector sets being put to engineering tolerances, painful positions that make my thigh muscles cramp in echoed agony - but particularly in scenes with newcomers, you can see when someone attempts to give their own style to lovemaking - a craned neck as they try to make eye contact, a little fillip in the blowjob that's uniquely theirs, a non-erotic comment that slips out when she's being hoisted into position for another plowing. Then, in later scenes, all that disappears and she's just another injection-molded fury ready to do whatever.

Or maybe that original personality was the trick. Who knows? It's all mirrors.

Is this particular scene a performance, having left their personality behind at the door for a paycheck? Or is this what they wanted to be, becoming some Jungian archetype of sex, getting off on getting others off? Or some other combination of kinks and external pressures? It's hard to say. It's a bizarre people-watching, seeing all this at work and knowing that porn is like any other job - some women adore it, some women try it and hate it (but the documentation remains), others just want the cash, and still others have even more mixed feelings. (It gets even stranger when you bring in society's default reaction that no woman could possibly enjoy doing this.)

You can't really tell what's happening, just from this small window. It's like trying to determine what the actors in a play are feeling from watching them from the audience; you can't really do it, and yet if you're me you can't not wonder.

It's a little strange. But still fascinating.

BIRTHDAY!

theferrett@theferrett.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:28:36 GMT

Don't forget, kids: You have one day left to get me something special for my birthday! And also don't forget that my request this year is:

"Life's too short. Go out and enjoy yourself with a pleasure you haven't indulged in in a long time, and chalk it up to my birthday. I'll be your excuse to get you moving in the right direction."

The lovely elfwench wrote about her Ferrett birthday chicken liver surprise. It ended well. Yours should, too. Get crackin'!

Riffictasticstravaganzic

theferrett@theferrett.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:01:15 GMT

We had gotten sushi from the best place on the West Side of Cleveland - or at least the most comfortably familiar to us - and we sat down to eat our raw fish. Eric was eating a kind of tuna he'd never had before, and after a nibble on the fatty meat we asked him how it was.

"It's sushiriffic," he pronounced, giving a satisfied nod toward the remnants of the roll.

"Wait," I said, holding up a chopstick. "What's the difference between that and 'sushitastic'?"

His brow creased as he pondered the issue.

"It's all in the sound," he concluded. "'Sushiriffic' just rolls off better. 'Sushitastic' doesn't flow as well. So if I was talking about petting a cat, it would be 'cattastic' because 'catriffic' just sounds worse. The implied meaning is identical."

"See, and for me, because -tastic is a harder suffix to add onto most words, it's the one I use to indicate sarcasm. For you, either a -riffic or a -tastic indicates a pleasurable experience of some sort. But for me, 'sushiriffic' would mean that I actually enjoyed this sushi, whereas 'sushitastic' would mean that there was something about the sushi I found offputting."

"And a sushistravaganza?" Gini asked.

"Well, it would mean a surfeit of sushi, I think," said I. "The meaning would be inherent in the root word, and whether you'd actually want a lot of it. Sewerstravaganza, I think, would be self-explanatory."

"What about -tacular?" Gini pressed. "When does one use -tacular?"

"That's a hard one," said Eric. "It doesn't really go onto to the end of any word comfortably. The closest we've gotten is sucktacular, which has passed into mainstream usage."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," I said, rapping my chopsticks against the table to get their attention. "We're drifting. The central matter at hand is, 'What is the difference between -riffic and -tastic?' Do most people use it to denote a pleasurable experience, and the difference between the two merely a matter of an arbitrary mouthfeel? Or, like me, do people use the two as separate syntaxes to indicate differing experiences?"

"There's only one way to find out," said Eric.

Man Vs. Wild Magic

theferrett@theferrett.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:20:43 GMT

Every month, Bear Grylls sets out into some new and mad wilderness with little more than a poncho and a knife. He parachutes into the African Serengeti and escapes angry elephants; he fumbles through grasping growth of South American jungles; he cuts his feet on the icy cold rocks of the Scottish highlands. All he has has is for survival is his knife, his knowledge, his camera crew he's picked up before he is dropped miles from civilization and must make his way back one anguished footstep at a time.

The camera follows him as he gets increasingly beaten up, squeezing water from the most Godforsaken places, devouring grubs, getting exhausted as the night saps all heat from his body and the water turns his muscles into cramped slabs of frozen meat. And as we get to an arbitrary finish, the credits roll. We never actually see him reach civilization.

The secret is this: Bear never survives.

They tell him they'll find him. But realistically, he can't find all that much of interest in a few days. They set him loose, and he wanders about - gamely at first, his mood settling into frustration as he wonders where his pickup squad is, then furious betrayal. He realizes the truth: It's expensive, finding him all the time. He wanders aimlessly, often going miles off track. And getting helicopters into his remote locales is hard to schedule. And really, doesn't it cost too much to insure a man who takes such insane risks?

He and his crew struggle until on until they all die. Often it's simple hypothermia or starvation. Sometimes they all fall down a cliff, shattering bones and brains on the way to the bottom. Occasionally he steps on a snake, or has his spike cleft between the two sharp fangs of a cougar.

Yet he always, always dies.

It matters not. He has been wrapped in the special cerements. All they need do wait until the blip of the GPS stops moving, then find a scrap of flesh.

They bring it back to their techno-shaman headquarters at Discovery Channel, the foul and smoking machineries that Jamie and Adam have cemented with their own blackened blood, and they have an untouched albino virgin put the scrap into the six-pointed star chamber at the center. Seven bats have their throats opened, the gears cry aloud with a screech that cuts weeping wounds in the air itself, and the meat begins to quiver. They wrap the quivering gobbet of life in more skins, swathing it in bitter-herbed protective bandages as it grows and reforms into the shape of a man again.

Rise, Bear Grylls.

"Who am I? What... was I doing?"

You are an adventurer. And a very good one. You have a contract with us. They haul it out to show him. It bothers him a little that the letters glow red, like banked coals, but the thought is whisked neatly out of his head the moment it enters it. All that matters is that the contract stiffens his muscles. He rises and wipes a hand across the sweaty back of his neck, which has no hairs.

You will go to the Sahara this time, they say. He grimaces. He half-remembers bad things happening, a multitude of bad things, until they wave the contract in front of him and all is gone. He's a TV show host. He fakes things. They show him articles to prove that he always fakes his show. Yes. This is how it works.

Sahara, they say, their voices hissing slightly from the rattles at the end of their tongues, and Bear Grylls puts on his backpack. He feels like this trip can't end well. But he's... contracted.

Maybe he'll stop after this one. If they authorize it. Yes, he thinks, I could use a long rest.

Sweetness Day

theferrett@theferrett.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:03:45 GMT

Ever since I got home from the hospital, I've been toodling around in a bathrobe. Problem is, the bathrobes I have weren't made for summer; they're heavy terrycloth fabric. And when you sit in a chair for hours, you tend to sweat a lot in it. To the point where it's actually not only uncomfortable, but you start to stink. This is not good.

Fortunately, my lovely girlfriend Bec heard of my problem, and stayed up all last night MacGyvering a lightweight kimono out of one of her grandmother's old sheets. Behold! My first post-hospitalization picture of me, swathed in love!

No, I have not shaved since I've gotten home from the hospital. When I stepped into the shower after four days of being afraid to pummel my suture (my shower has a water pressure so intense it knocks you against the far wall), I groaned so loudly with pleasure that Gini rushed in to ask what was wrong. When I stepped out, I was shouting, "BRING ME THE MAN WHO INVENTED THIS PLEASURE STREAM! I SHALL GIFT HIM WITH JEWELS! MYRRH! INCENSE!"

If I look a little fragile, it's 'cause I am a little fragile. But getting better all the time, especially with wonderful gifts like this.

While we're at it, here, look at my track marks from my blood draws in the hospital:

Honestly, this one looks vaguely obscene. The light, the pink, puffy fleshs, the dents... It's like some kind of porno from hell. I never considered myself particularly attractive, but this shot is one for the record books, mang.

I Am Shakes The Clown

theferrett@theferrett.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:54:12 GMT

One of my favorite lines of dialogue is from Bobcat Goldthwait's majestic misfire Shakes the Clown:

SHAKES: I could quit drinking any time I want. This one time, I quit for a whole month!

DINK: Shakes, that doesn’t count, man, you were in a coma.

However, despite years of having a legendary Diet Pepsi addiction, it's now been almost a week since I had one. I think I'm going to take this opportunity to wean myself off the soda habit. A habit being, well, a habit, we'll see how long this lasts, but I bet I can go at least another week without that fizzy, beautiful brain-waking beverage in my system.

Invasive emergency surgery: Good for breaking bad habits.

The Annual Greed List: FAIL

theferrett@theferrett.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:12:36 GMT

Twice a year, I make a long, annotated list of everything I want for my birthday/Christmas. I never expect the folks reading this to get me anything from these gigantic lists; rather, it's sort of a snapshot of what's entertaining me at this moment in my life. I like my hobbies and want to share them with you, and so I figure I should write them all up.

And this upcoming July 3rd is the big one. I'll be forty, the big 4-0, and Large Celebrations are planned. My wife zoethe is planning a kind of Ferrettfest 2009, wherein any number of people are invited to Ohio for my birthday weekend (it's not too late to show up!), and special plans were afoot. Forty is the borderline between "fun youth" and "middle age," and I was going to have an equally large and strange greed list to go with it.

However, if you're not aware, last Tuesday I went in for a burst appendix, which apparently had been burst for four days, and barely came out of the hospital alive. I'm better now - at least able to think - but I still have this large divot in my side, a bunch of pain, and a lot of painkillers shaking up m'brain at odd times. So alas, there's no Greed List this year, let alone a special one. If it can't be entertaining, fuck it.

Still, if you'd like to get me something for my birthday, you have a couple of options:

1) If you are a publisher or editor of any professional-rate works, feel free to email me with a note that says, "Why, Ferrett! I'd love to look through all your manuscripts to see if any of them are publishable!" And I will send you a zipped file containing everything I've completed since Clarion, saving me tons of postage and time.

(Note a sea change here: A little over a year ago, this would have been, "A publisher who publishes me." I no longer want my publication to be a gift; all I want is a good, solid shot. If I'm not good enough yet for your mag, well, I'm still evolving. I'll get there. And if you reject everything, I'll at least have saved a lot of time and postage.)

2) If you are a human being, in the next week you can get me a birthday present by going out and doing something you haven't done but really enjoy in a long time. If you absolutely adore catching fireflies on a summer's eve but haven't done it since you were a kid, go out and do it! If you get off on skeeball but haven't made it to the local Dave and Buster's, well, head on down! And lord knows if you have some sort of flavor of consensual enjoyment with a partner but haven't had time in your life for that particular kink, make some room for my damn birthday.

Life's too short. Go out and enjoy yourself with a pleasure you haven't indulged in in a long time, and chalk it up to my birthday. I'll be your excuse to get you moving in the right direction.

Then drop me a note to let me know how it was. Shared happiness lights everyones' candles.

3) Failing that (or if you really want to see what I'm into these days), my Amazon Wish List is in fact here, with listings of the books and various media I still crave. I usually don't link to it in public, but it is my 40th birthday, so the gates are temporarily down. Scan if you want to see what I'm curious in this time. (Though since I only use it as a scratch pad, I don't have everything ranked - I'm kind of ashamed to say that my #1 interest this year is, yes, Mythbusters' Grant Imahara's Kickin' Bot: An Illustrated Guide To Building Combat Robots. My fanboyism, it knows no end.)

An Embarrassing Revelation

theferrett@theferrett.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:56:35 GMT

So not surprisingly, I've had zero sexual drive since my appendix burst. In fact, I've never been this angry at my genitals before for being these dangling, clumsy things that serve only to get in the way. I don't even miss sex - I miss my girlfriends, miss hugs, but the sex? Can't even imagine. Too much pain. Maslow's cuttin' me right down to size, folks.

But the one thing that I have been looking forward to? The wet dream. Because I've never had one, not ever. I figure since there's no way I'm messin' around down there, eventually I'll have to have one.

Unfortunately, I had my first erotic dream last night.

It was Mythbusters-related.

Apparently, if you join the Mythbusters crew, every Friday they all... well, you know. Every Friday. With the sort of zest for experimentation you'd expect from a show like this. And Kari was very, very busy, and given that a lot of the dream was "Okay, I really didn't need to see Grant and Tori like that," spending my erotic dream struggling my way upstream to get to the one person I might be interested in wasn't nearly as hot as anticipated.

I need better dreams. Or better drugs. Whichever.

A Strange Thought

theferrett@theferrett.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:44:09 GMT

It occurs to me that the only difference between Ozymandias in his multi-TV study, where he views the world in narrow flickers of seemingly-random data, and me with StumbleUpon, is that I'm limited to only one screen at a time.

Well, sadly, there's also no genetically-modified lynx at my side. And I'd wager I have a lot more porn than Ozy did.

Okay, maybe I need to lay off the Vicodin.

Here! Have Something That's Not A Pain Post!

theferrett@theferrett.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:34:32 GMT

Instead, I gift to you this remix of The Incredibles:

On Pain

theferrett@theferrett.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:42:53 GMT

I have become a ninja of agony. My belly burns, sears, and shrieks as I writhe on the bed, playing out anticipated approaches; how can I get from prone to standing in a way that causes the least pain?

My error early on was to think there was some path that would dance trippingly past all pain. I realize now that I am going to eat a big ol' chunk of OWWHATTHEFUCKOW, so I don't shrink from it; rather, which arc can I move my knees in a way so that I won't hit that white-hot ball of nova pain I cannot endure?

But I just got up on my own without waking Gini, my sweet love, who sleeps exhausted and needs her rest. When I got home I trembled on the bed with the resonating pain of sprawling out combined with the delicious flood of feeling her snuggled by my side. I missed that. I missed her.

Later that night she saw me toddling down the hallway and said, "Thanks for coming back." I hadn't known I needed thanks, but it hurt so much at that moment that hearing that made me feel loved - not just some biological organism struggling dumbly for survival, but Ferrett struggling to be Ferrett again. For Gini.

So I got out of bed. And I got my drugs. And my baby sleeps on, and I hope well. I'll be in pain for some time to come, but Gini? My love needs rest.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

2,439 Emails

theferrett@theferrett.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:31:59 GMT

Okay, I have some downloading to do.

But I didn't melt.

Irrepressible Terrors

theferrett@theferrett.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:32:18 GMT

Gini is coming to pick me up from the hospital in fifteen minutes. And I am trying to repress this squirming, sweating terror that they will wheel me outside and the sky and earth will go white and Gini will dissolve. And a voice will whisper in my ear, saying, oh, you don't know? You didn't actually survive.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Letters From Hospice

theferrett@theferrett.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:32:14 GMT

Dear Michael Jackson:

How kind of you! As doped up on painkillers as i am, I've found it very hard to read. And this hospital room has only a limited range of channels, and as it turns out I hate Adult Swim.

So what wonderful timing on your death! Suddenly I have tons of interesting documentaries and interviews to watch, interspersed with bright music videos which are perfect for a man in my condition.

I'd heard you were a nice man, if not necessarily one to be trusted with kids. But who knew you were so courteous to a stranger in a hospital as to go just when I needed you? Thank you, Michael Jackson, thank you.

Love,
T.F.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

An Accelerated Version of Childhood

theferrett@theferrett.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:04:22 GMT

Major surgery is, as it turns out, a speedy version of childhood. You start out unable to eat, with no motile power, helpless and stupid. Then, one by one, you start to relive the essentials: your first getting to your feet. Your first step. Your first time you use the toilet. Your first mushy spoonful of food, your first bowel movement.

It is humbling, to realize how much power we take for granted. I'm regaining it reasonably quickly, but still.

Fortunately, I've always been one of those people who understood spoon theory abstractly, so I don't gave to recant, but I've never had it spelled out to me on such a visceral level before. I wanted to talk to Bec the other day, who stayed by my side, but I literally kept falling asleep. My body was telling me when it was done, and I did not get a vote.

When you're healthy, you don't have to think about such things. But for now, me putting away dishes and walking halfway - halfway! - to the elevator is a triumph of novelistic proportions.

One day I will be well again. But in a way, it's good to walk through this valley for a bit. It brings perpective.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Crash

theferrett@theferrett.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:49:04 GMT

I am learning much about life in the hospital. I feel like I have led a very sheltered life.

Basically, a total crash this morning (spontaneous yurfing on fresh abdominal stitches and no pain meds, leading to me shrieking for morphine and anti-nausea meds) has left me drugged, scared, and bewildered all day. Except it's noon. This is how it is here.

I've always said patients needed advocates, but somehow I never thought I'd need one. Thankfully, Bec is here. And Gini would be if I needed her.

Not even sure why I'm writing about it except that it's something to do to pass the time. I'm not looking for sympathy; I mean, unlike many around me, I know I'll get better. I feel awful for them. It's just odd to be so weak and dazed and not in control.

This will pass. But it has some moments that are scary. And hurtful. And eroding.

I'll be fine. Just an interesting state of mind to chronicle, is all.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

OkAY.

theferrett@theferrett.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:32:40 GMT

Two facts of relevance:

1) My doctor thinks my appendix actually burst on Saturday. This does not make Gini feel content. On the other hand, it wouldn't have been the worst LJ entry to go out on, and apparently I am insanely lucky/gane a CON score of 17.

2). Morphine takes 15 minutes to kick in. Vicodin, administered orally, takes 45. If your nurse gets confused about which one you're on before you go for your first walk, it is going to be EXCRUCIATING.

Sorry for the megaposts. I am bored. Hositals are boring. Ill steal a trick from Tommy and reassure you: please don't visit me. I will be in pain and boring and you will be bored. No need for you to suffer.

Hokay! Those drugs are kicking in!

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A Weird Question Cause I Am Bored - Gini Prolly Should Not Read

theferrett@theferrett.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:24:24 GMT

Every time I take a Tylenol, I think, "For years, the best anyone had to relieve pain was booze." And while it's not strictly true, it's close enough to make me shudder. People pretty much just had to live and due from pain. There was no escape back, say, in the 15th century.

Now, I would had a short life as a medieval resident - born with blurry sight, my concomitant loss of income, would most likely have led to early starvation or death due to a weakened immune system. But though I've had colds and whatnot that theoretically could have killed medieval-me, last night was the first time I would have flat-out died without the intervention of modern medicine.

So. Medieval Ferrett, dead at 39 of a ruptured appendix. Every day from now on is, no ifs ands or buts, a gift from the civilization I live in.

And now I am curious: when did medieval-you die? What injury/ailment/preexisting condition would have robbed your life without penicillin or blood transfusions or the like? And how many years have you, yes, been cheating the reaper?

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Update

theferrett@theferrett.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:32:40 GMT

For the record, I wasn't trying to tough it out, I just honestly didn't think it was that bad. I was more sleepy than in pain; when the doc sent me in, I figured it was CYA surgery. (I apologized to him this morning.) Who knew my pain tolerance was that crazy? I've honestly never been sick all that much - never broken a bone in my adult life, one surgery, no car accidents. My scale is now trued, I assure you. (And jeez, do these stitches hurt, even with Vicodan and morphine! MORPHINE! I'm a Civil War skinpopper!)

On the other hand, I am not yet allowed fluids. Yet thanks to a saline drip, I'm still peeing. I feel like a very strange magic trick.

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Surprise

theferrett@theferrett.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:31:21 GMT

This weekend: flu and stomach cramps.

8:00 tonight: emergency appendectomy.

12:15 today: finish cleaning out ruptured appendix.

Note to self: personal scale of one to ten for pain apparently drastically miscalibrated. Appendix probably burst Sunday night. Joy.

Good drugs pls thx k bye.

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Folded In Memories From Cover To Cover

theferrett@theferrett.com — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:22:43 GMT

There was a time when Stephen King was untouchable. Every book he wrote was better, or at least as good as, his last — and back in 1986, I had not yet learned to understand that authors are fallible.

These days, I know. I know that J.K. Rowling cannot possibly stick the landing on her last book as perfectly as she ramped up in complexity from, say, Sorceror’s Stone to Prisoner of Azkaban. As wonderful as the first few books are in the Song of Fire and Ice series, George R.R. Martin is going to turn in a clinker. I approach every series with the understanding of twenty years of fandom that yes, every band you love, every author you adore, every comic you read, has a shelf-life.

It’s a combination of luck and talent. For a brief while they tune into some universal signal, matching up with the glory and the power and the philosophies that seem to syncopate right with your beating heart — and the books they write are majestic and potent. They speak right to the core of your being. They sing, and it is such a beautiful song that you want it to last forever.

But years in fandom teaches you that no artist can hold onto their peak forever. If you’re lucky, you put out four brilliant albums, a set of six perfect books — after that it’s almost as good, a kind of methadone that gives you happy echoes of that white-hot streak. But it’s not really as good. You know that, deep inside. There’s an up to that curve, and with that comes inevitably a down.

Was it them? Was it you? Did Stephen King speak to me, the sixteen-year-old boy, in a way that told me truth? Or was he simply that good, broadcasting a signal that people heard resonating deep within themselves?

I don’t know. All I know is that back in 1986, I genuinely believed in two things: Stephen King, and my Uncle Tommy. And neither could do wrong.

They were linked in my heart, two halves of a whole. I started reading Stephen King back when I’d seen a copy of The Stand on Tommy’s wooden bookshelves, and was intrigued by the birdlike creature fighting with the Jedi guy on the cover, and Tommy pushed it towards me and said, “Why not read it?”

It was big. But it wasn’t scary. Because Stephen King? Was Tommy. They were both from New England, they both had that laconic approach to life that allowed for both beauty and tragedy; Tommy was a hemophiliac, his blood refused to clot. The slightest bang blossomed into black, spidery bruises, and an actual cut necessitated a rush to the ER so he wouldn’t bleed out.

Tommy had grown up in hospitals thinking that he was going to die in the next year. His boyhood friends were nurses and leukemia patients. And he should have died. He was on that mad rush of the technology curve; just as his condition worsened, they developed a new kind of blood additive.

He knew that deep loneliness that I felt sometimes when the other kids on the playground wouldn’t play with me. But he also understood that life was short, so he brought me to New York City to go on mad book runs, to walk around Times Square, to show me the world.

Tommy was a weedy man who needed a cane to walk, his thin limbs rustling inside blue jeans and a button-down shirt, but in his own way he was fearless. No threat of a mugger scared him. Hurricanes would not stop him from taking me to the comic book store. What could it do? Kill him?

So Tommy told me about life. It was cruel, and lonely sometimes, but you could scrape out some real joy. If you worked at it. And he told me this in his New England nasal drawl – a drawl, as it turns out, that was shared by Stephen King.

Stephen and Tommy both knew Truths about life. And I was never, ever scared when reading The Stand, or Carrie, or Christine, because Tommy gave me the book and it was words that Tommy could have written, and Tommy would never harm me.

Tommy was also the only one in my family who understood the value of havetaseeitnow. My father and mother, though enduring and noble folks, could never understand why I had to see a movie on opening night. “Just wait,” they said. “We’ll see the matinee on the weekend.”

Not Tommy. He had to know, just like me, and he couldn’t wait. So it was Tommy who took half a day off from work to wait in line for tickets to Return of the Jedi with his suit jacket and briefcase, and it was Tommy who took me to the late show (the only tickets he could get), and when we got into the theater it was Tommy who opened his briefcase and revealed that inside were three cans of beer for him, and a Coke and my favorite types of candy for me.

And it was Tommy who also hadtaseeitnow when it came to Stephen King. He’d wait until I got back from school to drive down to the mall, right on a Friday afternoon to wait in line with all the other crazies, and he loved me well enough not to make me share. “One copy for you, chief,” he said (and even now, I realize I call random men “chief” because that’s what Tommy did), “And one copy for me.”

He’d plop them into the Waldenbooks bag, the cheap plastic stretching with the weight of it, and then he’d drive me home. And we’d tear into it. That whole weekend was for reading — and Lordy, “IT” was one fuck of a read. The cover snapped off the first time I cracked the spine. For the first time, I worried that I might not finish it before school started on Monday.

I ran up to my room, where I could blast the air conditioning as high as I wanted then snuggle underneath the covers. I turned on the light next to my bed, and I opened the cover of “IT” like it was candy, and I started.

Tommy was talking to me. Stephen King was talking to me. And he had a story to tell.

I read late at night in my underwear, gulping pages at a time, devouring with the eagerness of a boy who has something to learn. There were bits that were gory, sure, but I trusted the duality of Tommy and Stephen — and more importantly, even back then I could tell that the gory bits were sideshows, cheap thrills designed to lure in the more thrillseeking readers.

This was about childhood, and how transient it was, and considering that I was sixteen and so desperately trying to find my own power, it spoke to me so deeply that he might as well have engraved his philosophy on my very nerves. This could be you, it whispered, if you want it.

There were unsettling things. But if I ever did shudder — and I don’t know that I did — the thought that Tommy was next door, on his couch, with his light, plodding along at a much slower pace that I was but enjoying it just as much, kept me safe. We were taking a journey together. I’d get there first, but when didn’t I? He had the cane, and the limp. I ran ahead, and then looked back to make sure my Uncle Tommy was safe.

When I needed a break, I’d wander next door and talk to Tommy about the book. “Didja get to the fridge?” I’d ask. He hadn’t. “Well, have you gotten to the, well, you know…” and I made little motions at my wrists, and he had, and we talked about how well-done that scene was, and back then I realized dimly that yes, maybe I could strive for that majesty some day.

We stayed up late. I could go next door at eleven, and he was still reading.

That’s how I remember him. On the couch. That little frown of concentration on his pursed lips as he made his way through. And sometimes, after we’d chatted and I walked back to my room to read in that little bubble we shared, I’d look over the porch and see his silhouette in amber and gray in the picture window.

I was always a little ahead, looking back. He was always a little behind, trusting me to find my way.

And now he’s gone. Time took him. He ran out of medicine.

I still have that book, though. And a weekend to read it in. And such infinite, infinite love.

"Helping Other People Out Makes You Feel Fantastic!"

theferrett@theferrett.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:36:41 GMT

Most of you already know my friend yuki_onna, the World Fantasy Award-nominated author of Orphan's Tales, Palimpsest, et cetera. She makes decent money for a fantasy writer, but she's got a problem in that her fiancee justbeast was laid off and they've been struggling to make one income stretch across two people.

Stupid fuckin' economy. Lots of good people I know are getting laid off. I am not happy, especially when it keeps hitting those I love.

If you like Cat, there are many ways to support her - which mainly involve buying her books. But Cat is the sort of person who, like me, doesn't want charity; she wants you to buy stuff that you enjoy, thus giving two people a mutually beneficial circumstance.

So instead, I'm going to talk about her hubby justbeast, who is an excellent programmer who's taught me quite a few tricks.

Every time we've sat down to discuss architecture or object-oriented design or anything, he's always enlightened me. At his last job, I know he went in there on his first day and solved a problem that had been costing the company thousands of dollars. He's smart, capable, and good.

I get asked periodically if I have any spare time to do some other programming jobs, which is nice, but really between writing and SCG (which is a lot of energy), my plate is full. However, I will take this opportunity to say that if you have anything that needs doing and can pay realistic money for a programmer, talk to justbeast. He's worth talkin' to, and he'll get it done. (His specialties are SmallTalk, if I recall, but he dabbles in just about anything, and he does a lot of webwork.)

If you've ever thought about throwing me work, throw it to justbeast instead. Again, it's that whole "mutually beneficial" thing, and I know he won't let you down.

(I wish I could open up my journal to work exchanges like this, since I know a lot of people are hurting, but I'm stoically New England; unless I know you personally and can vouch for the job you'll do, I'm loath to recommend you. I can tolerate many traits among my friends, but "lousy work ethic" is usually a dealbreaker; go figure. So I'll try to help in other ways, and I'd love to tout everyone in my journal, but I want to make sure that whoever gives you the money will think well of you - and for that, I have to see your work in action. Sorry. I'm so sorry.)

I will now return to my as-planned blog slumber. I gotta say, microblogging on Twitter isn't as satisfying, but it's also a lot less work.

And just so I end on the right note, if you have spare computer work, give it to justbeast. Who is worthy. Thankew.