pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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COYOTE O COYOTE CAN YOU EXPLAIN?

310.

Yeah, I�m sure that�s what happened. The coyote scanned the other LARPers and decided there were just too many privileged, insouciant Yalies in its midst, so it released a mighty Dickboy�Ginger burp, licked its chops, then hightailed it to the mean streets of the city to find real people.

It managed to survive for weeks on the asphalt by eating Adobo-infused garbage while wondering what in the hell we humans did to its wilderness.

The Times calls its appearance �as unexpected as seeing Woody Allen on the arctic tundra� and that about sums it up. About as unlikely as seeing that poor whale swimming up the Thames too.

So yeah. My suicidal paranoid schizophrenic bat-shit-crazy-when-off-her-meds mother would call this a clear sign that the end times are near.

(Comforting that my young niece lives with her, isn�t it?)

So it�s Saturday and I am piggybacking on Mr. Motorola�s bandwidth once again and hoping that he stays online long enough for me to finish this entry. I just discovered Verbmynoun�s Flickr account, which makes me happy. And I discovered last night that the universe is generous in unexpected ways.

See my pal Operagrrl can�t stand my tiny 4-x-6-inch TV, so she bought an 18-inch one at a yard sale and sold it to me for $25, which is what she paid for it. Since we couldn�t tell which basketball player was slam-dunking last night, I removed some entertainment-center shelves right away and plugged the sucker in ... and guess what? I get cable! A&E and ESPN and ESPN2 and National Geographic and Comedy Central (can you say Jon Stewart and South Park?) and the history channel too.

Now I can watch the women�s tournament �but uh oh, I may never finish my novel now and am going to want to actually watch TV.

So I woke up all hot and bothered after dreaming about that time when Pottergrrrl strapped me to her bed, then put her gorgeous cunt in my face, then slowly, slowly masturbated to climax. And oh my gawd did this make me strain against those straps and beg her to let me fuck her.

And speaking of straps, my brother Dopeboy actually tore through a thick leather strap once just for a sip of water.

He had a serious motorcycle accident when he was seventeen after his drunk passenger leaned the wrong way in a curve. To compensate, Dopeboy stood up and stuck his hip way out, but he ran off the road anyway and hit a tree hip first. This pushed his pelvis into his body cavity, damaging his liver and kidneys and spleen and intestines and I can�t even remember what else. Then he hit the ground so hard that his pelvis sliced everything inside the top of one thigh to ribbons.

Now there is one benefit to growing up with a violent father who takes pleasure in seeing just how far he can stretch you before you break or beg, and that is that you can endure a whole lot of pain and retain a desire to live. Dopeboy didn�t have a pulse of heartbeat when the paramedics arrived on the scene, so they covered him up. Then he started screaming, so they put a blood-pressure cuff on his leg�fortunately, the leg with all the internal damage�to see if they could find a pulse there. Then they rushed him to the ER where the father of the asswipe who sneaked out his window to ride on the back of my brother's bike immediately performed a cutdown�i.e., they sliced him open from neck to pubes�without anesthesia in an effort to determine where he was bleeding).

Dopeboy flat-lined something like nine times that night and the doctors told us that he had less than a one percent chance of surviving. Then they asked my parents to turn off life support and donate his organs to someone who could make it. Even when he was flat-lining and had no pulse though, he kept screaming �Daddy I�m dead! Daddy I�m dead!� (a phrase that, believe you me, shows up in my nightmares still). And he bit a nurse.

My father said �he�s a fighter. Do everything you can,� so the former Vietnam field surgeon performed an extreme procedure he�d seen once on a battlefield and packed Dopeboy�s damaged leg with water. Dopeboy had several other surgeries in quick succession too and was strapped down to a kinetic bed with his limbs spread-eagled and his body held immobile by thick red padding and two large leather straps. And he looked like Frankenstein on a slab that turned slowly from side to side to decrease the likelihood of pneumonia and bedsores.)

Then Dopeboy's kidneys locked down with all that water still in his leg and, unfortunately, our small town hospital was too small for dialysis services back then. This means that the doctor withheld all fluids as I hoped�and those that believed prayed�that he would stabilize enough to be helicoptered to a larger hospital.

Dopeboy begged for water, screamed for water, cursed us all with every obscenity he could muster, sobbed and wailed and howled until he was so hoarse that no more sound would come out. Then his tongue grew so huge that it wouldn�t fit in his mouth anymore. Then it split down the middle.

A box on the wall was, I think, attached to oxygen and contained a tiny bit of water that was gurgling. And Dopeboy actually managed to break through his leather straps and tear this box off the wall, and drink down that little pittance of water�which is when the doctor decided that he was strong enough to survive a helicopter ride to a trauma unit.

This whole experience convinced me to insist that anyone who has the right to make medical decisions for me better know that, even if I have less than a one percent chance of surviving (so long as I have brain function and a shot at some quality of life), I want my damn chance.

�

Now it�s 2 PM and I�m taking a break from a contract editing project to pour Drano down my clogged food disposal. I hope this takes care of the problem. Otherwise, I guess I�ll be dragging everything out from under the sink and taking the thing apart so that it works by the time Shakespeare and Shelby arrive Monday night.

Meanwhile, I am delighted to know that Idaho activists fanned out across downtown Boise attaching small white "Heterosexuals Only" signs to every bench and fountain and doorway and Statehouse bathroom they could find. This action coincided with the forty-first anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma. (Amazing how time advances yet bigotry somehow stands still, isn�t it?) I am also delighted to know that the good folks in Burlington Vermont�one of my favorite places�are working to name a nearby mountain Brokeback Mountain.

Meanwhile, Jerry Falwell had members of Soulforce�s Equality Ride arrested when they stepped onto Liberty University property �in a move that makes perfect sense to my Alabama-bred friend Zulu and this South-Cackylacky escapee�the conservative students there greeted the Soulforce members with cookies.

Elsewhere in the hateful South, five Savannah soldiers severely beat one gay man and another gay man was attacked in a parking deck. He pointed out the assailants to the police, but they didn�t even bother to pursue them. The soldiers are all members of the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart�and that, boys and girls, is where Pottergrrrl�s cross-dressing young stepson is stationed.

I�ll close now by boasting a little about my writer pal Zulu, who is finally getting the recognition she deserves. One of her essays just won best creative nonfiction in a well-respected journal AND Iowa just offered her a book contract before she has even finished her essay series AND the Oxford American informed her yesterday that they are running one of her pieces in their upcoming Best of the South edition.

You go Zulu!

LISTENING TO: The rain

10:26 p.m. - 2006-03-25

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