PRODUCTIVITY!

On October 14, 2015October 14, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing3 Comments

I went to bed Monday night around 11:00 PM. Maybe a bit before; that’s probably around when I fell asleep. I got up at 6:20, normal time, went to take a piss– which is also normal– and the world went away, which is not normal. I went back to bed and spent a solid 20 minutes shivering despite the presence of wifely body heat, an extra blanket, and a fricking heating pad turned up to full power, and at that point it became real clear that I wasn’t going to work. Again.

I’ve missed, at this point, 10 of the last 13 days of school. I proceeded to sleep until 4:30, when my wife and son got home, got up until around 10, then went back to sleep, meaning that I got eighteen and a half hours of sleep yesterday.

Not normal.

I didn’t go to work today either, because when you sleep 18 1/2 hours on Tuesday, you don’t go to work on Wednesday, because who the hell knows what could happen if you go to work.

Last night, I didn’t take my Lexapro, because fuck it, that’s why. And would you like to know what I got done today? I got the ebook edition of Searching for Malumba finished with the possible exception of a couple of edits if my wife demands them, the entire print edition ready to go from scratch, and the cover, from start to finish. This is, in case you’re wondering, more productivity in about six hours than in the entire three weeks that I was on Lexapro.

Fuck Lexapro, is what I’m getting at here.

I haven’t wanted to/been able to do anything other than sleep for the last three weeks, and the intermittent bouts of insane dizziness haven’t helped with anything either. I had an episode last week that was attributed to dehydration despite the fact that I drink enormous amounts of water and I piss like a racehorse to prove it. I’m at the point where the anxiety was better than not being able to do anything, and I cannot afford to keep missing work like this– in the most literal sense imaginable, since I’d run out of sick days before this week’s nonsense.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to ask my doctor to find me something else to take or if I’m just going to go with the non-medication suggestions my therapist made. One way or another, I’m not dealing with Lexapro any longer. It’s not worth it.

(But hey! Searching for Malumba is coming out on time after all! I was seriously starting to worry about that! Pre-order it, dammit, and reward my productivity!)

In which that went well

On December 12, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting8 Comments

So the boy has passed the Baked Egg Challenge, with nary a swelling nor a rash anywhere in sight. He got three cupcakes, doled out in increasing doses, spread out over about a three hour period.

The doctor has now told us that we are to make sure our son ingests approximately a quarter of a cup of baked egg product a day for the next six months, at which point we move on to the Adjectiveless Egg Challenge, which I suspect he will be less enthusiastic about.

What this means is that my son has quite literally been put on a cupcake diet by his doctor. For six months.

I’m not sure how to feel about that.

In which tomorrow will be obnoxious

On December 11, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting5 Comments

(Note: Song choice does not indicate my mood or the quality of my day.)

I have an annoying thing to do tomorrow. Have I talked about this yet? I hope not. My son has an egg allergy. And apparently, with little kids, egg allergies are a thing that frequently just goes away as the child ages. We are doing a thing called the Baked Egg Challenge with him tomorrow at the doctor’s office. (Hospital? Maybe it’s at the hospital.)

Here is what the Baked Egg Challenge is: tonight, my wife will make precisely 24 cupcakes using a commercial cupcake mix. She will, however, alter the recipe by using precisely three eggs. Tomorrow we will take precisely four of those precisely twenty-four cupcakes (which, by the way, are to remain un-iced) and take them to the doctor’s office with us. Or maybe to the hospital. My son will eat two of the four cupcakes; the other cupcakes are either for the doctors to analyze to make sure we really put eggs in them like we said we would or they are a tax for the nurses; I’m not sure.

If you feel like I overused the word “precisely” in that paragraph, it’s because that’s how the instructions worked. They’re really concerned that we might accidentally make 25 cupcakes or bring six of them with us. I want to know what to do with the extras. I require instructions!

We will then watch him for four hours, and hope he doesn’t die. If he starts to die there will be nurses right there with epinephrine and so he will quickly stop doing that. I’m picturing a situation where every time the kid has a cough we freak out, and where every time we see a teeny little blotch on his skin we start debating whether he’s breaking out or whether that’s just because it’s hot in the room we’re waiting in. Was that little bump there when we got here? WHO KNOWS.

(Simple fact is, there’s no way that the kid hasn’t eaten some sort of baked good somewhere that had some eggs in it, and he’s never had an alarming allergic reaction to anything anywhere. If he does have an allergic reaction, we’re literally in the best place in town for that to happen, and he’ll be fine. It’s not going to be scary, precisely, but it’s going to be nerve-wracking.)

(Spends five minutes researching “nerve-wracking” vs. “nerve-racking,” discovers the Internet has decided they are functionally identical.)

Anyway, I may or may not be especially active around here tomorrow, especially if the boy’s not feeling well when we get back from the doctor’s. I am trying to write a piece about something that happened at work yesterday, but it’s challenging. I’m not writing it if I can’t make it funny, and to write it– there is no way around this– I need to use the word rape about 45 times. So… yeah. It’s gonna be a dilly of a pickle, is what I’m saying.

Well that was unexpected

On September 4, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Not only did the Benadryl put me in bed, dead asleep, at something like eight thirty last night, but I had to stay home today. I woke up at six like usual, rolled over, stood up, every muscle in my body screamed at once, and I clawed through fifteen feet of cotton to get to the bathroom. I’ve taken multiple Vicodin and not woken up that fucked up before.

Then I went back to bed and slept until, like, now. I managed to shower at some point; I don’t actually remember doing it.

Starting to wonder if that package had been messed with somehow. I’m doing this fun thing where I’m not actually congested as I usually understand the term but I’m having to breathe on purpose. Which is fun.

The third paragraph is the important one.

On September 3, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

So, spent the day staring at spreadsheets and a huge pile of disorganized incredibly poorly-photocopied documents attempting to make everything on the spreadsheet agree with everything in the documents. It didn’t, but it’s about 60 grand closer than it was this morning. Also, my eyes are bleeding.

Then met a couple of friends for dinner at a place I’ve only eaten at once. My mouth has felt funny and my lips have felt swollen since dinner.

Took a Benadryl.

Benadryl is the me-slayer. I could lick a Benadryl and the shit would knock me unconscious.

So, uh, yeah. Bedtime’s coming cray early tonight.

Cray.

When the hell did I get this old?

On August 26, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized6 Comments

Okay, I don’t take ibuprofen before bed every night, but c’mon. I’m 38 not 83.

Presented with minimal comment

On August 5, 2014August 5, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Photography11 Comments

One of our cats was just put on these pills. Check the ingredients:

Really?

On July 3, 2014July 3, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy7 Comments

Four observations:

Do you think there’s a male version somewhere with “Dinkie (Penis)” on it?
This makes me think that women should probably go anywhere but this place for health care.
“Eggs” comes before “Ovaries,” because we know which part of the woman is actually the important part, right? Some of those eggs might turn into boys.
What, no “Hoo-hah (Vagina)”?