You Forgot To Hook Up The Doll
Well, the disease seems to have run its course at last. I'm feeling fit and hale, mostly my old self again. This weekend was about re-establishing myself into the world I'd largely missed in a hazy week of virus, fever and drug-induced narcolepsy. I spent most of the last few days just trying out some of the things I'd taken for granted before all my strength and a goodly part of my will to live were sucked out of me by my superhuman bout with what must have been some kind of genetic freak-out escaped government extra-strong mega-bug designed to rot the human body from the inside out. Almost like the one Michael J. Fox pretends to have. Except without all the put-on shaky-shaky.

Yep, this weekend I was up and walking, running errands, undermining the social confidence of my wife, fighting crime... the little things you miss when they're gone. I felt like me again. I even found some time on Sunday afternoon to neglect my children. It was as though I hadn't missed a step.

As good as I feel now, something does seem a little... off. I'll admit it, I don't remember everything that happened from last Sunday night to about mid-day Friday. There are gaps.

Well, not "gaps" so much. I do have some memory, but it's all sort of jumbled together; less an asbence of color than a total, confused overload of it. An amalgam of flashes and instances, faces and times and events, daylight and night swirled together in a dawn-gray miasma of reality and exhaustion and good ole Indian sweat-lodge fever-dream. I have no way of sorting out what was real and what was a product of my drug-and-disease-addled brain. That was some heightened-ass consciousness.

For example: Did I turn into a salamander at one point? I mean, obviously it wasn't permanent. This keyboard would be far too large, for one thing. I just have bits of memory that sort of feel vaguely... salamander-y. Of course it's more likely that I touched some level of God-word understanding that my limited mortal brain cannot fully comprehend or express that simply manifests itself to me now in the visage of a salamander for obvious reasons (the complex morphological duality of the amphibian, existing at the borders of and beyond the bounds of sea and earth, wicked long tongues, etc.) to protect my fragile mind-box from overflowing with the totality of cosmic knowledge. Or maybe it's just how I post hoc justify the sneaking suspicion that along the way I think I might have eaten a bug. Who can say?

All I know is that while the rest of you were plugged in to the Limited Now, I was off touching the face of the Transcendent Real. Most of which I forgot. But I think it was probably awesome. Not regular awesome either, I mean vomit awesome.

So I missed a few things last week. I get that there was some kind of election, but I keep hearing in my head that it was won by Democrats. So obviously something doesn't add up.

What I have, though, in my post-flu-enlightened mind is something remarkable; though I can't remember all the awesome stuff I learned while I was tripping on NyQuil and Gatorade, there is a residual echo of transcendent clarity that I have been able to tap in to. Seriously, I've been blowing people's minds with instant insight of a depth and complexity that surprises even me. Today's Sunday, so it was mostly about football, but still, it was deep and probably would have been better appreciated as such had I been able to share it with anyone but the irrationally anti-football Mrs. Pops.

Today, I realized something and I feel like I should share it with everyone. My newfound courage of conviction and sharp mental acuity has given me the strength to say this. I've been slowly reading Bob Woodward's State of Denial over the last several weeks (like I said, slowly) and as I was reading my two-chapters today, it finally hit me: that Rumsfeld guy is a total dick.

We should do something about him. I can't in good conscience sit idly by while that man is in charge of the operation of our nation's military. I've had my Johnny Smith Dead Zone moment this week. The Chris Walken Dead Zone, not the lame Anthony Michael Hall one. Mostly because my Anthony Michael Hall impression is terrible.*

We need action and before it's too late. Like any other internet warrior, I've gotten the snowball of real-world-action rolling with the little pebble at the top of the mountain in the form of an online petition.

Show the world you're serious.

Join with me right here, right now.

Sign it. Sign it. Sign it. Make a difference. Be a salamander. It sounds scary, but remember: if the CIA comes to your house and cuts off your hand, a salamander would just grow the fucker back. Like nothing.

And if that doesn't inspire you, put Dead Zone in your Netflix queue. Martin Sheen picks up a baby to shield himself, man. What more evidence do you need?


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.5


Pops



*= this is not my fault. It's just that his voice is totally non-descript. My entire impression is based on the drunk dive-bar scene in Weird Science. Ahem: "Fats, maaan... lemme tell you my story, maaan... last year, I was insane for dis crazy little eighf grade bitch, man..." See, that's strong. But I got nothing from Sixteen Candles.
- posted by Pops @ 10:59 PM