Ultrasparky

Last week at this time, I was starting to shake off the anesthesia from the previous night’s emergency surgery. I’d been waking up up every now and then since about 2 a.m., when I first had a few minutes of consciousness in the post-op area. It was still too hard to keep my wits about me then, but by morning I was feeling normal again. You know, except for that sharp pain where they cut through my abdominal wall to get at my appendix.

The doctors all agreed that they cut me open in the nick of time. It seems that any more delays and my appendix would have ruptured, with all the resulting hilariousness of that. The real thing that saved me then, was that I happened to score a last-minute appointment with my doctor the day before, thinking that maybe the previous day’s two-hour cramp with the stabbing pain and the vomiting might be more serious than a reaction to some bad leftovers. I thought it would be a good idea to act early in case last year’s mystery stomach issues were returning, but the doctor was pretty sure that I should just walk myself over to the emergency and plan not go home that night. If I hadn’t gotten an opening in his normally tight schedule, I probably would have stayed home chugging Tylenol and Pepto Bismol, waiting for the pain to go away until I keeled over or something.

I’ll admit that I received excellent care from everyone at the hospital, but overall the system is pretty screwed up, especially in the emergency room. As a general rule, all the nurses there were jaded gossips who were easier to find clucking away in a huddle at the desk, rather than — let’s say — noticing the patients piling up around them. When I first got there, the triage nurse disappeared for about 20 minutes, leaving me wondering who was supposed to check me in and read the “I have appendicitis so look at me immediately” note from my doctor. The staff of young internists and residents, though, were all amazingly friendly and helpful, and as attentive as their workload could allow. Interestingly enough, they were all movie-star good-looking, so I can’t roll my eyes when I see the casts of TV medical dramas anymore. Apparently, young doctors are dazzlingly beautiful these days. Who knew?

I was in the hospital for just over a day, and then went upstate for a few days to recuperate under my sister’s watchful eye. I came home last Sunday, and have been slowly getting back to normal. I taught a little this week, ran an errand or two, checked in with the surgeon, and generally felt more like myself again. I can handle a few hours of activity a day, and then I’m forced back to the couch to wonder, “Wow, they cut right through me, didn’t they! Hmmm, that smarts. And itches.”

This photo from the red carpet at this year’s Oscars captures two of my co-stars from my old high-school days. Eddie and I, as many of you know, have been friends for most of forever and some of our many actics include a short series of funny but also painfully crude short movies: “Mantra at Midnight,” “Mantra II: The Wrath of Fabric Woman,” and “Burning Pig” (the classic of the bunch). For Eddie, these were stepping stones for what was to become an honest-to-goodness film career. For me, these were proof that I should stick to the visual arts instead.

Although Gwyneth and I never grew close, we did meet a few times back when we were both seniors at exclusive Upper East Side private schools. She and her friends were going to put on a production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown as a thesis project for their English class (or something like that) but since they went to an all-girls school, they needed boys. And when all-girls schools on the Upper East Side needed boys, they frequently came looking to my school. My pal Neil and I auditioned and were cast, respectively, as Snoopy and Charlie Brown, and I think Gwyneth was supposed to play Sally. I don’t remember much of the few rehearsals we had, but I do remember sitting in some other girl’s humungotron U.E.S. home and talking with Gwyneth, trying to remember why her mother‘s name was so familiar.

I think the girls soon realized that putting on a musical by themselves was a bit too ambitious, even for rich, well-connected, private-school kids. We stopped hearing from them after a few rehearsals, and eventually sent our copies of the script back through the little brother of one of them.

It was many years later, long after I’d pretty much forgotten about the whole thing, when I was reading an interview with Gwyneth that I suddenly realized I’d known her. It would be nice to say she’d left a huge impression with me, some sign of the inner star quality that would eventually nab her that Oscar, but mostly I had to struggle to remember any detail about the handful of times we’d hung out. I just filed her away as another skinny rich girl who I’d probably never deal with again, and then I went back to wacky, endlessly inventive antics of my own circle of friends, whose company was much more satisfying. Damn it! If only I could have known whose coat tails to ride.

Looking out of the window and down into the street, she saw the rush-hour crowds beginning to move towards the bus-stops. Soon they began to take on a human look, to become separate individuals who might even be known to her. This seemed a good deal more likely, though less romantic, in London than in Paris, where it was said that if you sat long enough at a certain café on the pavement, everybody you had ever known or loved would pass by eventually. Surely though, Catherine thought, peering down, it couldn’t be quite everyone, that would be far too emotionally exhausting.

Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels

Drub tapped me for another meme that’s been making the rounds. Since this is easier than figuring out what to write, and slightly meatier than just trotting out funny search terms, I’ll comply with my instructions.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Well, I’ve already got John Waters‘ Crackpot half-memorized from years of reading it again and again, and since that would surely be one of the first books to go in a major purge, I’d have to choose that one.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Constantly. At one time or another there’s been Alec Scudder, Hiro Protagonist, Joe Kavalier, Ponyboy Curtis, et al.

The last book you bought is:

If I don’t count trade paperback collections of comic books, it would be The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, a classic of the genre I should have picked up a long time ago. (My last comics trade was volume 4 of John Byrne’s work on the Fantastic Four.)

The last book you read is:

Something to Be Desired by Veronique Vienne, a fantastic collection of essays about graphic design, culture, and stuff.

What are you currently reading?

Monthly doses of Metropolis, Wired, and an unruly list of comic books. I’m between books, although I just grabbed Room With a View from the bookshelf while going to double-check Scudder’s name in Maurice.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

• The Bible. Seriously, I’ve been meaning for a long time to read it straight through, and a desert island would be the safest place for me to do that without strangling someone who can’t admit that it’s very infuential, very didactic, and frequently altered historical fiction.

• Robinson Crusoe, because the irony would be delicious.

• Low Life by Luc Sante, a personal favorite that would also let me indulge in homesickness.

• William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, because in the real world it’s really hard to concentrate on this stuff enough to enjoy it as much as I’m prone to.

• A blank sketchbook. I’d also want to do a whole mess of writing and drawing, or I’d go crazy.