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9 December 2002 (Monday): eating pins

After waiting over four hours in an urgent care clinic to be told by a doctor that I do indeed have what I thought I had (it's strep, dammit, just gimme the slip of paper that says "penicillin"!), and paying an absurd amount out of my own pocket for said information, I think I have become a socialist.

That and I still feel like I'm eating pins whenever I swallow.

All right, enough of this. Everything else in my life is peachy beyond description, actually. But it's the nature of the privileged to whine about what little suffering we do endure. Or maybe it's just me.

In the waiting room I made good progress in Catch-22, whose logic seemed uncomfortably close to that of medical bureaucracy (and that of the hospital's parking garage). The Hemingway short stories have proven marvelous bedtime companions, even if they do give me odd dreams. Of those I've covered, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" -- both set on safari in Africa -- are the most haunting. A writer shouldn't be able to write that vividly about death and dying.

posted by enjelani @ 08:24 PM PST

Replies: 2 comments

Have you read Big Two-Hearted River yet?

Those two (there are two of them) always move me. There's something about Hemingway writing about fishing that just wraps me up and makes me feel safe.

Which is particularly interesting with Big Two-Hearted River, because it's not about safety.

It's late; I'm rambling.

posted by Gaudior @ 10 12 2002 01:18 AM PST

::shudder::
If the roof of my mouth could shudder, the phrase "eating pins" would certainly make it. I don't think a pin would get to my throat before... ::shudder::
Pins and needles (and mushrooms) are the bane of my existence.

posted by dishi @ 13 12 2002 05:25 PM PST