Welcome to my pity party:
I have an inner ear disorder, Meniere's disease. It gives me my own personal symphony in my ears: I have a steel pipe being dragged through a distant alley in my right ear. My left ear has been playing the persistent hum of fluorescent lights for about 6 years, but for the past four weeks, it has also been entertaining me with the constant buzz of single engine planes, complete with Doppler effect. I got used to the pipes and the fluorescent hum, but the planes are getting to me.
Meniere's also causes vertigo. I don't tend to spin, though. I rock, or else I just feel off balance and motion sick. Mild vertigo wages a constant assault on several areas of my brain. It causes irritability and fatigue. It also causes something termed the channel effect. It's the tendency of vestibular disturbances to reduce the amount of information a person can correctly process at a time. I can usually keep dozens of tasks on schedule, managing my education, my family schedule, housekeeping, and bookkeeping, and still pay attention to the lively and fascinating chatter of my brilliant and verbose family. When Meniere's is active, though, I make stupid mistakes all the time. How am I going to make a 4.0 in Anatomy and Physiology this quarter if Meniere's is back to stay? I'm stubborn, though. For now, I am saying I will just have to work harder and be more careful.
Meniere's also causes hearing loss. I have been deaf to conversation in my left ear for about 6 years. My doctor has assured me that the disease is only in my left ear. I have known he was wrong for about 5 years, but only yesterday got the proof: I have lost 20 decibels at 500 hertz in my right ear. Now, in addition to the tinnitus and pressure I've had in both ears all along, and the rocking vertigo which argues that both ears are sending conflicting misinformation, I have documented low range hearing loss in both ears. I have a future of deafness to look forward to. Hopefully I won't have significant loss in my right ear for another 20 years. That is how long it took my left ear to get that bad. You never know, though. I guess I should listen to lots of music while I can.
I'm done moaning for now. I had to do this because it has been knocking around in my head, making me anxious and unhappy for almost a month now, and I thought I could yack it out on my blog and move the fuck on. Wish I could really unload it that easily, but there ain't no goddamn cure.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Chloe the Farting Princess
Chloe was born to a loving mother and father in a kingdom far away. From an early age the little girl had a strange gift. Her farts sounded like flutes, smelled like roses, and she could play any tune you might care to hear with that talented little bottom of hers.
Sadly, Chloe’s mother passed away when Chloe was still very young, and her father married a woman with two daughters just a bit older than Chloe. Chloe’s stepmother was not nice, nor were her two stepsisters. They forced Chloe to cook and clean, and, having no ear for music, they did not allow her to fart in the house.
In this kingdom, so far away, was a lonely prince. He had searched and searched for a beautiful girl to be his princess, but had not yet found her. So the king decided to have a royal ball, and invite all the young girls in the land to see if one might be beautiful and talented enough to win the heart of the prince. Royal servants were sent to the farthest reaches of the kingdom to place an invitation to the ball in the hands of every marriageable young girl in the land.
When a royal page arrived at Chloe’s house, she answered the door with a smile and a happy little trill of toots. The royal page’s eyes glazed over a moment, he swayed a bit, then said, “My, what a lovely aroma. Is it roses?” He shook his head as if to clear it, then continued, “Here is your invitation to the royal ball. Every young girl in the kingdom is invited to attend.”
The excitement in Chloe’s home was wild in the days leading up to the ball. Each of the stepsisters was certain she could win the prince’s heart if her dress was sumptuous enough, if her hair was piled up high enough on her head, if she smelled sweet enough. They all made Chloe sew their dresses, fix their hair, paint their nails, and tend to their preparations all day long. The poor girl was exhausted, but she was also excited. Each night after her stepsisters had finally gone to bed in their mud masks and curlers, Chloe sewed her own ball gown from the scraps of her stepsisters’ dresses, and perfumed it with her heavenly farts.
The day of the ball finally arrived in a flurry of final preparations. Chloe’s stepsisters primped and preened, piling their hair into mountains of curls, painting their faces, lacing their bulging bellies into their tight dresses. They looked almost lovely, if you didn’t look too close. Meanwhile, their mother had a plan to keep poor Chloe home from the ball so she would not get the chance to steal the prince’s heart. The rotten woman knew that Chloe had been secretly working on a dress of her own, and that it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. If Chloe wore that dress to the ball, the prince was sure to fall in love with her rather than one of her stepsisters. Each morning, after Chloe had fallen asleep, exhausted from her many labors, her stepmother had come in and quietly picked loose the seams of Chloe’s dress. She didn’t pick them all the way loose, but just enough. When Chloe came downstairs in it on the eve of the ball, looking like a true princess, and her clumsy stepsister stepped on her hem, the whole dress simply fell apart and crumpled around her feet. Poor Chloe was heartbroken, her farts sounding a low lament as she crouched over her ruined dress. She knew she would never make it to the ball now. She wept and wept as her stepsisters rode off to the ball in their carriage, looking like a pair of bloated Barbie dolls.
The scent of Chloe’s sad gases, and the mournful tune they made carried out over the garden on the evening breeze. It wafted this way and that, like a butterfly amongst the trees of the nearby woods, and stole softly into the home of a forest fairy. The fairy, whose name was Priscilla, flitted out to see where the music and the lovely scent came from. She was enchanted, and very curious, so she followed the heartbroken lament carried on puffs of sweetest rose until BUMP! She crashed right into the bottom of dear Chloe, still weeping over her ruined dress. Chloe, in surprise, ended her lament suddenly with a discordant note that sounded like a bullfrog in love, blasting the fairy back a few feet. Priscilla hit the wall and slid down it, laughing so hard her tiny tummy ached. That was the best fart she’d ever heard!
“Ooh, who are you?” asked Chloe while the fairy still writhed on the floor in laughter.
Priscilla said, “I’m a fairy, of course. Where did you learn to fart like that?”
“I’ve been farting like this since I was a baby. Why?” said Chloe.
“It means you are part fairy, Chloe,” replied Priscilla, “ Only fairies fart roses and woodwinds. Say, our fairy clan is having a big party tonight to celebrate the blooming of the wildflowers in Fairy Meadow. Our orchestra is short one flute-farter. Would you consider coming to our party and playing with the fairy fart orchestra?”
“Oh,” said Chloe, looking sad again, “ I was planning to go to the prince’s ball tonight. He is looking for a girl to be his princess, and I made a beautiful gown especially for the...the...oh, boo-hoo-hoo....” Chloe started crying again.
“You mean this mess of silk and tulle around your feet?” asked the fairy. Chloe just nodded and cried. “I can fix your dress in a jiffy,” and, to Chloe’s amazement, the fairy began pulling silky gossamer threads from thin air and turning out shimmering lace and fine seams with it. She darted from the fabric piled at Chloe’s feet to Chloe’s shoulders, and back. Working her way down Chloe’s figure, she twirled and flitted, stitching together a graceful, beautifully fitted dress suffused with the magic and mystery of fairy artistry. Chloe looked wild and lovely, and as naturally stunning as a wildflower.
Chloe stood in amazement, looking down at her incomparable new gown, and breathlessly said, “Thank you.”
Priscilla waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and said, “Glad you like it. Of course, I could have done something really spectacular with fairy fabrics, but this should suffice to impress any human prince. Well, hadn’t you better get going?”
“Oh, yes,” said Chloe, startled out of her amazement. She thanked the fairy once more and fled, on foot, to the ball.
Chloe burst into the royal ballroom late and out of breath, her cheeks pink from the fresh evening air, tendrils of blonde hair curling around her face, freed from her hairdo during her run to the palace. She looked stunning in her fairy dress, and all eyes turned to her, including the prince’s. He was spellbound by her beauty. Her natural radiance and her magical dress set her apart from the other girls of the kingdom as if she were the one real rose in a room full of silk roses.
The prince abruptly abandoned the girl he had been dancing with and glided over to Chloe, his hand outstretched to invite her to dance with him. She nodded her head in gracious acceptance and moved to the dance floor with him. The band, which had fallen silent upon her entrance, began playing a lively jig, and Chloe and the prince let their feet fly in joyous dance. Her eyes were sparkling, his were gleaming, huge smiles on both of their faces as they spun and bounced nimbly around the dance hall. All the other dancers moved aside, stunned, and watched the two in envy. Chloe and the prince danced their joyful jig in rapt silence, simply smiling at each other and thinking they had each found their one true love. As the jig came to an end, Chloe gave a little shiver of excitement, and in the silence before the next tune, she emitted her most gleeful and beautiful fart song ever. She giggled a bit, and as the scent of roses wafted around the room, she saw that the mouths of the other dancers had fallen open, not in awe, but in horror. Chloe started to blush as she glanced back at the prince. He was stepping back, his mouth also open, his brow furrowing into a look disgust. Feeling as if her perfect dream were suddenly evolving into a nightmare, Chloe realized that everyone in the ballroom, including her handsome prince, was revolted by her fart song. She flushed deep red as her audience began to erupt in harsh laughter. She ducked her suddenly hot and embarrassed face into her hands and ran, almost blindly, for the door.
Chloe emerged from the dance hall at a full run, with no plan to stop, ever. She ran past her deserted village, past her own home, and into the woods beyond, until she was too winded and defeated to run any more. She tripped on a stump and fell face first into a pile of leaves and moss on the forest floor. Once again she cried and cried, morosely farting as she sobbed. She felt awful, thoroughly rejected, misunderstood, and mortified. How could she ever show her face again. She couldn’t even imagine going home because her rotten stepsisters would never let her forget her moment of supreme embarrassment. She cried until she got the hiccups, and her face was covered with tears, bits of leaves and moss sticking to her wet face and hands. Then she sat up and stared, trying to think what to do, tears still trickling down her face. As she sat and thought, a faint sound began to intrude upon her thoughts. It was wild and rhythmic and strange... music, but like none she had ever heard before. She cocked her head and listened hard, and suddenly she knew what the sound was. It was the fairy fart orchestra!
Chloe stood up, brushed most of the leaves and twigs off her face and dress, and began to pick her way through the woods toward the music. She wandered deeper and deeper into the darkening forest, following the sound. Finally she came upon the fairy gathering, inside a ring of ancient, moss-covered evergreens. A shaft of moonlight splashed silver light on glimmering fairy wings and lit up thousands of tiny white flowers on the mossy ground. Fireflies were weaving flickering green lights through the sweet night air. They seemed to be dancing with the fairies. Atop a big flat rock near the edge of the meadow, the fairy fart orchestra was in full rumpus. There were about twenty fairies, dancing like Japanese taiko drummers, in perfect rhythm as they played. Chloe started to dance. She couldn’t help it. The rhythm was so wild and free, she just had to dance with the fairies. She raised her arms and let herself move to the beat, stepping forward into the fairy circle. As she did, the fairies began to move aside to make space for her, to invite her into their midst. She saw Priscilla wave to her from her place in the orchestra, and waved back. Chloe felt a wild sense of joy and freedom here with the fairies. She thought briefly about her recent embarrassment at the palace, and about how miserable she had been just moments ago, and she shook it off like a bad dream. She started to fart with the fairies as she danced, weaving a wild and wondrous melody with her flute-like toots over the deeper, more rhythmic rumbles and drum beats of the orchestra. It was a truly magical music they made together.
Chloe danced and played with the fairy fart orchestra all night. They played loud and fast. They played slow and sad. They played the very mystery and magic of the forest all around, and they didn’t stop until the sky began to blush pink with sunrise. It was the most fun Chloe had ever had, and she felt she belonged with the fairies as she never had with other humans. She wanted to stay with them forever, but as day began to dawn, Priscilla and the rest of the orchestra came to Chloe and started to say thank you and goodbye to her. Chloe started to say, “But I want to come with you...”
“We’ll be back, Chloe.” the fairies said. “ We will play and dance here again at the next full moon. You are always welcome to join us. You are our very own flute farting princess!”
So Chloe started the long walk home, retracing her steps of the night before. She was tired, but exhilarated. She had a secret, a wonderful, wild, joyful secret she would never tell another human. When she finally crept quietly into her own home, where her family was still sleeping off their night at the palace, there was a small, private smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. In her bed at last, she closed her eyes and pulled her covers up to her chin and began to dream of dancing with the fairies.
Sadly, Chloe’s mother passed away when Chloe was still very young, and her father married a woman with two daughters just a bit older than Chloe. Chloe’s stepmother was not nice, nor were her two stepsisters. They forced Chloe to cook and clean, and, having no ear for music, they did not allow her to fart in the house.
In this kingdom, so far away, was a lonely prince. He had searched and searched for a beautiful girl to be his princess, but had not yet found her. So the king decided to have a royal ball, and invite all the young girls in the land to see if one might be beautiful and talented enough to win the heart of the prince. Royal servants were sent to the farthest reaches of the kingdom to place an invitation to the ball in the hands of every marriageable young girl in the land.
When a royal page arrived at Chloe’s house, she answered the door with a smile and a happy little trill of toots. The royal page’s eyes glazed over a moment, he swayed a bit, then said, “My, what a lovely aroma. Is it roses?” He shook his head as if to clear it, then continued, “Here is your invitation to the royal ball. Every young girl in the kingdom is invited to attend.”
The excitement in Chloe’s home was wild in the days leading up to the ball. Each of the stepsisters was certain she could win the prince’s heart if her dress was sumptuous enough, if her hair was piled up high enough on her head, if she smelled sweet enough. They all made Chloe sew their dresses, fix their hair, paint their nails, and tend to their preparations all day long. The poor girl was exhausted, but she was also excited. Each night after her stepsisters had finally gone to bed in their mud masks and curlers, Chloe sewed her own ball gown from the scraps of her stepsisters’ dresses, and perfumed it with her heavenly farts.
The day of the ball finally arrived in a flurry of final preparations. Chloe’s stepsisters primped and preened, piling their hair into mountains of curls, painting their faces, lacing their bulging bellies into their tight dresses. They looked almost lovely, if you didn’t look too close. Meanwhile, their mother had a plan to keep poor Chloe home from the ball so she would not get the chance to steal the prince’s heart. The rotten woman knew that Chloe had been secretly working on a dress of her own, and that it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. If Chloe wore that dress to the ball, the prince was sure to fall in love with her rather than one of her stepsisters. Each morning, after Chloe had fallen asleep, exhausted from her many labors, her stepmother had come in and quietly picked loose the seams of Chloe’s dress. She didn’t pick them all the way loose, but just enough. When Chloe came downstairs in it on the eve of the ball, looking like a true princess, and her clumsy stepsister stepped on her hem, the whole dress simply fell apart and crumpled around her feet. Poor Chloe was heartbroken, her farts sounding a low lament as she crouched over her ruined dress. She knew she would never make it to the ball now. She wept and wept as her stepsisters rode off to the ball in their carriage, looking like a pair of bloated Barbie dolls.
The scent of Chloe’s sad gases, and the mournful tune they made carried out over the garden on the evening breeze. It wafted this way and that, like a butterfly amongst the trees of the nearby woods, and stole softly into the home of a forest fairy. The fairy, whose name was Priscilla, flitted out to see where the music and the lovely scent came from. She was enchanted, and very curious, so she followed the heartbroken lament carried on puffs of sweetest rose until BUMP! She crashed right into the bottom of dear Chloe, still weeping over her ruined dress. Chloe, in surprise, ended her lament suddenly with a discordant note that sounded like a bullfrog in love, blasting the fairy back a few feet. Priscilla hit the wall and slid down it, laughing so hard her tiny tummy ached. That was the best fart she’d ever heard!
“Ooh, who are you?” asked Chloe while the fairy still writhed on the floor in laughter.
Priscilla said, “I’m a fairy, of course. Where did you learn to fart like that?”
“I’ve been farting like this since I was a baby. Why?” said Chloe.
“It means you are part fairy, Chloe,” replied Priscilla, “ Only fairies fart roses and woodwinds. Say, our fairy clan is having a big party tonight to celebrate the blooming of the wildflowers in Fairy Meadow. Our orchestra is short one flute-farter. Would you consider coming to our party and playing with the fairy fart orchestra?”
“Oh,” said Chloe, looking sad again, “ I was planning to go to the prince’s ball tonight. He is looking for a girl to be his princess, and I made a beautiful gown especially for the...the...oh, boo-hoo-hoo....” Chloe started crying again.
“You mean this mess of silk and tulle around your feet?” asked the fairy. Chloe just nodded and cried. “I can fix your dress in a jiffy,” and, to Chloe’s amazement, the fairy began pulling silky gossamer threads from thin air and turning out shimmering lace and fine seams with it. She darted from the fabric piled at Chloe’s feet to Chloe’s shoulders, and back. Working her way down Chloe’s figure, she twirled and flitted, stitching together a graceful, beautifully fitted dress suffused with the magic and mystery of fairy artistry. Chloe looked wild and lovely, and as naturally stunning as a wildflower.
Chloe stood in amazement, looking down at her incomparable new gown, and breathlessly said, “Thank you.”
Priscilla waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and said, “Glad you like it. Of course, I could have done something really spectacular with fairy fabrics, but this should suffice to impress any human prince. Well, hadn’t you better get going?”
“Oh, yes,” said Chloe, startled out of her amazement. She thanked the fairy once more and fled, on foot, to the ball.
Chloe burst into the royal ballroom late and out of breath, her cheeks pink from the fresh evening air, tendrils of blonde hair curling around her face, freed from her hairdo during her run to the palace. She looked stunning in her fairy dress, and all eyes turned to her, including the prince’s. He was spellbound by her beauty. Her natural radiance and her magical dress set her apart from the other girls of the kingdom as if she were the one real rose in a room full of silk roses.
The prince abruptly abandoned the girl he had been dancing with and glided over to Chloe, his hand outstretched to invite her to dance with him. She nodded her head in gracious acceptance and moved to the dance floor with him. The band, which had fallen silent upon her entrance, began playing a lively jig, and Chloe and the prince let their feet fly in joyous dance. Her eyes were sparkling, his were gleaming, huge smiles on both of their faces as they spun and bounced nimbly around the dance hall. All the other dancers moved aside, stunned, and watched the two in envy. Chloe and the prince danced their joyful jig in rapt silence, simply smiling at each other and thinking they had each found their one true love. As the jig came to an end, Chloe gave a little shiver of excitement, and in the silence before the next tune, she emitted her most gleeful and beautiful fart song ever. She giggled a bit, and as the scent of roses wafted around the room, she saw that the mouths of the other dancers had fallen open, not in awe, but in horror. Chloe started to blush as she glanced back at the prince. He was stepping back, his mouth also open, his brow furrowing into a look disgust. Feeling as if her perfect dream were suddenly evolving into a nightmare, Chloe realized that everyone in the ballroom, including her handsome prince, was revolted by her fart song. She flushed deep red as her audience began to erupt in harsh laughter. She ducked her suddenly hot and embarrassed face into her hands and ran, almost blindly, for the door.
Chloe emerged from the dance hall at a full run, with no plan to stop, ever. She ran past her deserted village, past her own home, and into the woods beyond, until she was too winded and defeated to run any more. She tripped on a stump and fell face first into a pile of leaves and moss on the forest floor. Once again she cried and cried, morosely farting as she sobbed. She felt awful, thoroughly rejected, misunderstood, and mortified. How could she ever show her face again. She couldn’t even imagine going home because her rotten stepsisters would never let her forget her moment of supreme embarrassment. She cried until she got the hiccups, and her face was covered with tears, bits of leaves and moss sticking to her wet face and hands. Then she sat up and stared, trying to think what to do, tears still trickling down her face. As she sat and thought, a faint sound began to intrude upon her thoughts. It was wild and rhythmic and strange... music, but like none she had ever heard before. She cocked her head and listened hard, and suddenly she knew what the sound was. It was the fairy fart orchestra!
Chloe stood up, brushed most of the leaves and twigs off her face and dress, and began to pick her way through the woods toward the music. She wandered deeper and deeper into the darkening forest, following the sound. Finally she came upon the fairy gathering, inside a ring of ancient, moss-covered evergreens. A shaft of moonlight splashed silver light on glimmering fairy wings and lit up thousands of tiny white flowers on the mossy ground. Fireflies were weaving flickering green lights through the sweet night air. They seemed to be dancing with the fairies. Atop a big flat rock near the edge of the meadow, the fairy fart orchestra was in full rumpus. There were about twenty fairies, dancing like Japanese taiko drummers, in perfect rhythm as they played. Chloe started to dance. She couldn’t help it. The rhythm was so wild and free, she just had to dance with the fairies. She raised her arms and let herself move to the beat, stepping forward into the fairy circle. As she did, the fairies began to move aside to make space for her, to invite her into their midst. She saw Priscilla wave to her from her place in the orchestra, and waved back. Chloe felt a wild sense of joy and freedom here with the fairies. She thought briefly about her recent embarrassment at the palace, and about how miserable she had been just moments ago, and she shook it off like a bad dream. She started to fart with the fairies as she danced, weaving a wild and wondrous melody with her flute-like toots over the deeper, more rhythmic rumbles and drum beats of the orchestra. It was a truly magical music they made together.
Chloe danced and played with the fairy fart orchestra all night. They played loud and fast. They played slow and sad. They played the very mystery and magic of the forest all around, and they didn’t stop until the sky began to blush pink with sunrise. It was the most fun Chloe had ever had, and she felt she belonged with the fairies as she never had with other humans. She wanted to stay with them forever, but as day began to dawn, Priscilla and the rest of the orchestra came to Chloe and started to say thank you and goodbye to her. Chloe started to say, “But I want to come with you...”
“We’ll be back, Chloe.” the fairies said. “ We will play and dance here again at the next full moon. You are always welcome to join us. You are our very own flute farting princess!”
So Chloe started the long walk home, retracing her steps of the night before. She was tired, but exhilarated. She had a secret, a wonderful, wild, joyful secret she would never tell another human. When she finally crept quietly into her own home, where her family was still sleeping off their night at the palace, there was a small, private smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. In her bed at last, she closed her eyes and pulled her covers up to her chin and began to dream of dancing with the fairies.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
24 years ago
From bed I fall
for vaporous dawn and pearly skies,
skip and leap down steep slopes
to the rails:
infinity, straight-pinned to earth.
Like clocks tick,
my feet take tracks.
Liquid shoulders roll,
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
The sun rounds,
up through the horizon,
mirroring sunset over a distant land.
The rails curve away.
Long, mindless trek,
gone so far, must have flown.
I sit, rail hard under my hand on the bridge,
Sun up, sky solid.
Over Still Creek, thick with algae,
I drop a rock.
Green-cake breaks with a muffled plunk
ripples liquid dark below.
I have to pee,
never can stay
still for long.
Faintly more aware I walk
home.
for vaporous dawn and pearly skies,
skip and leap down steep slopes
to the rails:
infinity, straight-pinned to earth.
Like clocks tick,
my feet take tracks.
Liquid shoulders roll,
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
The sun rounds,
up through the horizon,
mirroring sunset over a distant land.
The rails curve away.
Long, mindless trek,
gone so far, must have flown.
I sit, rail hard under my hand on the bridge,
Sun up, sky solid.
Over Still Creek, thick with algae,
I drop a rock.
Green-cake breaks with a muffled plunk
ripples liquid dark below.
I have to pee,
never can stay
still for long.
Faintly more aware I walk
home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)