I’ve been waiting for that instant, moment, second, split second. You never know how or when it might happen. You unwittingly anger a subway urchin (by calling him an “urchin”) pushing the long-time panhandler and hucker over the brink. He cannot let you sit down on the subway in that manner, cannot let you breathe the way you presumptively and selfishly inhale. Someone sees you in this way, a profile of outrage and annihilation.
If not the moment of being targeted then the moment of accident. You feel yourself slipping down the stairs. Slipping advances to tumbling, and your legs give way to your arms bracing the torso and the head and face from impact on the hard surfaces of the stairs and floor. Seconds earlier you were calm and intact, Now you are in pain, bleeding, with no one around to sit you up straight.
I had a moment something like this yesterday. Not as physical but my vocal reactions matched, I believe, what I would utter in the throes of those above-described inevitabilities. I was taking my daily ration of BP and anxiety meds, as well as an acid reflux pill. It’s the same cocktail I’ve been ingesting for about a year now, to varying degrees of potency when it comes to the anxiety med. The pills are Nifedipine, Cardiolol, Lorazepam, and OTC Omeprazole. The fact that I probably mis-spelled half these pills may or may not say something about my remove, my apathy, my lack of real concern for pills I feel I take for the sake of the doctor’s record, the doctor’s conscience.
The moment came when, in the shower where I take the pills, water splashed onto them, sending one pill onto the shower floor, effectively invisible to me as I could not tell if it was the Nifedipine or the Omeprazole. Further, the two white pills, blobs of white to my naked eyes (it’s also not well-lit in the shower, as I like it), were starting to break down. I feared lack of efficacy if they further dissolved so I pitched them into my mouth only to spit them back out, unsure if I had in fact gotten them into my mouth or had I tossed them onto my body instead.
I kept muttering “No. No.” as if my body was falling to pieces. That was the moment. The mutterings of “No” followed by uncertainty of what pills I had, in fact, ingested. Any? All? Some? Of most concern was the anxiety med. The most I’ve ever ingested was 2-1/2mg, and that was a while back when my entire body brain and balls were on fire. I don’t really need to take that med some days now but I do anyway. I have the supply and the pills do lose their potency after not too many months, so taking them as they are available is a sensible move.
Taking pills like that in the shower is not so smart, is it? I guess I knew that. It’s the only reason I have a washcloth, that article of bathing that for some reason became a symbol of the poorie class. I don’t understand that at all but I have two such articles of convenience. One is there so I can dry my hands when I pitch those pills into my palm and into my face. The hand should be dry for that gesture. That’s where things went wrong yesterday, prompting the gutteral “No. No.” and the chase after the pill that raced down the drain before I could be certain which one it was.
The other washcloth is there for to rest my elbow when I blow water up by ass, European-style. I do not want to say that performing this manual bidet-like gesture has changed my life but it has made the routine of sitting at a desk for long hours considerably less bothersome. As for the secondary washcloth procured for this purpose and only for this purpose I suppose I could have used other less poorie material, like a sponge or a rubber ducky. But having the cushiony buffer there has saved innumerable pinchy pains in the elbow, and I think it’s been a good thing.
The pills, though. There was one particularly colorful moment. I had brushed my teeth too hard, causing them to bleed, as happens some days. When the Lorazapam exited my mouth and landed on my body it had a couple of drops of blood on either side or its circular, cylinder shape. As for the bleeding I had also burned my mouth eating a disasterously hot and spicy concoction at a Flushing restaurant on Sunday. I’m still feeling that and the easy bleeding it causes. But that pill, in its early stage of digestion, cloaked in blood, that was classy.
I went to Bayside Sunday thinking I had something going on with a statuesque Japanese woman I connected with online the night before. It was a dud. Maybe we’ll be friends. Instead of spending the day with her I went off on my own to find, what else, more payphones. Two, to be exact, at the Crocheron Park tennis courts, and another on the walkway beside the Cross Island Parkway. I had in instinct about the second one but the first one was more of a surprise. I felt good Sunday after a Saturday of misery and overpowering anxiety. I took the day off work. I’m allowed to do that now with no questions asked. I have the power. Getting to Bayside is a lot of work, it seems, though the 7 went express part of the way to Flushing. The return to Flushing at around 3pm saw me, having eaten absolutely nothing on the day, thinking I’d gorge on some exotic Laotian cuisine. Alas, thought “Laotan” was a misspelled attempt at “Laotian” but in fact it was just overpriced Chinese gruel. I really hated it, hated the experience, hated the price. $32 with tip for a very small amount of food. The noodles were like rubber, the fish passable but everything else just a hot mess. Side dishes were bean curd and black fungus. Yum. Gotta go.
