I am home.
My apologies. I would have written about the Catastrophic States of America while in the ICU last week, but by ICU the hospital meant Intensive Commotion Unit. Not five minutes would pass before a doctor, nurse, nurse practitioner or tech would be fussing with me or one of my many mechanized life-saving contraptions. I'm not complaining. They were friendly, helpful and professional, not to mention salvational.
All the commotion, however, obliterated any chance of mental concentration on my part; any attempt at writing something worthwhile was as remote as a comprehensible Trump policy. Thus I was reduced to watching roughly 100 hours of MSNBC throughout the week, which was nearly enough opinion-saturation to send me from the ICU floor to the psychiatric unit. I must admit, though, that filling and then having my bedpan emptied while Rachel was giggling and clapping provided a certain spacetime continuum that was quite reassuring. Life as I knew it would go on.
I shall resume posting on Tuesday, since Monday's holiday writing would only be squandered by readers' hotdog-and-beer blowouts. I'll most likely be posting a bit later in the day than usual for a while, since my breathtaking pulmonary embolism has substantially altered my previous morning routine. A complete recovery will take four to six weeks, I'm informed, accompanied by a swarm of early morning lab tests and doctor appointments. (In addition I have a massive distraction to straighten out insurance-wise, which as of today appears to be a trifle dicey; and if dicey morphs to reality, I'll be looking at a $100,000 bill, minimum — at which point I'll request that hospital personnel undo whatever they did to cure the lethal embolism. I cannot chase that big of a cash acorn.)
See you Tuesday, and take care with your holiday exuberances.
—PM