I’ll try to recover and get back to my Daybook in Progress tomorrow, but in the meanwhile ... the next disaster ... (left: "Woman with Two Faces" (reversed), Pierre R. Lespes, Brooklyn Art Project)
My right eye won’t close now and the eyelid has to be taped down. I have a skin allergy to the tape, which is leaving big red welts on and around my eye, and disfiguring my eyelid, which is now sagging and purple. I can no longer smile. I dribble water out of the right side of my mouth when I drink because I can’t hold the right side of my mouth closed. I can’t open the right side of my mouth wide enough to eat anything, so have to poke food gingerly into the left side and hope it doesn’t fall back out. Worst of all: I can only flare one nostril in indignation, instead of two, and boy, if that doesn’t interfere with my catalog of facial characteristics, I don’t know what does.
Delayed results of the facial surgery? Probably not, but who knows? Stroke? No, but everyone thought so at first – there’s nothing I love more than being rushed into emergency rooms as a "code red" with an oxygen mask slapped over your face. Lawrence Hospital, my usual nemesis, actually reacted pretty "emergency-ish" on Monday; I was impressed. Triage nurse looked at me, frowned, said, "Smile at me". I did, and she tossed me on a gurney and rushed me off for a cat scan, assuming a stroke was in progress. Another nurse rushed in and slapped an IV in a vein – they all expected to be pumping clot-busting drugs into me any second now.
Diagnosis for the reason I woke up with half of my face completely paralyzed? The reason I am now the woman with two faces? Bell’s Palsy. Bell’s f**king Palsy. On top of everything else.
Came home from the emergency room (again) looking like a distorted and terrifying Halloween mask (again), depressed as hell and ready to jump out the nearest window ... again. I should probably - again - confess that I live at ground level, so that’s really not as suicidal as it sounds, and actually involves climbing up a small stepladder to wiggle out the window and sprawl on the ground at eye level outside the window. So no, it wouldn’t have killed me, injured me, or even scraped my knee. It was the principle of the thing. I mean, it was obvious that the Sky Sadist was killing me off in increments, why not make it easier for the freaking SOB?
I toyed with the enticing idea of taking up smoking again, just to calm myself down, except I didn’t have any cigarettes. Also, since I can’t coordinate my lips enough to suck on a straw, I’m pretty sure trying to smoke would be a waste of time anyway. (*sigh*)
But I had come home, looking for perhaps a little comfort and escape, but doubting now that I would ever find any comfort. Or escape. The only person who could have comforted me had dropped dead. The agoraphobia I was battling after the disasters leading up to Jim’s death returned suddenly – home had once felt like the only safe haven there was; now it was the place where my face had twisted in on itself in the midst of sleep. Agoraphobia and somniphobia collided. Fear of leaving the house, combined with a fear of sleeping while I was IN the house. I picked up the headphones again and went back into sonnet cycle mode.
I also discovered that, coincidentally, all sorts of fraudulent communications had impacted BOTH of the only two people I really paid attention to anymore, and both of them had felt compelled to say something about it on the same day. Not that I believe in coincidences.
Piero had to release a brief video saying, "I’m not on Facebook; I only have one Twitter account, don’t pay attention to what people are saying." His was actually pretty calm ... and I had no idea what people WERE saying, so was confused by the announcement until someone explained it to me.
Damien’s was a series of angry tweets about people apparently spreading rumors saying that he didn’t like his supporters – or something along those lines – and HE was obviously pissed off. I don’t know what incident provoked Damien’s explosion, since I have no contact with any of his supporters; I do know what provoked Piero’s video: a fake twitter account – which I’d seen but already figured out wasn’t him a long time ago. Apparently, the fake Piero had recently tweeted, "A REAL fan would only pay attention to the music and not to whose face was prettier!" – which was SUCH a hissy-fit, girly-girly thing to say, you had to laugh.
Think about it. He’s a teenage boy. A teenage boy would have thought, "Actually, a REAL fan is a gorgeous chick with oversized boobies who would ride the mechanical bull for 24 hours without stopping and not assume it meant anything permanent," but he never would have tweeted it if he wanted to maintain his teenage girl fan base. Which – and trust me when I say this – I’m pretty sure Piero does. I would have burst out laughing had I seen it when first posted, because really, any guy posting something that ridiculously girly would have been banned from the testosterone club for life – I can’t believe that anyone actually thought that was him. (Also, the fake Piero tweeted that nonsense in Spanish, which was another obvious giveaway: he’s not THAT fluent in Spanish. Plus, even taking into account that he’s a teenage boy, he’s not that stupid.)
Needless to say, while I’m still dribbling things out of the side of my mouth, and while I keep biting my tongue and the inside of my mouth, and while I keep viciously slapping my own face in a desperate attempt to get myself to wake up and pay attention and stop biting the f**k out of myself, and while snot is still running out of one nostril because I can’t sniff it back in, and while I cannot close one eye, and have big red welts all over my eyelid due to tape allergies, yes while all of that is going on, we will NOT be returning to any search for a soul mate any time soon, unless I decide that I really enjoy making myself miserable. The effects of Bell’s Palsy can last anywhere from a few weeks to forever. Anyone wanna start a betting pool on THAT outcome?
And see, this is how sadistic and evil and vicious the Sky Sadist is: all of this happened exactly one month before seeing Piero in concert for the first time ever, and in a seat so close he can actually see me from the stage. I won’t be able to smile, to cheer, to sing along ... nothing. Only have the use of one eye, so won’t be able to see him well. All I can do is drool on my shirt and dribble snot out my nose. Can you HEAR the demonic guffawing from the Sky Sadist, bruthahs and sistas?? Can ya jes’ HEAR it? Yeah, so can I. Sounds very Pennywise-ish.
The Next Wave of Death IV
I awakened this morn with a face ripped in two:
half stone, half love; twisted and torn, a betrayal.
I cried out in fear but could only keen and wail
at unfamiliarity, the horrid view.
This is the expected Salem face, bitter brew;
self loathing; my old comfort is worm food, stale
and of no use; I would unsheath a blade, impale
the death-mask face if one would guide my hand anew.
The first face would have looked into the eyes of my
love in a short time. The second face, the ruin,
slack-eyed, lip-twisted, lidless visage, out of tune,
is the one he will look down upon and despise.
Four weeks remain until disgust spears my cocoon
until shatterment, and my beating heart excised.
©Snake’s Trail, 2012
Deep, deep breath.
Okay, so after posting the comment about the Minchiate Tarot (see last entry, 29 JUL 2012), Damien posted this morning:
People always ask me what I want to do in the future. Really, it comes down to this: writing books and teaching the tarot. I love the tarot. It's my passion. It kept me company when I was on death row. (3 AUG 2012)
I should ask him about the Minchiate Magus one of these days.
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