Book of June

As you know, because word is sweeping the country faster than a virus

—too soon?—

once a month I get a box from StitchFix, and if I were any sort of successful writer I’d be getting these boxes for free and sailing off to pink-sand beaches with all my cash money.

But as I’m middling at best, I have to pay for StitchFix like the rest of you losers.

(Why IS it she can’t crack the popularity nut? I can’t figure it out.)

Anyway, my box o’Stitch came, like, one day after my surgery (by the way, I had surgery) and I was in no shape to try things on, not to mention I was all swollen and stuff. So first I forced my mother to wear the clothes that came in the box.

I took these from my bed, where I lay for many days, except for when my mother would ask where something was and I’d tell her and she’d say she couldn’t find it and I’d have to get up, leaving a trail of my innards as I minced to find her a slotted spoon.

Since I know that some of you tend to study my photographs for several hours, with a magnifying glass, someone will say, “Why the kitchen chair in the bedroom, JOOOOOON” and my answer is that I forced mom to wash my kitchen floor and she actually removed the chairs from the kitchen, a thing I never ever do.

Also, after she left, I got out a pan and I was all, Whose pan is this? Because it was shiny. And there were no more burnt popcorn stains on it. I have seriously no idea how she got those off that pan.

Anyway, I wrote to StitchFix and told them I’d just had surgery and they wrote back, “OH MY GOD WE KNOW” and also extended the amount of time I could decide on the clothes. I knew you wanted a true, scientific look at me in each of my threads, a word I use because suddenly I’m Jason from Room 222.

• 

I finally felt okay enough to try on my duds Sunday. BUT, as promised, I posed in them emulating poses I found in Soft Surroundings catalog.

My friend Marianne was visiting me yesterday,

so I forced her to be my photographer. Then I said, WASH MY PANS and lo and behold she had to go.

So without further delay—I’m like someone who’s gonna give you a recipe and tells her FEKKING LIFE STORY first—here we go.

• 

• 

Dear Marianne: Why did you art direct me to always be posing the wrong direction?

The good news is, you can see both my mother AND me in most of the clothes. Also, these pants are part of the StitchFix box, but I know I’m keeping them. I love them. I will marry them and become Mrs. June Pants.

No, seriously, Marianne. Are you disordered? Do you see the world in a mirror image? She had me pointing the wrong way in EVERY SHOT. Kills me.

“Really, I didn’t know what I treasured more in this post. The fact that Marianne doesn’t know which direction someone is standing or June’s roots. But once we enjoyed her armpit, all bets were off.”

After this photoshoot, Marianne left to go point other things in the wrong direction, and I slept one of those open-mouth deep sleeps where you wake up and have no idea who you are.

One more thing: The prices are listed at the top of each poll, but remember that if I get all items, including the pants, I get a 25% discount. So all the items together are $240 but I’d get them for $160 (you also get a $20 discount for buying anything at all. It’s maths. Just trust me).

I look forward to your pithy answers.

Love,
Mrs. June Pants

I’ve gone into my yard in my robe so many times now that I figure the neighbors think I’m now a professional The Dude impersonator.

Speaking of my yard, it’s starting to bloom. It’s Judy Blume. Are you there, God?

Hard to believe, after that great storm.

Here, I took more pictures of things blooming in my yard today, whilst be-robed. Yeah, well. That’s just, like, you know, your opinion, man.

• 

• 

I see I have to clean that door. EDSEL.

Also my neighbor, R, was here and as she walked past my flower bed in the front, she said, “Our day lilies are gonna be great, I think!”

I had completely forgotten that last year, a site near us was being reconstructed thanks to all the gentrification assholes who moved in here.

…Oh.

Anyway, they’d dug up a bunch of dirt, INCLUDING very old day lilies. They were just lying there dying in a flatbed thing, so R and I took them, divided them between us, and planted them in our respective yards. It was summer and hot AF. I totally forgot we’d done that.

This is like when I buy post-Xmas things on sale and am delighted to discover them the next year.

Anyway, I was all, Oh, YEAH! I have day lilies! And they’re a pretty yellow, not that horrific orange. Their little sprouts are just peeping up.

So that’s exciting, and I do so like spring here even though it renders me hoarse due to pollen.

In other news, my trainer came by yesterday as well. I had a whole day of socializing, if by “socializing” you mean I went to the doctor. I’m now officially old. Going to the doctor is how I go out. But I mean, I also had visitors galore. BTW, doctor says I’m healing well other than I need to be taking the ibuprofen, which I haven’t, and that is why if I walk around too much I get nauseated.

She said I am downplaying the pain and need to keep ahead of it. I liked this, because it’s the only time anyone has ever insinuated I’m stoic. I think it’s just because I have an extremely high threshold for pain.

You know, I joke when I say that, but do you recall the migraine study I was in where they purposely inflicted pain on us, then for 10 weeks I learned how to manage pain, allegedly (I think I was in the control group, actually) (story of my life)? They’d inflict the pain and you’d tell them to stop when it got to be too much. I had this done a few times and I recall them saying, “Wow!” when I’d finally say, okay stop, that’s enough. I was dying to know what Wow meant. Am I super butch?

Anyway. My trainer made me soup that was unhealthy, and also she made cookies that were unhealthy and they were

BOTH FEKKING DELICIOUS.

The kind of delicious where I kept eating more, standing in my kitchen, when what I meant to do was put everything away. Her son, who is my people, also loves that soup and said, “It will make a turd.”

Once I was at her house, doing the training, and as I pulled up he and his equally ridic high school friends were bringing giant pieces of wood into the house. My trainer is one of those clean people, you know what I mean? And she was all, “I do not want a mess. I do not want this wood in my house.” They assured her it was temporary and headed upstairs. Her training area is the garage, and it’s a townhouse, so the kitchen is upstairs.

Moments later WE HEARD SAWING and she was all, “I am so sorry” and SCREAMED upstairs.

He’d turned on a sawing video on YouTube to just get her goat, and that is when I began to realize he was my people.

“Do not tell anyone your trainer brought you such unhealthy things,” she said, and I assured her I am a vault. Also, just to be hilarious, she chose this bag to bring the food:

This is the bag that held the ashes of her dog, fmr., Otis. She knew I’d appreciate the absurdity of this.

Anyway, NONE of this is why I’ve gathered you today. Today I thought we’d start our series, Redecorate the Millhouse. I told you I have things I’d like to change here, and ask me if I have the money. Still, I want to get ideas and then, you know, save up or get a sugar daddy or what have you.

I feel like at my age I can’t get a sugar daddy but maybe a Karo grandpa.

Okay, first millhouse issue: The window treatments. (I’m all of a sudden a fey decorator. Next I’ll say tablescape.)

Is it possible for me to take a photo of my house WITHOUT an animal in it?

Anyway, the people who owned this house were much classier than me. So anything they left behind is “good.” These blinds are wooden, and in good shape. They also left up really nice heavy beige drapes, which I gave to my neighbor who can’t afford new drapes.

Anyway, these aren’t bad, but I’m more of a scalloped blinds (and potatoes) gal, which I’ve had at several houses.

I also think really airy lace curtains would be lovely. But am I turning into Tweety Bird’s mother? Is this all too old?

Also, is everything too white? White walls, white WINDOW TREATMENTS?

This is where I seek the help of you, the reader, during this, my convalescence.

Remember, not only do you not have to use a name or email to comment, you also can leave just one link per comment, or else WordPress thinks you’re spam.

Thanks!

Make a turd,
June

I have been trying to keep a secret from all of you, but today, in order to tell this story, I must reveal it.

I had surgery 15 days ago.

I know. But I didn’t want your pity.

{Narrator: She always wants your pity.}

The point is, as you can imagine, I have henceforth not been getting up what you’d call early. You know how if you release a pig into the wild it doesn’t take long for it to be a boar? I’ve been off work two weeks and am now a wild bore.

I am drifting back to my circadian rhythms. I freelanced for four years back in the aughts, and back then my hours became a 4 a.m. bedtime and noon rising. Noon is my rising sign.

During this, my convalescence, I’m sorry to tell you that I, like the rest of America, got hooked on that horrific Love is Blind show on Netflix. Please do not watch it on my account. I do not wish to be an influencer in this realm.

I stayed up past midnight last night, is my point, and was deep in REM this morning when

RING!!!

M’dang phone rang at me at 7:03 a.m.

Seriously?

“Hello. This is your alarm company. I have an alarm reset. Are you okay?”

Here are all the things wrong with that call. First of all, Ned won that alarm for me at an auction right when I moved in here in September of 2018. Someone we knew had had a personal tragedy, so at a fundraiser for said tragedy he thought, I can help this cause and also help June not get murdered in her new scary hood. He went on to seduce a young woman at said fundraiser who he knew from his old apartment, but that’s not important right now. In all, Ned won everything that night.

When the year of free alarming was up, I opted to cancel my alarm service. I can show you all the lovely email exchange of me canceling it. One wonders, then, why the call AT 7 THIS MORNING.

Also, WTF is an “alarm reset”?

I told them I was okay, and rolled over to slumber anew.

RING!!!!

“hello?” I used my Aunt Kathy voice. When my Aunt Kathy is unwell, she uses this faint, husky phone-answering voice, as though she is almost too weak to form words.

“Hello, Aunt Kathy,” said Ned The Seducer. “Do you have a knife sticking out of you? Your alarm company called.”

“Jesus, really? I don’t HAVE an alarm anymore. They called me too.”

I noted that Ned didn’t try to ask questions in case I was being held hostage or anything. I feel the call was perfunctory in nature.

I puffed the cover around me and was just shutting my—

PING!!!

“God’s NIGHTGOWN!!” I yelled, scaring Iris.

“Are you okay?” Apparently I’d added Wedding Alex to my list of alarm contacts, as she is a grownup. Who’s 20 years younger than me. But really, if the shit went down, who you gonna call? Me? Or Wedding Alex? Exactly.

I texted her the whole cranky story and I could tell she thought I was a fuckin’ B, to steal a line from my cleaning lady Alicia. But really. This, my convalescence, was being usurped by a company that I don’t even PAY. You know, I’d been wondering why it still booped when I opened doors.

“Okay, then. Just checking on you,” she texted, washing her hands of me and coronavirus.

I pulled Iris to me in a nice spoon when

RING!!!!

“CORN NUTS!” I screeched, losing Iris for good.

It was Marty Martin. I told him the entire story, using my sparkling mood delivery system. When it was over, he said, “I’m looking for clues that you’re being held hostage. If you’d said, ‘I’m just lying here enjoying Monty Python,’ I’d know.”

So at least we have a code for next time.

I’ve sent off a terse email to the company, and I’m certain I had the Hawk Look, which is an expression my best friend from high school used to describe my dark moods.

I mean, seriously. Even Mr. Rogers would have said fuck your mother at this point.

Anyway, in case you’re also on the list and about to call me, I’M FUCKING FINE, MCFEELY.

Love, June

You know I like Iris and all. But I’m fixing to snap her cat neck.

Eds has DESPERATELY needed a shower with Lifebuoy and then some Right Guard, and also he needs a manicure. The other day he walked across my foot and actually scratched me with his talons. Eds is usually a nice-smelling dog, so who knows what debauchery he’s been up to during this, my convalescence.

So on this, the first day I am allowed to drive after this, my convalescence, I called the dog daycare place as soon as I woke up. “Yes,” I said, because you know how I am. “My dog needs a bath. Can he get one today?”

“Edsel?” they asked, and I’m assuming it’s because they have my phone number hooked up with a computer, just like the government does, and that’s how they get you.

My point is, they said yes to the bath if I could get him there “in 20 minutes.”

I had phoned them from my bed, like Doris Day, only Doris Day if she’d fallen on rough times. Oh my god I had to leap out of bed with my incision, wash face brush teeth let dog out feed dog dress get dog leash

AND THE WHOLE TIME IRIS WAS DIRECTLY IN MY WAY.

Look. I realize she’s not so sight-y. But I’d turn around and there she’d be, gazing off thoughtfully into her world of darkness as I tripped on her.

Next room? deeeep thot. by eyeriss.

And if I were her, I’d keep out of my way because she’s on antibiotics and she was only reminding me to shove one down her gullet.

Eds and I got to dog daycare in 23 minutes, and bite my shorts. It was my first sojourn out my hood in two weeks. I remember that weekend before this surgery (did you know I had surgery?), how I worked out, then ran around town all day getting things for this, my convalescence. I remember kind of enjoying it. Now I can’t imagine having that kind of energy ever again.

Anyway, here is the webcam for dog daycare. I don’t see Eds there yet, but he still might be under the hooded dryer, reading Cosmopolitan with his nails out so he won’t smudge them.

After I dropped the dog off, I headed to the voting place, so I could cast my vote for America and also pick up 47 strands of Coronavirus.

I’d heard from the people I dine with on Fridays that once you’re 55, you can join this center FOR FREE, and oh my god, you guys, I am so on board. You should have seen all the seniors popping in and out of there, waving at one another and exchanging the virus. Also, there’s a pool!

In the South, everyone belongs to a pool. I’d never heard of such a thing till I got here. So now I can be one of those people who, when you ask after my weekend plans, can say, “Oh, I’ll probably just head down to my pool.”

It was nice in there, yellow cinderblock aside. There was even a display of everyone’s quilts. I am beside myself and cannot wait to be 55. To the Smith Center I will drive. At FIFTY-FIVVVVVEEEE!

I voted using a pen touched by everyone and their virus, then drove home holding my hands before me like I’d soaked them in dung. I washed hands for a Howard Hughes length of time and now I’m writing you. I’d wanted to turn back and take a photo I’d seen of a funny church sign between dog daycare and voting, but that hour of being out was kind of enough of m’first sojourn during this, my convalescence.

But since I’ve had nothing but time, which is now limited since I went out and caught The Virus, I came up with a couple ideas for future posts.

My StitchFix came, like, the day I had surgery, and I forced my mother to pose for me in all of them and was going to get you to vote on them that way, but somebody would take it too seriously and be all, “We can’t decide based on HER wearing them, JOOOOOON.” So I think I can get up the energy to pose in them later today.

But! I’ve decided to use all poses I find in my Soft Selections catalog.

Is it Soft Selections? WTF is it? You know the one. It’s an old lady catalog that has $100 pajamas. WHO spends that much for normal pajams? I understand if they’re all sexy and you get some action from them. But toile pajamas do not need to cost a hundy, Soft Spoonisms. What’s it really called? Stupid anesthesia.

So that’s my first idea, but also too, I have several things in my house I wish to change. I thought each week I could feature something, like, What color should I paint this room? or Should I get curtains or leave these wooden blinds like I’m Geppetto?

Then you could offer your suggestions and links (be careful cause I think WordPress plunks you in spam if you have more than one link in a comment) to drapes or floors or paint or wallpaper you like, and doesn’t that sound kind of fun?

So what should we call it? I thought of June Gaines but that just sounds like I’m busting through my BPI. Is that what it’s called, that number that if it’s over 25 you weigh too much? Goddammit. I hate anesthesia.

GPA?
BPM?
TMI?

Crap.

Anyway, those are my exciting thoughts for zipping things up in the bedroom, or this blog, whichever.

Now I’ve had too much excitement and need to nap like a toddler.

Is this thing on? And by “this thing,” I mean my brain’s synapses. Which technically, then, should be “Are these things on?” which tells you the answer is no.

Hello. I know this is news to most of you, but I had surgery nine days ago. And here’s the irony: Whereas in most cases I make a huge, over-the-top, Dooce-level deal out of things and usually they turn out to be nothing, in this case I secretly thought my surgery

—did you know I had surgery?—

would be no big deal, just a few days under the weather, when in fact oh my god I have a brain cloud. My mind is just…not working.

I’ve phoned my doctor’s office, twice now, so let’s count down till she quits, and it turns out it’s normal to feel this foggy and out of it and slow as Mrs. Butterworth’s bodily fluids (is there still a Mr. Butterworth?), but man is it disconcerting. My rapier wit is all I had. Or at least my I-get-handsy-when-drunk wit.

I haven’t taken Percocet in a week, and have plans to dress as Huggy Bear, in a jaunty cravat, and sell it right outside my door. Maybe set up a lemonade stand of sorts. I haven’t even taken the Advil since Saturday. The pain is pretty tolerable, but of course remember I’m tough and no-nonsense like that buzz-cutted creature Demi Moore played. What was her name? Oh, right, Demi Moore.

Bah. Okay, I’m not THAT bad. And in fact today I feel a bit better, although I have no idea if this post is making any sense. OH! But I’m glad I thought of this! People have sent food and books and jewelry and so on and it’s SO NICE, and my mother takes the boxes, and I say to myself, “What a wonderful world” and also, “I’ll remember who sent this”

AND

THEN

I DON’T.

So I know I have not thanked people and I really apologize. I’ve been trying to keep up with who sent what but fog. Fog on the water.

Currently, I am sporting a baby-blue cardigan over a pair of pale-green cabbage rose pajamas. I have completed my look with lavender ankle socks. I haven’t put on clothes in 10 days. In fact, I’m washing my robes/pajamas right now, three at a time so I don’t lift more than 10 pounds, because when you have the support group I do,

it’s easy to get fur-clad. Really, if you were in the market for pets, mine have been a dream and I highly recommend you steal them for your next convalescence. Only two of the four are actively dying. Well worth the misdemeanor.

Look. I don’t know what’s wrong with Iris, exactly, but it isn’t good. And old Eds may last ages. I’ve had people throw Blu for him, since I can’t. I tried to toss Blu for him yesterday. Like, I sort of rolled it across the grass, since my mother and stepfather left for fun and profit and wild blue yonders and so on. I DO have backup friends and neighbors who said they’d help and I think Ima have to cash in my chips on getting someone to throw for Eds. Also I can’t lift the animals’ water dish, so today I put water in the kettle and kind of poured new water in there, but that’s disgusting. I want to pour it all out and start anew.

You know what occurs to me. I have a GIANT bowl down there, from back when we had Lottie. Before Garp bit Bonkie. I don’t NEED that giant of a bowl any longer with just one aged dog and three backup cats who don’t drink much because they’re all on keto. So what I can do is wait till the water level gets lower, later today, lift THAT, dump it out, and replace it with a reasonable bowl. Like, a Walter Cronkite bowl.

I’m glad we solved that together. This all has been good for my problem-solving skills.

Also, speaking of problem-solving, whilst my beleaguered family was here, which is a bit of a blur, or really a lot of a blur, we decided to watch my slides. I have slides and a slide projector that had belonged to my father, who was a photographer. And I was an only child. So basically the slides are his half of the 3940509204 photos taken of me from birth to age 11, when everyone divorced.

First, the slides and projector were up too high in the closet. I tried to reach them and felt self splitting in two, so I called my mother in. Who is shorter than me by four inches. See: fog.

So then we called my stepfather in, who is 9 feet tall, and he handed each slide box to me who really shouldn’t have been lifting them. See: fog.

Then we got the huge heavy clunky slide projector and took everything to the living room and of course had a terrible time finding where to plug it in because this house was built in 1922 before there were plugs and I have no idea how anyone watched cable in 1922 and they all must have been cranky.

So after dragging out not one but TWO power strips from other rooms, which involved unplugging all the things plugged into them in those rooms and finding the first power strip mysteriously didn’t work in the living room, after that, we finally got the projector turned on. It was mostly me in the cardigan and pajamas that turned it on.

Then my stepfather and I spent 49 hours trying to get the slides to rotate on the projector. There were the world’s most vague instructions on the back of the slides, instructions my stepfather, who has 79 degrees and also 98 Degrees including one of those easy-to-get medical degrees, could not comprehend.

After the fall of the Roman empire and the Revolution and Prince, we figured out how to get the slides to rotate. Then we just had to take the TV down so we could project the slides. I couldn’t do this, so my stepfather and mother did.

“Please try not to unplug the things in the back,” I said, as they unplugged all the things in the back.

Finally, FINALLY, we were ready.

And?

Light bulb burned out on projector.

Now, see, anyone related to me by blood would have smashed everything with a bat, like in Office Space, but my stepfather very methodically found out what kind of new bulb we needed, then headed out with my mother to get one at a local store.

They were out of that particular kind.

Then we couldn’t figure out which plugs went where in the TV. TV is pretty much ALL I HAVE TO DO right now, so.

At this point, ANY NORMAL HUMAN would have shot up an entire stadium with a rifle, but my stepfather very methodically figured out the plug sitch and then ordered said bulb online, which came in the mail yesterday.

So yesterday, we finally, finally sat down, the three of us, to watch slides of my childhood, and we once again figured out how to put the slides on the machine the right way in order to rotate them, and my stepfather Job put the bulb in, and then?

The first set of slides were all vacation pictures from a trip my father took in 1981.

The good news is, we finally got to slides of my mother and me, and most of them were upside-down and flipped, and since I literally have nothing else to do I am going to turn the projector back on and methodically turn them all the right way during this, my convalescence.

I have to go, because London called and wants it fog back. I feel this is an excellent time to shower, as my washer cycle has ended so I won’t have one of those upsetting showers where it’s like you have a fever with the hot and the cold and the hot again. Those are the worst.

From the operations department,
June

P.S. Also, I mostly posted because poor Sadie, who’s not on any social media, kept leaving sad, “Hope you’re not dead” comments on my last post, whenever the hell that was. I’M ALIVE, Sadie! Sort of.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning, thirsty as all get-out. Not for attention, but thanks for that funny funny joke. For water. And if you can’t find anything to be grateful about today, be thankful you can roll out of bed with relative ease and make your way to the nearest water source. Oh my gorsh, as my 9th-grade drama teacher would have said.

It seems funny that I had to be taught drama, really.

Anyway I struggled like a turtle on its back and finally I got up and hunch hunch hunched like a T-rex to the kitchen.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but I had surgery this week. Antelopes in lion-heavy deserts have less trouble getting to water than I do RN.

I noticed Edsel had followed me to the kitchen, probably thinking, god mom, move azz. speed it up. who you be, mrs. wigguns?

“Do you need to go outside?” I asked him. As soon as I said that, from out of the bowels of the house, Milhous came BOUNDING out, ran UNDER Edsel’s legs and slid to a halt at the back door like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

And right then I knew Milhous knows that sentence.

By the way, he also knows, “No,” which is what I told him about wanting to prance around in the snow at 3:30 at night.

It snowed here.

• 

You can see it was pretty severe. Yet I still didn’t want this orange beast out in it at night.

If you have any NC friends other than me, you already know it snowed here, as we are somehow compelled to photograph our annual snow and excitedly Instagram it to those of you in, say, Ohio, who are in month four of living in an igloo.

Are igloos really a thing or is that another racist Warner Bros. cartoon idea? Do you think all the Warner Bros. cartoonists were bros who got drinks after work and so on? Do you think saying they were animators got them the ladies?

These are the thoughts you can entertain when you’re lying about tryina recover.

You know what I might do? Get out of of my huge books or book series and reread it. What say you?

Meanwhile, I’m out of coffee and Pam isn’t here yet to order around, so Ima have to remove the cats (orange and blind) and mince out to the kitchen. That’ll be a relaxing 15 minutes. Pam and my stepfather are at a hotel. They are allergic to cats. Plus I have the one bed and all. They said my house is bigger once you’re here. People also note Edsel is smaller when they meet him. He’s really more of a medium dog, although he’s never given me a message from beyond, ever.

Okay, here I go to the kitchen to feed my addiction.

Love,
Juan

“How do you like your eggs?”

“Over.”

Get it? Do you? I got a million of ’em. You know what I haven’t got a million of? Ovaries.

In case you just got here, or maybe you forgot because I tried not to mention it often, on Tuesday, CU Next Tuesday, I had an operation. Sometimes the doctor hit the metal sides and my nose lit up.

What I had done was a bisexual Oooo child with lapsang souchong. I believe that was the official name of what I had done.

Another thing I tried not to mention often was I had to be there at 5:30 a.m. What bullshit is that?

I woke up two minutes before my alarm of the reasonable hour of 4:45, or as I like to call it, four fucking forty fucking five fucking a fucking m. Really one of the worst parts of the ordeal was waking my dog to go out and then eat. Never in my life have I had to wake this dog. On weekends when there’s no alarm, if I am awake but haven’t opened my eyes yet, he knows I’m awake and I can hear him flump flump flumping his tail down on his bed.

she wake! she WAKE! it new day! it new day wif hair!

I have no idea how I got hooked up with someone so positive, but there it is.

At four fucking forty fucking five fucking a fucking m, my dog was fast asleep. I stood over his bed where he was softly whiffling.

“Edsel,” I said softly. With my sonnnnng.

“Whiffle,” breathed Eds.

“Whiffle,” he repeated.

I had to actually shake a haunch to wake him. “Eds, it’s time to get up.”

You’ve never seen someone snap into character more quickly. He could be a fireman.

“O! It…okay! Hello! It new—just let Eds get glasses on heer—IT NEW DAY! YES!”

When I left the house, I noted even the neighbor’s rooster was quiet. EVEN THE ROOSTER was in a head kerchief with the blankets pulled up.

Four fucking forty fucking five fucking a fucking m. Come on.

The good news is, my anesthesiologist was cute. He was a young bearded ginger. Oh, you shoulda seen me trying to turn on the charm. In my blue gown with yellow and red geometric patterns and yellow grippy socks with grips on either side in case I wanted to walk on the fronts of my feet.

“I can’t begin to tell you how much I do not wish to throw up,” I Mrs. Robinsoned him. I posed one be-grip-socked leg at him flirtatiously. “Let me get you a nausea patch,” he said, leaving to get a patch and a dinner reservation plus hotel suite for us.

I got the patch, but my Q is, why can’t I always wear a nausea patch? I won’t have to recoil when someone says they’re nauseated. I can feel okay during a migraine. I can look at any doo-dad marked, “Live, laugh, love.”

Eventually my doctor came in, and other than calling my cyst a “mass,” she was actually delightful and funny all day. She started explaining what I was having done and I told her I was an expert in the procedure as I had googled it. “Oh, good, then you can do it,” she suggested.

“Keep me awake and I’ll guide you,” I told her.

They wheeled me into that huge cold room with machines and a scary table. “This is cozy,” I said, and my doctor was all, “We designed it to look like home.”

Anyway then the thing happened where you’re, like, dead out and then I woke up. I was surrounded by nurses and my doctor, telling me we had to do real surgery and not laparoscopic surgery. “Where’s the anesthesiologist?” I asked. “He was so cute.” I know the compression things on my legs would have cinched the deal.

They’d told me before that if I had to have an incision I’d probably have to stay over, but that day they told me my doctor would be back after 5:00 and I might could go home if I passed certain tests, such as trig and the Presidential Fitness test.

I don’t remember a lot about the day except I was riveted by this shift that got to work at 5:30. I kept asking everyone about it. One of my nurses had RUN A FEW MILES before work. Dudes. EVEN THE ROOSTER WASN’T UP, yet she had run a few miles.

They gave me a giant menu and encouraged me to eat but you’ll be stunned to hear I had no appetite. I asked for black coffee, because who woudn’t, and I sipped a little tomato soup, because I wanted GERD on top of everything else.

They told me to get up, to see if walking was okay.

Guess what. OUCH, oh my god.

“I’m Sharon Tate, over here!” I bellowed as I minced out of my room. My nurse, who was between 16 and 35 years old, probably did not get the joke, and my tasteful jokes are wasted on the wrong people.

I don’t think we made it to the next room when the nurse said, “You don’t have to be a hero. We can quit any time.”

That was all I needed to hear. “I won’t be a hero. I won’t be a fool with my life,” I said, turning my pole around, got to feel percussion.

Have you ever noticed the proliferation of 1970s songs having circus-y music? It’s awful. Although maybe that song was just sort of soldier music. I am just now realizing maybe he was a hero going off to war. I thought he’d joined the circus.

Hunh. Right then, I knew.

Anyway, I barely remember the whole day other than that walk of stab. They encouraged me to eat dinner as well, and although I was still not hungry, I ordered pot roast. A few minutes later they brought me fish, broccoli and rice.

Goddammit.

I ate it, though, and it was really good, and some health nut out there got pot roast.

Finally my doctor came back to the surgical center. She’d gone to work after removing my oofs.

“Hey, why are you sleeping?” she asked. “You act like you had surgery today or something.”

She told me I could go home, but warned me to lie about listlessly like any other day in my life, and also “Nothing in the vagina.”

“Great. So where do you suggest I keep my Ping-Pong balls?”

And see. Right then I regretted the “nothing in vagina” portion of events, because I wanted to make sweet love to self and gaze at me after, singing a few bars of After the Lovin’ by America’s treasure Englebert Humperdink.

As the nurse wheeled me out, she said, “The doctor and I were just out there talking about how cool you are,” she said. “It’s been fun having you.”

That’s why I left them my ovaries to remember me by.

Percocetally,
June