July 02, 2003
Hello?
So, my darlings, where have I been? I have been in screwed-up, irritating, foolish Blogger Land.
They very nicely upgraded Blogger for me.
Unfortunately the upgrade doesn't work. I vote no.
I have many stories to tell. I shall include one here since, if you're reading this, you have faith enough to come back to me. Sigh. You deserve better than a stagnant page.
flowers for dotty-non
Did you read the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes? If not, or if you did, here are the lyrics to an amazingly interesting folk song.
Brilliant Editor and I listened to it, attempting not to snort too much when she sang, "He ran the maze so good" and "When I am like Algernon, Asleep inside in the dirt and gone." I suppose that's the danger of appropriating someone else's sappy material to be your own sappy material. You sound like a dork.
Knowing that, I think I shall press on and appropriate someone else's sappy material to be my own and make me sound like a dork. Hooray!
whining
I like to think that I'm a clever person. I like to make puns and make up stories and laugh at things that might not be funny, but are at least absurd. I like to think that I will always be this way.
Just a few weeks ago, however, my mother revealed to me that she had been smoking crack one evening when a scientist came to the door and asked if she had any daughters upon whom he could experiment. And, being in a drug induced haze, my mom offered me.
I was just a wee lass then, no more than nine or ten. The extra fifty bucks probably looked pretty good with it being a bank holiday and before my mother had given in to the lure of the ATM. Her drug dealer was walking down the street. More crack!
So off I went, whisked away into the shiny laboratory hidden deep under the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. The scientist gave me some IQ tests and had me run around a track while he timed me. He made some mmmmmhmmm noises and took down some notes.
the doctah
With my mother over in the Mork from Ork egg shaped chair alternately passed out or giggling, the scientist/doctor guy told me that I could call him Doctor Hale. I thought it would be fun to abbreviate his name to "Doctah". (The people who wrote Little Shop of Horrors stole the idea from me.)
Doctah told me that it would be important to him if I helped him out with his research. He said that there as a small implant that he'd like to insert in my ears, about where earrings might go. I told him that my mom didn't want me to get my ears pierced until I was in sixth grade. Doctah said it was fine, but he'd appreciate it if maybe we could speed it along. Sooner would be better, he said.
I asked my mother and she said yes! I could get my "ears pierced"!
Now here's where the confusing bit begins. I remember getting my ears pierced at the mall. I even remember that the ear-piercing earrings weren't very pretty. And that I almost passed out when it came time to take them out.
My mom might be pulling my leg about this experiment thing, but it sounds so plausible, you know?
My mom revealed that before the age of ten I wasn't all that bright. She said I'd never quite managed to master coloring inside the lines. Multiplication tables of seven and higher were a lost cause and the squares of numbers above 12 were just impossible for me to learn. She said I was quite athletic, though.
(I didn't tell her that I've never done that well on the coloring and the squaring. I can multiply though.)
This ear piercing was more like the insertion of a chip in my brain. The doctah had figured out a way to use a non-invasive surgical technique that would allow my brain activity to be enhanced from the vicinity of my ears.
ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Since I don't remember the childhood part of my life accurately, this is all news to me. She showed me report cards that indicate I was a complete dolt, except for physical education, until the earring incident. Then, suddenly, I was smarter. My handwriting didn't improve, but I could remember things and create complete sentences without help. My standardized test scores let me go to the fancy class with the fancy kids (all of whom happened to up upper-middle class, I should add.) I started getting beat up, though. I couldn't manage to run away from them or fight back.
And I kind of liked it. I liked being smart and thinking about things and reading books. I've liked it for as long as I can remember.
Lately, however, things aren't the same. I think my brains are not working as well as they once were. I don't understand jokes as well and there are lots more mysterious gaps in my comprehension. I even get disoriented sometimes.
I went to the doctor (not the doctah who has long since gone into hiding) and he suggested it might be mercury poisoning. Those are the symptoms, he said. What?! I don't eat thermometers or chew on fluorescent bulbs. How can it be that?
"Perhaps it's the fish oil you've been taking, Dotty." Oh. Geez. My fish oil is snake oil.
confessional
I called my mother (she's kicked the crack habit with the help of getting herears "pierced") and told her about the mercury. It was at that point that she confessed to the whole thing. The surgery, the earrings, the crack.
So how does this all fit together, you might well ask. My mother told me that there was a 50/50 chance that my implant might start degrading at some point in my future. The doctah guaranteed 15 years, more than enough time to get me through college and into a good job, he said.
Somehow it's all beginning to make sense. My senior year of college was a real pain. I took a job as a resident advisor. Me taking orders from someone else and then ordering other people around all with rules I didn't agree with? Oh, yeah, the mark of genius. Then I decided to be a scientist. I'm so regimented and careful and I pay such close attention to the facts and my mind never wanders. Or, wait, maybe that's not true.
Fifteen years was a stretch, doctah. What else is in my head?
It ain't mercury poisoning, baby. Or maybe it's that,too. But I'm the subject of the folk song. I'm the subject of the novel. I am going to hell in a handbag. Every dog has its day and they're kicking this one when it's down. I'm stupid like a fox.
I am mad as a hatter with earrings to match.
What else is going on in my brain?
