What the hell is going on?

all is vanity and vexation of spirit

I’ve been looking at old photos lately, peering at them, actually, and then closing my eyes. What was going on there? I’ve been dragging my leg around lately, the part called the knee, actually, and then sitting, heavy. Why does everything, including my body feel so heavy? I want to say fucking heavy. Fucking heavy. And I’m not talking weight. It’s as if my body contains not multitudes but mud. I have never felt this way before, this heaviness, as I near my 58th birthday this Friday. A good friend always says, What the hell is going on here? and by here she means, I mean here. The right now, the present. What the hell is going on here? I got some blood work done the other day at the Kaiser Deli, and when I looked online, the results were all normal and all in all it looked good to me and I’m evidently not dying or haven’t developed an autoimmune disorder in the last six months because jesus christ I just don’t feel well. Because the Kaiser Deli doesn’t really like you to call and speak to your doctor, I wrote a message or rather a plea a question a what the hell is going on here kind of email about myself and the doctor who responded (not my doctor) wrote this:

I am covering for Dr. Deli.  I reviewed your labs, and there is nothing of concern on your blood tests. Your kidney, blood count, liver, diabetes screen and thyroid were all normal.  Your cholesterol was very good. Your vit D is just below normal. I would recommend you take Vit D (1,000 units) one pill by mouth every day. Depression can make one feel tired and out of sorts.  Are you having any symptom of depression Such as sadness, feeling down frequently or crying? Are you sleeping well?  Eating healthy?  Exercising with walking or other activity?

This made me fall down on the ground and laugh, my knee pain be damned. The wording, the errant capitalization, the apparent lifting of some medical marketing material, the earnestness of all of it tipped me over, made me light, hollowed out for a moment.

If you’re a new Reader here, you probably don’t know that I made a life in the olden times documenting my adventures in the American Medical Industrial Complex, and on my old blog you can find approximately 4,567,345 posts of mind-boggling interactions with it and you would know that I have next to no trust in it nor do I revere Science (although I do love science) nor get orgasmic and grateful over things like vaccine development (and no, I won’t use the politicized term that many of you like to throw around like a weapon and trust me that I know those folks, very well, and they will not under any circumstances be persuaded by your vitriol because many are traumatized ) or surgical interventions or psychiatric drugs or or or or or. Where was I?

(I am vaccinated here like a good girl)

I think what happened after I received that weird and hilarious email from the Deli Doctor at Kaiser is that I regained my sense of absurdity, lost somewhere around July of 2020, regained my carnival aspect, my all is vanity and vexation of spirit, my tightrope walk over the abyss for a moment, a goddamn moment and that, Dear Reader, is what the hell is going on here.

And can we all say a rousing thank you for the presence on the earth of Charlie Watts? Rest in peace.