how i spent my morning

i often avoid doing certain things. i don't know why, because they'll be neither uncomfortable or really that big a pain in the ass. for one, i avoided going to buy an air conditioner for literally two months. i chose to sweat in my sweatbox heattrap of a room, literally drinking myself to sleep, instead of figuring out how to get to a store and buy the a/c and then put it in. in the end, it was my coworker john who had to say "ROBERT, we're going to buy you an air conditioner." of course, he's a wonderful homosexual from from long island, so it sounds a little different when he says it. with his prodding, i found a PC richard just down the street from my house, asked amanda to go with me, and voila--i had an air conditioner to sit there in my hallway until i could lure a straight man (stadler) over to install it for me.

much like the a/c purchase, i avoided making an appointment in radiology for about a month and a half. one of the joys of crohn's disease is that you get to have all kinds of yummy tests done every now and then. for some reason, though, i carried the order around with me for six weeks. every day i'd think, "today is the day i'm going to make this appointment." and then i'd get busy at work and leave the hospital, having not made it. once again, when john got wind of the fact that i hadn't made the appointment yet, he called me every 15 minutes until i could tell him the date and time of my "small bowel."

yep, small bowel. the second i've had to do in my life. it's where you have to drink what feels like two gallons of barium (essentially school chalk that's been pulverized and made into a paste) and then flop around on an x-ray table. the highlight of this test (i mean, if i could choose just one, since it's obviously a party) was the radiologist who performed it: an old jewish woman with densely-rouged cheeks and a lavender jersey old-lady dress which perfectly complemented her white orthopedic sneakers. and i don't mean old jewish woman like 60. oh no. 60 is the new 40, or something like that. i'm talking like at least late 80's.

so picture this: me in a nightgown (that i accidentally put on backwards, until old jewish doctor lady says "why is your gown on backwards? turn it around, we don't care about your bottom.") on an x-ray table, laying down, being fed barium through a straw by an 85 year old woman. this is how i spent my morning.