Whatever Doesn't Kill You Makes You Wish You Were Dead

So if you're keeping score Danny Lopez and Bob Ramsey have each won the Red Letter Headline Game. However Bob's victory was tainted by the scandal of Cyndi claiming ownership of something that I'm pretty sure is... was mine. I remember the Scholastic Book fair where I got them. I remember reading them when I was a kid. They were in my stacks of old stuff. Nonetheless, Bob's getting lunch on me instead of those books. There's probably some lessons in there about marital compromise, the nature of possession, and the narrative of our histories but I'm not interested in learning any of that right now. As you may have learned from other posts, I have a tear in my abdominal wall. I do not, though, technically have a hernia.

I have all the pain and immobility of a hernia without the trouble of a surgery to repair it. You only get that if your intestines actually come through; right now I just have a tear in what was my inguinal canal, the opening through which they'll come... if they ever want to. It hurts... a lot.

You have an inguinal canal too. If you're a boy, it's the passage that your testicles should descend through into your scrotum. You have these canals if you're a girl, you just don't have a scrotum to carry your balls in. Well I guess to be accurate, you have a girl scrotum, but your girl balls stayed floating around in your abdomen... freak. If you want to palpate your inguinal canal you can. Here's what you do:
Follow your pelvic crease down to the inside of your leg. Can you feel the big 'ol tendon for your adductors at the crest of your pubic bone? Good. Move just interior to that. Now find the canal. If your a boy, it's roughly inside where your scrotum attaches to your body, if your a girl, it's below your mons veneris, at your girl scrotum, or your labia majora if you want to be all womanist about it. Can you feel the layers of flesh and tissue "above" your pelvis? If you can, you're in the right neighborhood. Okay, you should be able to feel a channel through the layers of muscle and fat exterior to the bone. Reach your finger up. Okay, if you have a tear there, you should be on the ground right now. maybe turning pail, possibly crying. Got it? Good.

That's where my pain is. It's not as bad as it was. It used to feel like someone put my testicles in an hydraulic press and was crushing them long after I asked them to stop. Now it just feels like someone has stabbed me in the pelvis with a knitting hook and is pulling on it.

I have pain medication. If I take it during the day, though, I don't get much done. When I take it at night, I forget everything I did during the day and wake up feeling a bit hungover. It's perfect for school.

But despite all this, I'll keep on trucking. If I understand things correctly, pain will make me better. Not only is there the great literary tradition of afflicted authors, but I have scriptural warrant too. Talk about a thorn in my flesh; what a great blog I must be writing here.

So keep reading. This pain can only mean things are going to get even better: better insight, more irony, better Red Letter Headline quotes and prizes. Good grief, if the quality of my blog is directly proportional to my pain, I can't wait to see what I do. And it's all for you; imagine the potential for your personal growth because of my pain. I must really really love you.

When You Get to Hell, Tell 'Em Aaron Sent Ya'
My Name Is Jonas- Weezer
Inner City Blues- Marvin Gaye
A Day In The Life- The Beatles
Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack- John Wiliams
Waiting- The Rentals
Crosseyed and Painless- Talking Heads
Flauta y Timbal- Tito Puente
Regrets- Ben Folds Five
Where You Lead- Carole King
A Quick One While He's Away- The Who
La Negra- Mariachi Folklorico de Mexico