for the past month n a half i've woken up nervous every morning, emotionally exhausted by five physi
my skull is real. well not the skull inside my head. although that's real too. but the skull i brought home from the a/v window yesterday in a plastic blue box was a once real live person's now dead skull. once upon a time that skull housed one of a kind thoughts, more memories than a digital camera, every range of emotions, gagillions of stories, living history. i sit with my skull, it's teeth loose and wiggling under my fingers and without the slightest resistance i'm incharge of learning this of making the jaw go up and down of determining which way the empty sockets should look so that i can determine if this skull is a model of perfection. making sure i know all 200million gaps, prominences, and sutures of THE skull. but all i can think about is how someone's body was cremated or buried or something without it's head. clearly they donated their body so really that's probably not the case but i still feel uneasy. unsettled. . last week i held someone's once beating, blood pumping, center of their body, warm heart in my hand and it was a hard and clotted shell at 60 degrees farenheit. the only thing separating me from it were a couple of purple latex free gloves. we very efficiently and methodically broke her heart. or sliced it really. any remnance of life, any mark of a once full soul was effectively eradicated with our quick and scientific objectification.
her cause of death? ovarian cancer. although i don't think that's what really did it. it could've been the giant mass growing in her lungs. an overgrown lymph node taken over by the cancer. or the completely rotten lobe of her left lung. maybe it was the flaking away of the sac protecting her heart or the toughening of the corner of her heart that was supposed to send blood everywhere. or maybe it was the completely white chunky fluid filled area around her right lung causing her to not breathe properly. maybe it was none of the above.
in the past couple of weeks i've seen so many destroyed insides i don't know what to do with myself. the lungs. oh man, oh woman, the lungs. did you know that even minute exposure to second hand smoke is truely, truely dangerous for non-smokers? yea whatever if that sounds like a truth commercial. smokers have developed a certain resistance (whatever that means) to the first hand smoke but for second hand smokers, it's worse. essentially second hand smokers are being forced to smoke against their will. the guy who came up with "this is your brain... this is your brain on drugs" told us that. i know that i have to remain neutral. it's the mark of professionalism they enforce upon us everyday. i can only inform not force. buuuuut suddenly every time i see anyone smoke within a fifty yard radius of a child i want to yell at them. when i see parents smoking around their kids and i know that their kid is far more likely to start smoking becuase they essentially have been forever, i hate them. i hate those parents for being so self-absorbed. read the surgeon's warning on the bottom of the box damnit. when i see a woman or man smoke near their significant other i want to tell them how much i think they must want to end that relationship more quickly. i want to throw professionalism out the window and i want to run around yelling about decomposing lungs and the spreading to other body parts. i want them to see terminal patients on tubes and ventilators and whatever else. i want them to see kids hiding in high school bathroom stalls or corners of parks quickly getting addicted to the same thing. why isn't tobacco considered a recreational drug? i don't care what the movies make look cool. i don't care what's traditional or comfortable or whatever for socializing. i don't care if it's only every once in awhile. i don't care if it's what every progressive woman is supposed to do. for real it's just not about you. it's not about your image. it's about not having to or not making someone else have to potentially die a really not fun death. it's like drunk driving on a more long term time scale. not every drunk driver gets into an accident but why take the risk that it won't be you?
i know it's more likely than not that i'm overreacting. i know everyone doesn't get cancer from smoking i met a woman who's father smoked from his youth until he was 103 years old. that's spectacular for him. but every time i walk in THERE i can't stop wondering (among other things) whether a scratchy voice, smelly clothes or potentially dead self, family and friends is worth it.
but then i'm a sincerely failing, too-tired, non-smoking student that still goes to the club and breathes in a hecka lotta stuff from whatever's swarming around me. and i'm very officially failing. so who am i to talk? there's prolly a million and one factors that i'm missing. but sometimes i just have to let it out anyway...
thanks lj. for this space. for a moment to breathe.
her cause of death? ovarian cancer. although i don't think that's what really did it. it could've been the giant mass growing in her lungs. an overgrown lymph node taken over by the cancer. or the completely rotten lobe of her left lung. maybe it was the flaking away of the sac protecting her heart or the toughening of the corner of her heart that was supposed to send blood everywhere. or maybe it was the completely white chunky fluid filled area around her right lung causing her to not breathe properly. maybe it was none of the above.
in the past couple of weeks i've seen so many destroyed insides i don't know what to do with myself. the lungs. oh man, oh woman, the lungs. did you know that even minute exposure to second hand smoke is truely, truely dangerous for non-smokers? yea whatever if that sounds like a truth commercial. smokers have developed a certain resistance (whatever that means) to the first hand smoke but for second hand smokers, it's worse. essentially second hand smokers are being forced to smoke against their will. the guy who came up with "this is your brain... this is your brain on drugs" told us that. i know that i have to remain neutral. it's the mark of professionalism they enforce upon us everyday. i can only inform not force. buuuuut suddenly every time i see anyone smoke within a fifty yard radius of a child i want to yell at them. when i see parents smoking around their kids and i know that their kid is far more likely to start smoking becuase they essentially have been forever, i hate them. i hate those parents for being so self-absorbed. read the surgeon's warning on the bottom of the box damnit. when i see a woman or man smoke near their significant other i want to tell them how much i think they must want to end that relationship more quickly. i want to throw professionalism out the window and i want to run around yelling about decomposing lungs and the spreading to other body parts. i want them to see terminal patients on tubes and ventilators and whatever else. i want them to see kids hiding in high school bathroom stalls or corners of parks quickly getting addicted to the same thing. why isn't tobacco considered a recreational drug? i don't care what the movies make look cool. i don't care what's traditional or comfortable or whatever for socializing. i don't care if it's only every once in awhile. i don't care if it's what every progressive woman is supposed to do. for real it's just not about you. it's not about your image. it's about not having to or not making someone else have to potentially die a really not fun death. it's like drunk driving on a more long term time scale. not every drunk driver gets into an accident but why take the risk that it won't be you?
i know it's more likely than not that i'm overreacting. i know everyone doesn't get cancer from smoking i met a woman who's father smoked from his youth until he was 103 years old. that's spectacular for him. but every time i walk in THERE i can't stop wondering (among other things) whether a scratchy voice, smelly clothes or potentially dead self, family and friends is worth it.
but then i'm a sincerely failing, too-tired, non-smoking student that still goes to the club and breathes in a hecka lotta stuff from whatever's swarming around me. and i'm very officially failing. so who am i to talk? there's prolly a million and one factors that i'm missing. but sometimes i just have to let it out anyway...
thanks lj. for this space. for a moment to breathe.