Before the drugs wear out

I would like to put down in writing, two different episodes of this day.  Both concern medical visits and both entail different states of being “high”.

At a bit before 9am today, we are driving through the streets of Escazu (birthplace of Chepe Dickwad).  Drivers are their usual unpleasant ego-butt brain selves.  Women with big sunglasses driving big big cars, in ways they clearly aren’t capable of doing so safely.  A roaring headache is crawling up my left supra-orbital torus, really digging its claws in me.  A few times I think I may have to pull over.  Wow, it hurts.

Helping me out are my new married man shades, that make me look like one of the cops in the Beastie Boys music video for their song, “Sabotage”.  Swagger.

We are heading for the 3 month checkup of lil’ Rudiger (or if a girl, Gertrude Beethovenice).  I’m going to stick with Rudiger here for a few reasons: first, my initial reaction is to say I want a boy.  I want a buddy, a little punk to be mischievous with me, surf with me, and train martial arts with me.  Of course, lil’ Gertrude can do just that with me too, but my socialization has been such that the Gestalt upholding my imaginings of children brings Rudiger to the fore before a cute little miss. 

And with this last observation, another perhaps preoccupation and series of concerns.  Driving yesterday, Kate said the following: “I think I want a girl for the first 7 years; after that, a boy.”  This she expressed as a reflection of the different ways that we tend to interact with boys and girls, and of the differential stressors that men and women face in our world today.  My heart froze for a minute.  “Shit”, says I.  “What if we won’t feel as lovie and cuddly towards Rudiger as we do with Belle and Lulu?  What if he doesn’t snuggle up to us lovingly either, being a bone-headed Tonka Truck redneck little buttface?”

And this, led to the following: “What if the tremendous love and joy we feel towards Belle and Lulu stem in part from an objectifying process, in which we already manifest some aspect of our love towards them through our appreciation (fullest sense of the term) of their beauty, and their role as bringers and deliverers of beauty?”

Being an anthropologist, I know that my sentiments have to latch on to a symbolic framework (culture).  But I also know that cultural frameworks are never totalizing, and we exert great degrees of agency in how we appropriate and manifest symbols.  This I feel has been the first hint of parental concerns related to socialization that we’ve come across yet.  Being obsessively analytical, it sure as hell won’t be the last.

Back at the waiting room, five minutes go by and I want to kill an incredibly annoying mother-daughter dyad who are there because some dumb asshole was stupid enough to have relations with the daughter discussed here, and the dumbass is pregnant and loud, and having real boring conversations for the suffering of us all.  She interjects phrases in English, like only spoiled private school graduates from San Jose can. 

“Katy, pase”.  Pheeewww.  Double homicide averted.

Kate puts her garb on, and we go to my favorite room in the hospital: the ultrasound room.  Oh boy (or girl).  Last time we saw something like a lima bean with a bulging little protrusion: its heart.  Thub-thub, it went.  That time, my knees kept buckling and I sweat cold.

This time, there’s a little f’ing person in there, dukes in the air, throwing jabs like only my child will be able to!  It’s moving and swaying, no doubt inheriting my love for jiu jitsu as it displays real good ground movement.  Rudiger is kicking ass!!  At 6.19 centimeters, our ticket into the world of Darwinian fitness is ripening like the tubers we’ve got planted in our garden.  Growth and development: the former is more a strictly descriptive term.  Centimeters and whatnot.  Development is cooler, as it suggests maturation towards a series of parameters that could (unphilosophically) be understood as reaching states of optimality of systems functioning. 

Rudiger!  Rudiger!

I laugh!  “Look, it’s punching your gut!  Ha!”

The doctor very professionally pretends she doesn’t hear me. 

“Shit!   Look at its face!”

It’s just moving back and forth like a little pit bull puppy.  “That a boy (or girl)!”

What headache?  Blah flimshah, as Mr. Burns says.  Headache move the hell over, there’s a new kid in town, in my wife’s belly!  It’ll kick your ass stupid headache, and it will also make annoying women in waiting rooms disappear into a world far away, cause with you on your way, we got plans to live some cool livings.

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Now, as to why I am all drugged up: well, I just had my two bottom wisdom teeth removed, in what resembled to my inexperienced mind as a water-boarding session.

But the beginnings were kind of cool.  First, a very steady-handed Dr. doctor injected local anesthetic into my mouth.  “I wink it’s working woctor.”  More shots.  More shots.  Keep ‘em coming.  I don’t want to feel crap.  At this point the relaxant I ate a few minutes ago is kicking in, making the Beatles sound deeper.  The windows media player graphics, clearly the work of our stoner computer geek, accompany as my mouth gets dumb and numb.

“Shit, I would really like to swallow.”  Super human concentration, but I can only get a bit down. 

“Eh muh defeci lagar…”

In a bit, we go to another room.  I feel drunk.  They keep playing the Beatles for me, which I appreciate.  But soon, they fade away, like the international community’s attention on Guantanamo, and now, the task of swallowing seems about as hard as feeding Lucia fried pork belly fat.  Now my worldly challenge is to breathe through my nose!  Fucking eh!  I can’t stop breathing through my mouth, which leads me to swallow the disgusting, burnt plastic tasting water that is flowing off of my drilled molars. Several times I have to give the “sign” (raising my left hand) to tell them to stop.  I almost puke.

Yoga, nirvana, kapalabati breath, pranayama, kundalini, come on fucking yoga!  Work!  Let me relax and breathe through my nose!  I can’t .  The doctors are nice, asking me question, but I don’t know if they actually expect me to answer (what with the Rumsfeld procedure being carried on me). 

“You can give the molars to your girlfriend”, he says.

“Mah ife” I correct him. “She’s blegnan”.

“Oh! How great!”

The procedure really wasn’t that bad.   It was pretty fast and not at all painful.  But I did end up with a new found respect for any soldier or spy that puts their neck on the line for their cause, and a deeper rejection towards torture. 

The drugs made me feel good too.  They start to fade away now.  But nothing comes close to my laughter—and how it emerged through me, without choice—as I saw lil’ Rudiger shadow boxing earlier today.