The Time I Took Off My Foot Bandages

So, this post is going to get a little gross. Nothing too crazy, but if you are of a sensitive disposition, you might just want to go read about dog molestation instead.

Anyway, I finally got my surgical boot and bandages from my bunion surgery removed on Tuesday. Check out the difference between before and after!

Before:

After:

As you can see, I’ve got a nasty gash on the top of my foot, but it’s not too bad, all things considered. However, what WAS bad was trying to wash my foot for the first time in three weeks.

The human body produces a startling amount of dead skin that is normally washed away by sweat, a shower, a bath, friction, etc. My foot had received no such attention, and as such was coated in a quarter-inch thick layer of scum. I didn’t take a picture of my foot before the washing, because it was just too gross.

Calluses which were merely a nuisance before the surgery had morphed into cracked deserts with crevasses large enough to act as tunnels in an ant farm. The surface of my skin was a dull yellow color, both from old Betadine and grime. To my alarm, great chunks of foot began falling off as I scrubbed in the shower. A delicate scratch with a single fingernail released a tectonic plate of dead skin the size of my entire big toe. Each stroke of my loofah made it look like I was leaving genetic breadcrumbs Hansel-and-Gretel style on the bottom of the tub. I hastily collected all the skin in some toilet paper and washed the tub, since I live with roommates and am not a complete heathen.

After about 10 minutes in the shower, the scar cracked open and began to ooze yellowish plasma, followed shortly by heavily congealed blood. I had been avoiding the wound itself as best I could, and to see it spew forth blood like a volcano made me freak out completely. But I kept right on scrubbing the rest of my foot in the midst of my panic, because I’d be damned if I was going to crawl into brand new white sheets while shedding skin faster than a snake.

After a good 25 minutes or so of scrubbing, the deed was finally done. I was bloody and exhausted, but comparatively clean. Luckily, my wound scabbed nicely overnight, and it hasn’t given me a whole lot of trouble since.

But the strange thing is that it still doesn’t feel like my foot. I look at it, and it’s like someone else’s foot has been grafted onto my ankle, then left to fester. When you’re used to seeing an appendage a certain way, and then it suddenly changes, your mind goes all wonky. The fact that some of my toes are still numb from swelling doesn’t help matters. Over the past few days, I’ve tried to get reacquainted with my foot, but it still feels like I’ve got a waxen corpse attached to me. Psychologically, this is pretty upsetting, but I’m hopeful I’ll come around soon. After all, it’s still my body, and I’ll go nuts if I can’t come to terms with that.

Read more:

• Pre-Surgery
• Surgery 1
• Post-surgery 1
• Surgery 2
• Post-surgery 2
• More Post-surgery
• Foot Pins 1
• Foot Pins 2
• 10 Months Later

The Time My Sister Spilled Everything

While growing up, my sister had a unique ability to magnetically attract liquids and foods to her clothing.

Seriously, no matter what the situation or how careful she was being, by the end of a meal, she would be so splattered with sauces that it looked like she had just come from a paintball arena.

No one is really sure why this happened. Perhaps it was just adolescent klutziness, or maybe because she is left-handed but was forced to use right-handed implements. Regardless of the reason, it caused a lot of distress for my teenage sister. She couldn’t be trusted in a restaurant or at home, and she frequently had to change clothes after each meal. We couldn’t have a family dinner without at least one glass tipping over and covering the entire table with milk or soda. Each time this happened, my sister would frantically apologize while my dad let out a stream of swears and ran for the nearest towel. More often than not, after this spill was mopped up, she would knock over the refilled glass and the scene would repeat itself, only with even more colorful curses from my dad.

My sister was banished to the opposite side of the table from the rest of us, like we were at the Last Supper and she was the only apostle on the near side, covered with food. We weren’t trying to be cruel, but her left elbow was completely unpredictable during a feeding frenzy, often jabbing into someone’s side or flailing into someone ELSE’S cup, strewing its contents onto their plate. Her placement at the table was more like a quarantine for our own protection.

She also had a tendency to stuff WAY too much food into her mouth at once. It was like she had been starved and was fighting off territorial dogs for her dinner. In an infamous restaurant incident, she once stuffed an entire loaf of bread into her maw at once, nearly choking to death. The rest of the table looked in awe at the empty bread basket and my sister’s rapidly purpling face, only putting two and two together when the international choking symbol was performed. Until then, her fellow dinner-mates simply didn’t think that what they were seeing was possible. She also once almost died from eating mozzarella sticks like they were jello shots, not realizing that the hot cheese was like molten lava in her throat. She would also eat a pile of rice so quickly that she’d manage to inhale the grains into her nose via the back of her throat. Suddenly, slimy grains would creepy out of her nostrils like little maggots, forcing her to run from the table and go blow them all into a tissue. The experience was, reportedly, quite painful.

Now that my sister is older, her predilection for decorating herself with foodstuffs seems to have gotten much better. But I still wouldn’t sit to the left of her at a table if you paid me.

The Time I Made Jello

Well, it’s 4th of July here in the states, and I’m feeling lazy (even though my foot is still busted). I still can’t walk for shit, but that hasn’t stopped me from making not one, not two, but THREE varieties of jello shot for the occasion. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with all this boozy jello.

So in lieu of a real post today, I will leave you with this really freaky anime eye makeup tutorial that I watched last night. Because that’s the kind of shit I do at 1 am on a Tuesday.

 

 

Oh, and also a picture of the Mojito jello shots I made following this recipe, except that I was EXTRA lazy and used bottled lime juice and mint extract instead of real ingredients. Still tastes fine to me! I topped it with plain white sugar, which immediately melted.

The Time I Bitched About NYC

So I’ve developed a disturbing habit since living in New York that has only gotten worse.

While maneuvering through crowds of people, especially during my morning commute, I find myself repeating the mantra, “I hate people. I hate people. I hate people.” over and over again. Yeah, not the sign of a serial killer at all. But as I’m being jostled and stepped on, it’s all I can think about.

At first, this phrase was limited to my head, but as the years progressed, I started saying it out loud without realizing it. This unconscious mutter continues nonstop as I push through the sweating masses of humanity on the bus, in the subway, or on the sidewalk. Together with my frizzy hair and darting eyes, my audible hatred of people reveals me to be, in fact, insane.

However, since this is New York, my ranting doesn’t even merit a second glance. But I can see its effects nonetheless. Dull-eyed commuters subtly back away from me, my craziness forming an impenetrable bubble that parts the crowd like the Red Sea. Their gazes slide over me, only registering my ramblings in an subconscious way that warns them to steer clear. So in a way, this bizarre habit has actually improved my commute, but only by convincing others that I am a fucking lunatic who might just stab someone.

Oh, also, New York is dirty and expensive, but I think you probably already knew that.

The Time My Mom Was Naked

So, apparently nudity is not as common in other people’s houses as my own.

For many years, my mom seemed to have something against shirts as a concept. Bras were also not her cup of tea. I don’t mean that she did this outdoors or anything, but indoors, within the safe confines of our house, things were different. I was so used to it that I was never really fazed by seeing her topless. It was how she was most comfortable, though I was concerned when she’d try and cook that way. Let’s just say that breasts and hot grease don’t really get along. She bought a metal screen to place over the pan to minimize the super-heated spatter, but it’s almost impossible to avoid completely.

Growing up, my mom proudly showed our birthing albums to adult guests. These are a set of two nearly identical albums containing a veritable flipbook of the births of me and my sister. We were both born at home under the supervision of a midwife and doula, and the photos hold nothing back. There are breasts, a gaping vagina, and copious amounts of hair. Our tiny heads crown in a blaze of moist, bluish glory. The camera is up close and personal, revealing every piece of flotsam and jetsam stuck to our bodies. My toothless maw is sucked free of fluid using a rubber bulb, and my purple body turns an angry red as you continue to flip. Sweat pours down my exhausted mother’s face and body, the bloody sheets soaked with perspiration. I’m shown receiving my first bath, still attached to the placenta via the umbilical cord. The bath water is a pale pink from blood. My sister, almost five at the time, christens me with raisins from a box as I lie wailing in the tub. I speculate this is why I hate raisins to this very day.

All in all, these albums are a bit much for the average stranger. Polite dinner guests have sat in petrified embarrassment as my mom gleefully flipped each page, showing every detail of her heavily pregnant naked body. Appetites have been lost, and potential friendships have soured. I suppose you know you’ve found a keeper of a friend if they sit through the labor book on day one, but still, it seems a formidable gauntlet to run.

But I was young and carefree, and flipped through the books with grand curiosity, viewing over and over again how I first met this world. My mom’s naked body never bothered me since I was used to it, but I was weirded out by all the blood and other fluids associated with labor. During my sister’s birth, when my brother was eight years old, he ran screaming out into the street and passed out. Understandable, I think. No amount of talk really prepares you for the miracle of life.

My mom seems to have embraced clothing more in the past 15 years or so, but I will always remember when I realized that not everyone’s Mom was like this. I must have mentioned the fact that my mom was topless as a throw-away detail while telling a story to my friends, and they halted everything. “Wait, wait a minute,” they said. “I think we need to go back to your last comment.” I had barreled ahead with the story, and all they wanted to know about were my mom’s boobs? Weird. Nudity was evidently a big no-no in their houses, and I was made to feel weird about the whole thing. I naturally informed them that she never did this around other people—just family—but they were not reassured. My friends still came over to my house, but I’m not sure they ever looked at my mom in the same way again. Sorry, Mom 😦

The Time I Considered Public Bathroom Etiquette

So, I get annoyed by people who are afraid of public peeing and/or pooping. Well, annoyed and saddened, I suppose.

I’m sure this applies to both men and women, but since I’m a girl, I’m going to talk about the female side of things here. Sometimes you’ll walk into a public bathroom at work, and you’ll notice someone patiently waiting on the pot, doing nothing and saying nothing. It’s as if she’s sitting there, just passing the time, perhaps reading a book.

But if you wait there long enough, you’ll see her feet begin to twitch in agony. There will be an occasional flush, just to break the silence. Sometimes the person will just get up and walk out of the bathroom altogether, only returning when you’ve left the premises.

These are the public corprophobics. I just want to tell them that everybody poops, and that they shouldn’t be so scared. It’s okay to poop in front of others! Rejoice in it! Embrace the sweet relief!

But alas, these people are everywhere, making me self-conscious about my own public bathroom activities. In college, I’d be obnoxious and would refuse to leave the floor bathroom when I knew a scared pooper was in there. “Just do it!” I’d shout. “I’m doing you a public service and breaking you of your harmful habits!” These shy women with full bowels did not agree with my assessment, and would eventually retreat to other floors to poop in peace.

Even now at work, there are issues. If I’m in there doing my makeup in the bathroom, suddenly I’ll realize I’ve been keeping some pour soul from letting loose for a quarter of an hour. They were so quiet that I thought I was alone, but once I’ve noticed them, I have a decision to make. Do I leave for 10+ minutes, letting them do their business, then reenter to finish my makeup amongst the stench of their fresh feces? Do I try and finish up as quickly as possible, hastily jamming mascara in my eye and blinding myself? Do I just keep going as usual, knowing that I’m causing someone’s bowel to painfully swell with each moment I linger?

Just let it loose, ladies! I really wouldn’t care if someone pooped while I was in there, but apparently the shame is just too great for some.

The Time Someone Broke a Book Over My Head

So this was an event that I hadn’t thought about in years, but came to the forefront of my mind after my brother and I discussed when we had made people horrifically angry with merely words.

Yes, I;m fairly certain that I could drive a person to murder with speech alone. I mean, the deceased would be myself, but still. That is some power you can believe in.

Anyway, we got to talking about when people had hauled off and popped us one in the middle of class, a presentation, or some other public event. Yes, we both possess the ability to annoy people to acts of spontaneous violence in the midst of an otherwise peaceful situation.

I first thought about high school, in Mrs. Savage’s 10th grade chemistry class. I for some reason could not stop teasing the girl who sat behind me, Michelle, about anything and everything. Outside of class, we were actually friends, and often ate lunch together with the theater folk. I couldn’t act to save my life, but I played piano accompaniment for some of the shows, so I was sort of a pseudo-theater geek. I was in actuality more of an art nerd, but those kids always just went out back during lunch to smoke pot, so I was stuck with the musical theater people.

Anyway, I’d bug the ever living shit out of her, mostly because I thought chemistry was the dullest thing I had ever had to study in school. I still hate it, despite my fascination with forensic science and the tests that go into trace evidence. Chemistry still sucks ass, and it always will.

One day, Michelle had finally had enough of my bullshit. I had just turned around from annoying her, when I felt an incredible pressure on my head, together with a loud “CRACK!”

In a fit of rage, she had taken her black and white composition book and broken it in half using my scalp. This was in the middle of a lecture, and the entire class froze and swung around to our corner of the room, mouths open wide.

I slowly turned back around, and saw Michelle’s eyes showing more white than iris, and her face was red with nostrils flaring in anger. I was terrified. Somehow it’s always the scariest when it’s the quiet ones that finally snap. It looked like she was about to get into trouble, but knowing it was my fault, I laughed off the injury and told the teacher that it was nothing.

Michelle bought a new composition book, and we eventually went back to eating lunch together, but I had learned my lesson. Sometimes, you just gotta break a book in order to get someone to stop annoying you.

The Time I Walked Out On a Date

I’ve been doing a lot of online dating lately.

This is mostly because I’m usually shy around guys that I don’t know, and I’ve been having a hard time meeting people in New York City. Yes, there are tons of people around, but we all just ignore each other on a daily basis. Eye contact could incite a fight, and I find myself usually looking at the sidewalk so that I can avoid forgotten dog poop.

I’ve selected OkCupid as my dating service since it’s free, and it tends to attract a younger demographic than Match.com or eHarmony. But though I’m certainly getting quantity with my dates, many have been lacking in quality. Here is a description of one of my recent bad ones. Yes, this is all describing just one guy.

• He described himself as a non-board certified European gynecologist. Though it turned out he wasn’t really a doctor of ANYTHING since he hadn’t completed any residency, and I had to put this in bold because, REALLY? I should have known better.
• Went to medical school in a small Eastern European country, but otherwise had lived in the US since childhood.
• Had been studying for the boards for two years, but kept postponing his testing date since he “didn’t feel ready.”
• Unemployed, and explained his lack of job by saying he would only work if the job “directly related to the boards.”
• Lived in a micro-studio on the Upper West Side on Manhattan, and described some sort of bizarre stock market Ponzi scheme to explain his income.
• Paid for nothing on the date out of “superstition” – he would not elaborate.
• Was rude to every service person we encountered (waitresses, bartender, retail store staff, etc.).
• Bizarrely, he refused to carry more than five $1 bills at any one time. He had a second wallet for potential dollar bill overflow, but suffered a minor meltdown when a waitress gave him six dollars in ones as change.
• He stroked my arm and stared with sympathy for a full minute when I told him I had never been to the opera.
• Speaking of the opera, he said that he usually wore a tuxedo to go to the opera by himself. Yes, he owns his own tux.
• He consistently creeped out his test patients by staring at them uncomfortably, being a close talker, and rarely blinking. His stare could bore a hole through a bank vault.
• He assumed I was an idiot who had “no deeper sense of self” until I told him I wrote a blog. Ah, yes, because we blog writers are just so fucking profound. And also typically lacking in social graces due to crippling anxiety issues.
• He seemed to lack basic medical knowledge for a supposed MD. He told me that eating ice cream during a cold would make me more sick, and appeared unfamiliar with the concept of an incubation periods for viruses.
• Didn’t know the word “hipster” – he claimed he had never heard it before in his life. He also didn’t know that Missouri was a state, or that St. Louis was a city. And yet he’s been in the US since he was a child, spoke English fluently, and had no foreign accent.
• He wore round Harry Potter glasses un-ironically. I’m sorry, those type of glasses simply are not flattering on anyone. Which was a shame because he was rather cute, otherwise.
• Knew nothing about current events, news, politics, movies, TV shows, etc. He didn’t own a TV and was exceedingly proud of it.
• When I off-handedly mentioned maybe going ice skating, he declared he would need “a few days in advance to mentally prepare” for any “unplanned, spontaneous activities.” Well, that pretty much defeats the point, no?
• He thought a good date activity would be taking me on his boring errands all afternoon. He argued with the staff at Housing Works until we got kicked out, then had me wait for 20+ minutes while he was getting his laptop repaired.
• When I decided to walk out and go home, he refused to let me leave without details as to what was wrong with him. He told me I was horribly anal, and that he only went on a date with me because he had “low standards” and was very “unselective.” He also said that it took too much effort for him to realize I was “unhappy,” and that it was unrealistic for me to expect that of him.
• After my escape, he texted multiple long and insulting messages, followed by a photo of a hand-drawn heart several days later. I had to block him from all further communications. AWESOME!

The Time I Thought About Humans as Food

Yes, this is a sandwich made of human placenta.

Somehow, my coworkers always manage to make me feel like some sort of freak.

Today, I mentioned that I often wondered what humans tasted like. Were they more like pork, or like beef? And what type of wine would you serve for the occasion?

A vegetarian coworker mentioned that she read somewhere (yeah, right, she’s totally a cannibalistic serial killer) that human flesh tasted rather like pork. Which means I would serve a white wine instead of a Chianti with fava beans. I know pigs are similar to us anatomically since they’re used so often in biology class, but does that mean our muscles taste the same, too? And now all I can think of are preserved fetal pigs, and the horrible smell that accompanies them when they’re slapped onto your dissection tray.

Anyway.

My coworkers were horrified by my musings, especially when I named who I thought would put up the least fight if we were stranded on a desert island. Sadly, all of us on the marketing team are rather bony by American standards, so the meat would be considerably less marbled than I’d prefer.

A quick Google search reveals quotes from cannibals of the past, one of whom compared the meat to “good, fully developed veal.” But most others seem have formed the consensus that humans do, in fact, taste like pork. Does this mean you could make human bacon from the belly of an overweight adult?

I have heard that some new mothers have taken to eating their own placentas. It’s practically a trend (yes, that’s four different links there), with scientists studying the phenomenon and actresses jumping on board. I can’t really think of anything MORE disgusting to eat than a placenta, but I’ve seen recipes where it’s made into tacos. TACOS. BLOODY FUCKING TACOS.

My mom actually saved her placenta after I was born, but not so she could make it into a damn casserole. I think the idea was that she would plant the placenta under a tree, which would then grow while being nourished by her own bodily fluids. This tree would become “my” tree after sharing a placenta with me. But it never happened since my mom put the placenta in the freezer after I was born (I was born at home), and it was forgotten amongst the hamburger patties and ice cream. By the time it was rediscovered, we were moving to another house, and it was a biohazard. Totally gross, but at least she didn’t EAT IT.

I hope to never find out what humans taste like myself, but I can’t help but wonder. Does that make me a terrible person? I don’t think so, but then again, my tolerance for the grotesque seems to be far beyond the norm, so I doubt I’m part of a representative sample.

The Time I Ate Fugu

Poisonings, and even deaths, by blowfish are not unknown in Japan. However, the incidents are rare, and chefs must undergo years of rigorous training before being licensed.

Anyway, I thought I would take some time to talk about the full fugu (河豚 – blowfish, pufferfish) dinner in Japan.

My host mother just recently returned from such a meal, thankfully unharmed. What can you expect at such a pricey dinner? The full fugu experience can cost upwards of $200 per person, so here is a guide to make sure you know what you’re getting into.

	Tessa (てっさ): Fugu sashimi Raw fugu sashimi (刺身) is a delicacy, and is displayed like a work of art. The meat is sliced so thin that you can see the plate underneath.
	Karaage (空揚げ): Fried Karaage is a term for all manner of fried foods, but here we have fried fugu. The taste of fugu has been compared to frog’s legs, so frying doesn’t seem like a bad match!
	Yaki-fugu (焼き河豚): Grilled fugu Nothing like fugu over an open flame. As long as it isn’t full of deadly neurotoxin.
	Nabe (なべ): Stew or hotpot As covered in my nabemono post, many different kinds of foods can be served in a hotpot, and fugu is no exception. At the end when there is only broth left, you can add cooked rice (gohan – ご飯) and egg (tamago – 卵) to make a kind of fugu risotto. Tasty!
	Hire (ひれ): Fin In one of the more bizarre ways to eat fugu, you can make a flavored sake known as hire-zake (ひれ酒) with the grilled fin of a fugu. It is all served hot, and after drinking the sake, eating the fin is optional.
	Shirako (白子): Fish sperm And here we have the only kind of fugu that I have personally sampled. Shirako (literally, “white children”) is the soft roe or milt of various fish, though pictured here is that of fugu. I’ve also seen it translated as “sperm sack.” Charming. The taste was actually not terrible, though I had no idea what I was eating at the time. I can still hear my host father trying to explain to me what it was in English while dining at a very fancy restaurant. His cries of “It’s SPERM!” echoed off the walls. Slightly embarassing.