n. — dope-slap
On July 12, I sent out an email explaining why I wasn’t up to writing. To recap, in slightly edited form:
A week full of nervousness and mayhem. To wit, Nick has his first cataract surgery in Boston, Milo's boarder just cancelled (which means we—by which I mean “I”—have to drive home between surgery and follow-up to care for our special-needs parrot), and I have a 57-page article that is mostly source notes that have to be reconfigured. Business and dubious parenthood before pleasure of writing (or thinking about other things).
So to the present. Let me add here that in complaining about business and dubious parenthood, I neatly sidestepped the distracting issues of the surgery itself and the impending, crashing tidal wave that would be the release of years of repressed…well, whatever happens with putting off a terrifying operation while eyesight interferes with physical and emotional competence. Putting it off was, to say the least, understandable. But also maddening (yeah, yeah, all about me) and a source of increasing wound-tightness within this house. I kind of promised Nick I wouldn’t “I told you so,” so I will just let him tell it in his own words (I have, without copyright permission, lifted the following from two of his emails):
First: “Just FYI, my cataract surgery yesterday seems to have gone well and my right eye, previously best described as "ummm*cough* do you see my finger? OK, hand?" is now about 20/20, which I count as an improvement. “
Second: “Eye is GREAT. it's kind of cool to see things. And be able to walk around without having to listen for cars. Monica wants very badly to dope-slap me, but she knows she'd dislodge my lens. I fear three weeks from now.”
With relief/release comes rage. We’re coming up on two weeks. Only one to go.
But as the big day approaches, the idea of the dope-slap is less and less appealing. After rage comes release/relief. Eye is GREAT. Eye is GREAT. Eye is GREAT.