Four Excuses

Fosco recently hinted that he has been a busy little bee for the last six months and promised to tell you what he was doing instead of blogging. He's already offered two excuses . In the interests of not dragging this out, here are all of the other things that prevented Fosco from blogging for most of this year:

• in the past, Fosco has occasionally complained about being single. Well, somehow the previously unlovable Fosco has found himself a boyfriend. For our purposes here at Fosco Lives!, we're going to call him "Ozias Midwinter" or "Oz" for short. Oz is (if you'll permit me to say) quite adorable. He hails originally from the Sandwich Islands. He works at the corporate headquarters of a trendy company located somwhere between San Jose and San Francisco (psst: it's not MMM Carpets. Mmm... carpets...). He is fun and things are going really well. Oh, and he thinks blogs are pretentious and narcissistic. Well, yeah.
  
  
• Fosco's a little embarrassed about this one... but he got himself a Second Life. You've maybe heard of Second Life: that virtual "game" where you just sort of live a life instead of actually going on a quest or something. For gay men in Second Life, this means three activities: sex, dancing, and shopping. (Wait, is that just Second Life?) Fosco is proud to say that, while he did indeed explore the Big Three, he has moved toward a more productive second life: as the owner and curator of a contemporary art gallery! Apparently, that's what Fosco would be doing if he lived in a world (like Second Life) in which books and food are totally irrelevant. Right now, Fosco's gallery is showing works by artist-of-the-moment Jeff Wall. I'll probably blog more about Second Life at some point in the future.
  
  
• since discovering Arrested Development during my recovery from The Accident, I've been hooked. In my spare time over the past eight months, I have managed to watch the entire series (two and two thirds seasons) FIVE TIMES. Five whole times! It's heaven... for crazy people.
  
  
• here's a time waster extraordinaire: Facebook! As an old-timer Harvardian, Fosco remembers when the facebook was a book. It was called the Freshman Facebook and it was sent out to all members of the firstyear class the summer before they arrived at Harvard (or did they give it to us at orientation? Well, whichever.). It had the high school pictures of every member of the firstyear class. It was indexed by first name! It told you where each student was from and which freshman dorm he or she lived in. It was the perfect guide to getting to know one's classmates.
  
  The online version is useful for different reasons: it's a great way to catch up with your old friends, you can explore your social networks, and the interface is very clean and fun and appealing. It doesn't look cheap and vulgar like MySpace. Here's the key to Facebook: Facebook is the Target to MySpace's WalMart. And who doesn't love Target?

Fosco's New Car (No Spoiler!)

Today, Fosco finally got around to buying a replacement car for the one that was totalled in The Accident. Why did he wait so long? It's not the fault of the insurance--they sent me the replacement check like two weeks ago. However, it has taken almost two weeks for me to continually revise downward my expectations about what I could buy with that insurance check. It turns out that cars are expensive. In the end, it came down to the following decision:

a non-American car several years old with quite a bit of mileage on it

OR

a 2006 Ford Taurus with 21,000 miles on it.

So, as much as Fosco thought he might enjoy a Honda or a VW, he ended up buying another Ford Taurus. Plus ça change.

In a way, this was the perfect choice for Fosco in that it allows him to avoid traumatic thoughts about the accident: from the interior, it is possible to believe that you are sitting in my last car (as only the exterior color is different). Continuity can be so comforting.

And what has Fosco named his new car? Say hello to Moby-Dick.


Moby-Dick seems like the perfect name for the car for several reasons:

1. It's big. (Fosco likes roomy cars).
   
2. It's white.
   
3. Somewhere out there is a ditsy teen (named Ahabiana?) in a giant SUV, waiting to destroy it. You can't avoid Nemesis.

Just think how cool my "Suck My Drunk, I'm Dick" bumper sticker will look on it.

Back to School: Facing West from California's Shores

OK, I'm done blogging about The Accident (barring new developments). That's because school's back on. This is going to be a seriously academic quarter for Fosco: no teaching, three seminars, a seriously cool Foucault reading group.

I've only been to one seminar so far, but it reminded me of one of the reasons that I like UCSC. Look at this seminar room:

Where else can you talk about literature while staring at a stand of majestic redwoods? Well, except for other colleges/universities where redwoods grow.

Interestingly, on Day 1 in my American Renaissance seminar, we read a charming little poem by prancing homo Walt Whitman. I wasn't familiar with it, but it's kinda fun:

Facing West from California's Shores

Facing west from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,
the land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,
Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,
(But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)

Of course, Whitman never actually made it to California, but that makes it more interesting, no?

CHOMP!

Fosco got a bill today from the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, where Fosco was taken after The Accident two weeks ago (exactly two weeks ago, come to think of it). Strangely enough, Fosco still isn't too into car crash jokes, but he did laugh a little over this bill. As it appears that Fosco's insurance will be covering the entire bill (fingers crossed!), he feels free to enjoy the dark humor here.

• perhaps my favorite part of the whole thing is that the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula reduces to the acronym CHOMP. And that's their website: www.chomp.org. Seriously. What are the chances I could get the hospital to start using an exclamation point after their name? CHOMP! I like it.
  
  In other news, apparently CHOMP (in addition to the hospital and the mouth behavior) is also some sort of math game that involves a poisoned chocolate bar. But that's math and therefore is inherently uninteresting, even with the inclusion of the words poison and chocolate.
  
  
• The letter to Fosco begins with the following sentence:
  
  Thank you for choosing Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula for your healthcare needs.
  
  I recognize that this is a form letter, but I still think it's a little funny to consider my "choice" in the matter. After all, at the time of my "choice," I was disoriented and strapped to a backboard in an ambulance heading toward whatever hospital was the closest. And besides, if I had had a "choice" in the matter, I think I would have chosen to go to that one sexy hospital on Grey's Anatomy. I've never watched it, but I think Patrick Dempsey works there and he's cute.
  
  
• Can you guess the total bill for an afternoon in the ER with several CT scans? Take your first guess and add $3000-$5000 to it and you'll be about right.
  
  
• Apparently (to judge by the itemized bill), Fosco was given 2 mg of hydromorphone in his IV. He remembers this and the delightful sense of well-being and reduced pain that it brought. Maybe that's because, according to Wikipedia, "it is one of the most potent of all prescription narcotics" and goes under the trade name Dilaudid. SWEET! Sadly, those 2 mg of happy cost exactly $377.60. OUCH!
  
  
• My favorite part of the whole thing? Right before I left the ER to climb into a waiting taxi for the 45 mile ride back to Santa Cruz (and believe me, it was hellish), I begged for a painkiller for the road (the hydromorphone had worn off). I was given a Percocet tablet (I refuse to imagine the drive back without that Percocet tab). The cost of that Percocet tab? $31.80
  
  Clearly something is awry with healthcare in this country (and not just at CHOMP!).

On the whole, Fosco is basically well-satisfied with his treatment at CHOMP! (although he might have liked a longer-lasting Percocet prescription). Of course, he's never going within 30 miles of Monterey again (but that's not the fault of CHOMP!).

CHOMP! Somebody stop me. CHOMP!

[Disclaimer 1: I'm just having some fun in this post, of course. I fully recognize that the cost for each item/service on the itemized bill includes more than just the item/service. There is clearly also labor, overhead, etc. that drives up the prices for the $32 Percocets. Clearly, hospitals don't bill like mechanics (parts + labor separately). But maybe they ought to?]

[Disclaimer 2: No, I don't know how I received mail on a National Day of Mourning. I guess the bill had been sitting in my mailbox from the end of last week. Come to think of it, I didn't check my mail on Saturday.]

Thanks for the presents, Satan! Er, Santa.

It's been eleven days since some moronic teen bimbo named Mica totaled Fosco's car with her whoremobile. The days without Percocet are starting to run together, which I guess is a good thing. Although, the ribs are still smarting and Fosco generally prefers his ribs with a nice Memphis dry rub.

I've been sitting on that joke for five days now and, in retrospect, I think I could have sat on it a bit longer.

But despite the best efforts of Mica, Christmas still came for Fosco and he got some loot. He was trying to decide whether or not to catalogue some of his favorite gifts on this blog, so he ended up asking himself WWJMD (aka, "What Would John Mackey Do?") And, fondly remembering JM's photo essays of collector's watches, Fosco realized that a brief list of Christmas presents could be enjoyable to one or two readers... So here are a few of Fosco's favorite gifts (one or two of which he purchased for himself) from his recent Percocet Christmas:

• the Christmas box set from Sufjan Stevens. Fosco loves him. Loves him.
  
• a fancy clay cleansing mask from Anthony: Logistics for Men. I think it will be a very enjoyable and useful skin care treatment, but to be completely honest, my favorite part of this gift is that there is a company (Anthony) selling skin care products as "Logistics for Men." Check out the website: it's like a cache of classified documents. Finally, a CIA dossier that Fosco can trust...
  
• the hospitality book I Like You by the one Sedaris I like.
  
• a gorgeously-framed Japanese movie poster for Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 (my favorite Cremaster film!) that my lovely sister, Maggie Tulliver, bought from Tokyo. She's so brilliant at gifts.
  
• A sampler of fancy artisan cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery. Mmm. I had tasted one of them as part of my very first experience with the "cheese course" at my fancy birthday dinner last summer at Tru in Chicago.
  
• a personal seal (a seal, not a seal nor a Loose Seal/Lucille, silly!), with sealing wax from the Pirate Supply Store at 826 Valencia. Maybe now I will write you a letter!
  
• and a bunch of schoolish-related books, including Alain Badiou's Being and Event. Trust me on this one: Badiou is the next big thing. Get off the Levinas bandwagon--that ship has sailed.
  

I hope that Satan was generous to all of you as well! Hail Satan!

A day without Percocet is like a day without no pain.

Yesterday was Fosco's second day without a Percocet. It was also the eighth day since The Accident. What progress can be reported?

Well, for one thing, the royal purple of Fosco's bruises has faded in some areas, replaced with a yellow most frequently associated with liver failure. Oh, and as it is now possible for him to actually palpate his bruises and broken ribs without screaming, allow Fosco to report that there is apparently a two-inch thick tube of hardened, congealed blood running through his torso, exactly in the shape of a shoulder harness and seat belt. How charming! Let's hope that it sticks around, as Fosco would love to explain it to his next trick at The Watergarden. (Oh wait, there's no going back there for a long, long time--there are still those shaved EKG spots that need to grow back in...)

Are you getting a sense of Fosco's mood? It's a bit dark, like some of that fancy unrefined Spanish chocolate Fosco bought for his mother this Christmas. How dark is that mood? Just ask the blonde whore hostess at El Palomar who Fosco felt the barely-controllable urge to punch in the face this evening. But don't get the wrong idea about Fosco. He's not a misogynist (or even much of a misanthrope)--he's just in pain.

Wait, did I just describe Fosco or Dr. Gregory House? Tune in Tuesday nights at 9 (8 Central) and see for yourself!

On the other hand, Fosco's powers of concentration have returned enough to allow him to read half of the 19th-century French Satanist novel that he picked up at Logos last night. What is it about the French and Satanists? Did you know that Dickens never wrote one novel about Satanism? Not one! I'll have to check the biographies, but I'm pretty sure he never even planned one! So what was in the water in 19C Paris?

Here's another good sign (besides Fosco's newfound interested in nineteenth-century French Satanism): Fosco did manage to spend a peaceful half hour (and nearly $200) browsing through The Literary Guillotine with his sister before dinner. (These brief daily bookstore/food outings are entirely her idea, for the benefit of Fosco's mental health. However, after the whole "Palomar hostess debacle", I'm not sure Fosco's sister is going to be eager to try another one tomorrow.)

As Fosco's physical body is most likely going to spend its New Year's Eve on the couch (maybe there are more 19C French Satanist novels!), his bloggy persona has some blog-related pyrotechnics planned instead. Watch this space as Fosco prepares to wrap up the year in style!