Etherized Again

I had my port surgery follow-up yesterday with Mayfield. Part II of the report from that appointment will come tomorrow. I'm knocking out the important part today.

And that part is to provide the complete details about my experience coming out of the haze. "Complete," that's my promise to you, even if it results in my own personal defamation, because the blogger code forbids that we varnish the truth, friends. And I am, I think you've seen over the last month, a very serious blogger.

This "etherized" report begins with the movie High Fidelity. It's not important what the movie is about (it's about music fanatics and the search for the wise decision when you have absolutely no worthy source of wisdom to consult--good luck with that, fellas!) it's not important that it's one of my Top 5 all-time favorite comedies, nor is it important that this is one of the few times when a movie is better than the book.

What's important is a short exchange early in the movie between Barry, an unkempt, obnoxious store clerk and his two co-workers.

(These guys are arguing about which group recorded the superior version of "Little Latin Lulu")

Co-worker 1: I just prefer-

Barry: BULLCRAP!

Co-worker 2: How can it be bullcrap to state a preference, Barry?


I've always thought that Barry is right about this. He meant that the first co-worker was wrong to think that one song was superior to the other. And Barry never learned the to censor himself for the sake of civil decorum.

I've learned to censor myself. When people talk about their aesthetic tastes, I put on a "You're OK, I'm OK" kind of air and let it ride. I like to think that I do have important things to say about important subjects, matters of eternal consequence, really. So I try not to waste personal capital or interpersonal energy on temporal matters.

(The only thing that matters to Barry is rock n' roll. So of course he's passionate about calling out the inferior choice.)

So, yes, I do believe there are some objective standards to be applied to aesthetic values. For instance, if you don't think Tobias Wolf's "Say Yes" is a perfect short story, you're wrong.

If you don't think Gene Hackman's Hoosiers pep talk is among the Top 10 greatest Locker Room Speeches in American sports movies history, you're wrong.

If you don't think Springsteen's "Frankie" is an ideal summer song for playing when you're sitting outside with friends, you're wrong.

(I know you are thinking: "Frankie" - a guy's name in a song!!! Nope. This Frankie is a woman. But this reminds me that right before the port surgery, Mayfield came in to do his pre-surgery thing and mentioned that he'd thought of another guy's name. Michael Jackson, in the old days, sang a song about "Ben," who was, I think, a rat. (?) I don't know. This is Mayfield's reference, not mine. I looked at him for a moment when he told me this and then said, "I won't hold it against you that you know the lyrics to Michael Jackson songs."

Then he said, and serious blogger that I am, I must allow him his defense, "Hey, this was from his young, black days. Not his old, crazy days."

And now you are thinking: Amy! You learned about a song for the on-going list in an on-going mission and you failed to report it??? COME ON!!! Are you serious about wanting to accomplish something during this whole cancer thing or is your whole blog just a big, worthless joke?

I know. I know. I need to keep my eye on the prize.

So: Mickey, Bill, Billy, Maurice, Jack and now Ben. That's 6.

Dang. I had a point here. . .

Oh right. My point is that it's not the case that all aesthetic values are subjective. Some are objective. And there are a couple of ancient Greek philosophers who would back me up on this.

But in my day to day operations, I don't live as though I believe this. Instead, I try to be polite.

All of which is a set-up to the "personal defamation" portion of the story. You see, Mayfield told me today what I said when coming out of the ether last Thursday.

It wasn't full-on "ether" like in the first surgery. It felt all the same to me in that I was suddenly asleep and then suddenly awake somewhere else. But this is stalling. It's time to tell you what I said upon first consciousness.

I was having a bad dream that there was a song playing that I hated. It was a Natalie Merchant song. I don't hate all of her music. But this one particular number is terrible. What do the lyrics even mean? It's so lazy! It just repeats itself with kind of dark and cynical words that can't possibly match up to the melody and light-heartedness she's singing it with! I hate this song.

Are you dying to know what I'm talking about? Fine. You want to ruin your day by getting it into your head? Fine. Here are the lyrics. And here is the song performed, though the video was made by some random poster. I don't mind pointing out that it pained me to re-expose myself to this song just to find the links for you. But that's the kind of serious blogger you're dealing with.

So I was hearing this song in my sleep and wanted to turn it off so badly, but couldn't. I was stuck listening to it. When I could speak, and Mayfield was standing there, here's how the conversation went:

Me: Was there music in the OR?

Mayfield: Yeah.

Me: Well I heard this song in my dream. It was like a nightmare. I couldn't turn it off. I kept thinking, 'This song sucks!'

Mayfeild: Yeah, Amy. That was my IPOD playing.


Well. If he thinks that's a good song, he's wrong.

It gets worse. That is, I knew about the IPOD thing before the follow-up because it was the first thing I remembered saying. Wasn't sure if it was as remarkable to him, but, yes, 4 days later, he mentioned it. (At one point he read some of this blog, and now I'm thinking that he may still be reading and finding himself further commented-up, in which case, "Hey, Bro! It's all good!")

Here's what he told me about that I didn't remember: There was a song playing as they wheeled me out. A country Gospel version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," and I was saying, through my haze, "I have a better arrangement of this song. I have a better arrangement!"

Here again, we find the same aesthetic. . .non-politeness that is a little more like Barry and a little less like what I aspire to.

What Mayfield didn't know I meant was not, simply, that I had a recording at home I thought was better than this recording. But that this classic hymn, beloved by so many, is one that so poorly matches up the lyrics to the melody.

The lyrics are a lullaby. The melody is just. . .a disaster. I don't care who's singing it.

I wrote different chords and melody to it altogether! Years ago. I sang my version at Gramma's funeral, as a matter of fact, because she was the one I had always pictured really living out a song like this. So by crying out, "I have a better arrangement!" I was really saying--should I write "admitting" in that, obviously, I think this is true?--that I have a better musical aesthetic regarding this one hymn than all of modern Christendom.

And so we see how, when etherized, one's deep-rooted, easy-to-cover-up-so-you-can-look-like-a-good-person arrogance surfaces to the outside. Did it seek out and offend the snotty anesthesia nurse? Or the combat nurse who ignored my caution and put a giant bandage that I did not need directly onto my arm hair while saying, 'Too bad, so sad!'?

No. Twice in the same foggy 5 minutes, I managed to assault one of the Good Guys in this whole odyssey.

So that's the full story. The whole confession. I didn't want to tell you all about it. But a serious blogger does not obfuscate the truth.