Broke 30K, and it's Cortisone Day

30,002 / 50,000 (60.0%)

New words: 2244
Deficit: 5005
Working conditions: A write-in that resulted in more community-building than word-count-boosting, followed by a session of composing directly into the laptop until an hour of the early morning that even I consider galling. Only made it past the mark by repeating the Beastie Boys refrain, "No sleep til Brooklyn!"

Thanksgiving with the in-laws will, of course, be in Brooklyn. I'm hoping the doctor I see tomorrow will give me percocet or something along those lines to go with the steroid injection. (That should excuse pretty much anything: Don't mind Sarah, Cousin Amy, she's full of opiates.) Today, the Well-Intentioned Specialist surprised me by insisting that, for present purposes, she'd rather see me on narcotics than on ibuprofen. Well, who am I to argue with that?

Whether I get percocet or not, I have a lovely vegan cottage pie in the fridge, thanks to vgnwtch, and all the groceries we need to cook the side dishes we're bringing to Thanksgiving, thanks to citabria. Because my friends are fabulous. Thank you thank you thank you.

It's Cortisone Eve, when all the Credible Patients are lying snug in their beds, and only wicked Willful Patients are up awaiting the arrival of Father Cortisone. I, of course, am a wicked Willful Patient. I am eying my copy of the list I mailed to the South Pole, the list of all the things I want Father Cortisone give me on Cortisone Day.

I used to be a person who went on hours-long hikes, nearly half the weekends of the year, even when it snowed. I used to be a person who climbed mountains. Not impressive, West Coasty sorts of mountains, just the little ones we grow in the Adirondacks and the Appalachians, but mountains nonetheless. I used to be a person who could framepack into what passes for wilderness on the East Coast. A year ago, Dan and I were looking at topographical maps of the Northville-Placid trail, thinking it was not beyond the realm of possibility that I could work up to it by, oh, this past summer, if we planned to start in Lake Placid and work our way downhill.

I want it all back, Father Cortisone. Gimme.

Cortisone Day, cont'd

In the first hour of cortisone, Father Cortisone gave to me...a dose of novocaine that, even now, creates the feeling that nothing exists between the back crescent of my heel and the tips of my toes. It is a very strange sensation to put weight on a body part that, as far as my brain is concerned, doesn't exist.

In the second hour of cortisone, Father Cortisone gave to me...a prescription for percocet.

In the third hour of cortisone... I intend to be unconscious, actually, for the next several hours of Cortisone Day. I really don't want to be here when the novocaine wears off.
( The Cortisone Day Festivities )

Anyway, here's hoping the percocet's not too big an impediment during my evening writing shift. I'm not sure it can make me any loopier than I already am.