Saturday 22 September 2012

Surgery Sugar / Reading David Foster Wallace

I showed up at Day Surgery, Pasqua Hospital, 10:30 Friday. My friend Mark drove me in his Jeep.
A woman who's a dead ringer for that secretary who died at her desk during the 4th season of Mad Men led me to a change room and told me to take everything off. You're familiar with these hospital gowns? Been a while since I wore one. Well they haven't changed much.
Three hours of paperwork and waiting followed. Time to dig into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace, 1997. Count me as the x-millionth to say Wow, virtuosic! though dated in places--"great LA touches, like everyone having a cellular"--but nostalgically so in an essay called "Greatly Exaggerated" that offers a neat survey of the death of the author issue, an old issue even then, early 90s, nostalgic for me because it coloured, at least indirectly, every moment of my grad student career, and my teaching career since then.
Now, morning after my knee scope, the knee feels fine, if not yet restored, three one-stich incisions--evidence of underground triangulation and colour photography--appearing to pin it to my leg. I'll finish the Wallace today and catch the Daniel Scott Tysdal (Big DFW fan) talk this aft.
As for sugar, in Day Surgery they complimented me on how fast I woke up, how ready for food I became. Nurse Sylvia, from Wolseley, brought me a muffin.

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