Author: seannarae

heading to manhattan

There are, like many bipedal cousins, events that get us excited.  I could get all oprah and tell you that top on that list was the day i got married or the day my children were born.  And i’d be a ruddy fool if those days werent already so high on the list as to be sancrosacnt from said list.  But beyond those, there are days that just rise. Today, i just booked and paid for round trip to New York City.

See, i dont travel a whole lot.  For good or ill, here is just where i am. So when i do travel, besides the cost, i’m flippin jazzed.  I have some residual flying issues thanks to Faces of Death.  But they’re mostly squeltched by any intelligent beings embrace of odds and frequency.  And usually, when i do travel, its over holiday seasons where i’d be better off over a barrel then in a cramped 17 year old seat managed by disgruntled under-paid versions of what should be ass kissers for what i’m paying.

But there is a special mood in the hours & days post purchase of a paid ticket to NYC.  This manic scatterbrain froth on what you’re going to do, what you’ll have time to do, or from whom you’ll have to keep secret your visit for a spectrum of reasons.  Until they either precog it from any of the social networks to which you post, or the Flickr pictures which should follow.

Which isnt something unique to NYC. Whenever you visit ANY city in which you’re friends inhabit, you have choice.  You can fly under some custom radar and connect with only a subset.  Or, you can be the saint & broadcast your availability.  Each has their pitfalls.  You tell a select few, those left out may take offence, prompting you to defend what EVERYONE will claim as a right of travel in aforeign city: self proclaimed radar signature.  On the flip, you tell everyone, you’re left with a logistic headache of location and time and date that no one should have to deal with when on holiday (let along last mijnute holiday).

We’re going out there as a fluke. Anna has an event for which her company is sending her out.  So her plane ticket and at least 1x hotel night is paid for.  Its our 10-year anniverary. Its my 39th birthday.  The thought process that re-focused our efforts towards a Manhattan versus Napa celbration wasnt to elaborate.

But the moment i hit print on the tickets for the Chanyi/Winnel tickets, i distinctly remember communing with anna in a way i dont usually.  We’re going to NYC.  We’re going.  And before that, for the HBO special, same thing: preternatural excitement.  And before that, was Jenny & Ricks wedding.  Where in an already struggling state from the previous nights wedding, we parked our rental car in a strange CT parking lot and railed into our city.  We had less than 36 hours that time.  But each of them worth if when you consider your attitude & self-worth during.  And before all that was, for me, the mother of all NYC trips: the mightly Greggi Seanna Foursome in October 2000.

But before that, my experience with Manhattan was built upon 10 year old memories getting parented around various comic stores with my cousin dave.  And before that, at 17 taking the train from Choate to meet my aunt & uncle.  But the first adult adventure was that trip in 2000 with Greggi.  And it was so authentic.  We rented a studio in Murray Hill (really?).  A 3rd floor walkup that Regi found posted in a window on Union Street in SF.  We didnt know then how efficient we were being by eschewing NYC hoteliers and stationing ourselves in real aparments.  All credit to Regi there.  For she promptly moved out there, and has been instrumental with each excursion since then.

Every trip out there justifies my excitement befoirehand.  and this one proves to be no differnt.  iwe’re arriving and departing at differnet times.  we have diferent adgendas.  but we seek to mine the same result from that blasted city.

found LEGO ring

device is a ring about 18-20 inches in diameter, perhaps 12-14 inches tall.  wide enough to mate with and fit over an average bucket.  so, you place the ring over a good sized bucket.  lets say vanilla 5-gallon.  to the side, you place the receiving bin.  on the rings key pad, you punch in the 4-digit code for the model you want to re-build, and hit the 2×4 “POUR” stud.  the device has fans.  they spin up, then fast, then settle into a low hum b-flat vibrate against the bucket.

the pour begins.  LEGO of all sizes and circa are poured en masse directly into & thru the ring.  hundreds of spielbergian jungle peices and bounty hunter bits from the outer rim territories all fall through the ring.  pops & snaps of the blowers compete with the rattle & din of bricks hitting bottom bucket & filling.  with the chaos of a trickling faucet, your side-bin slowly starts to fill with the shapes & colours called for by the original instructions.

the ring is fitted with a high-speed camera capable of 1000’s of frames per second.  based on the 4-digit code entered, the camera knows which peices to look for and which to let pass.  those from the LEGO manifest are identified by the camera & immediately blown into the side-chute recepticals by a concentrated blasts of air.

D-DAY +70

I think this about satisfies the update interval on the sinus surgery recovery.

FROM A READER:

Sean,

I loved your blog on your sinus surgery experience. I went through the same procedure 8 days ago and your level of detail in it really helped me understand what to expect beforehand.

On your blog (D-Day + 2: Friday) you noted that you had noticed increased resonance in your voice. I am going through the same thing now and mine is quite noticeable especially over the phone. I had a pretty normal voice before so having it sound as it does now concerns me quite a bit.

My question is, did your voice go back to normal or is the increased resonance still there.

I appreciate your response.

MY RESPONSE:

thomas,

thanks for reading.  i did it for you.  meaning, i wished that level of detail was out there for me beforehand.  i couldnt not blog it.  i even tried to get a videographer client of mine in the room to shoot it.  he was willing to sign whatever waivers, cause he too had the same surgery.  but hospitals bristle at the notion of video cameras within their op rooms.

ok, the voice.  its totally different.  not in a dramatic way.  i mean, i dont sound like a muppet.  but i dont sound the same.  i too notice it more on the phone, because all phones amp your voice into your earpiece.  i get it more on my “N” or “M” sounds.  like: “a bag of m & m’s”.  my friends and co-workers alike are polite & they hold-back in their candor, but they all agree that yea, something is different about the way i talk.  that: i sound normal, just different.

whats weird is that from the perspective of my physiology; the architecture of my new sinus cavities, i totally understand why.  but i am only just now, 2+ months on, getting used to it.

my doctor isnt evasive, but he’s also pragmatic, insisting that its not fair for him to either provide an answer after only 2 months, or for me to be getting settled-into the fact that this is forever.  i love him for this: he reminds me that the healing process for this may be closer to 10 months than 2.  i dont know what you had done, but i had my entire ethmoids reconstructed.  the pathology report reads bone + cartilage removed as well as tissue/polyps.  so i’m prepared to wait for shit to settle down.

but keep in mind: for me anyway, if the change in the tenor (if thats the right word) is the downside to this, then i’ll gladly accept it.  for i can smell again.  i havent felt this healthy since college.  i’m biking my commute 16+ miles a day, i get up when i wake up, and mentally, i am clear as a bell.  the success of the surgery has positive cascade effects i have yet to realize.

D-DAY +30

i have perhaps reverted back to the state of things long before i knew that Anosmia wasnt forgetting things when you hit your head.  That place where i spent more than 30 years as an organism that could faithfully interpret information from the nose & the mouth.  Its an easy place to fall back into.  Its precisely where smell & taste work their magic: where you dont notice them until they’re absent.

A month & change post-op.  5 weekly appointments with Dr Rust.  Each less grizzly then the last.  Each with me leaving having heard that i am healing beautifully, that he could park a car up there, and that no, i cannot resume swimming laps.  Regardless of how well i am healing, its too early to speculate let alone start asking questions about my sense of smell or the return of the bastard polyps.

I did have a touch of an infection up there 3 weeks ago, which Dr Rust said was not only mild, but totally expected in the weeks & months following such surgery.  So after a quick taper of Prednisone & 14+ days of antibiotics, OF COURSE i can smell & taste.  That always happens when i shove those two drugs up me.  So its double-down tentative to take stock in how well i can smell these past few weeks.  For inside of 1-2 more weeks, i could be back to 10%.  So day by day.  I’m enjoying what i can while i can.  Changing a diaper when i squeal in delight cause i can smell it from across the room.  Dragging 2-fingers under my nose after pumping gas.  And being San Francisco, smelling delightfully kind weed being smoked quite near-by on my walk to the ferry in the afternoons.

Pretty much, for the past 2-3 weeks, everything smells & tastes like they did on this day.

Per doctors orders, i’ve continued the nasal rinses.  But they’re horribly disappointing just now, arent they?  No more debris. No more clottia. Just the same damned saltwater i’ve just mixed & squirted up there.  On an interesting note however, is how much of that rinse gets up into the difficult sinuses it never reached before.  After each bottle, after i stop dripping then blow, i can get a full 1/2-ounce more simply by bending over for 10 seconds so the cavities can drain.  I then can smile at people for the next 30 minutes as fast-dropping dribbles can unexpectedly evacuate my new nose.

Of all the things the past 5 weeks have given me, i would say the best has been the mornings.  Once i would wake up and not know which direction my nose would go that day.  If it started compacted, i was doomed to that fate all day.  If it was oddly clogged, i might have a chance of breathing well from at least one of the pipes.  Either way, mornings sounded like audio feeds from a rendering plant, with matching discharges into the shower or 12+ kleenex blows before i left the house.  i now wake up with both barrels bored-out and free of matter.  Which isnt to say that the shape or architecture of my sinuses are in a fixed position.  Because from one morning to the next, the air-flow is simply different up there.  Its either going to be something i can feel or something i can hear.  But either way, its clear and mostly dry.  Which is a dream.

I have moved from 1x weekly appointments with Dr Rust to every other week, with my next on Tuesday 5/19,