I Am Alive

And doing fine

I was pretty stoned in that picture, as you can likely tell from the glassy eyes. They gave me the good drugs.

Thus far, things have gone easier than what the doc and the literature said. They made it sound like a bit of a nightmare, but I’m actually feeling pretty good. I showed up in the hospital at noon on Friday and was discharged by noon the following day. My wife had the foresight to put 24 hours on the parking app and we snuck out without having to pay any extra. Total cost for this surgery: $15 CDN for parking. Fuck yeah socialized medicine. I even had a private room.

I’m supposed to do nothing but light walking for the next month in terms of activity, not even lifting anything heavier than 20 pounds. And I’ll do what I’m told, but it’s been almost another 24 hours since leaving the hospital and I feel like I could work out. I’m feeling quite normal, but due to the nature of what was done I’m not supposed to exert myself, so I won’t. I don’t wish to fuck up the work they did.

Anyway, I guess that means I’ll be doing lots of writing because of all the spare time from not exercising that I’ll have. I’m on my way to Mexico in 12 days so I should have some shit preloaded to run while I’m on a beach reading a book and not bodysurfing because I’m not allowed. Yeah, yeah. Poor fucking me. Any time I go to an all-inclusive I’m usually up by 6am and going for a long run to keep ahead of the buffet and the margaritas. Now I’ll have to show some actual dietary restraint. I fucking hate that.

Speaking of preloading shit, I was worried I’d be wrecked and so I preloaded a bunch of posts on Facebook to run over the next month, because it is the holiday season, and I wasn’t gonna let some little thing like recovery from surgery get in the way of marketing the shit out of my new book. And while the risks were small, there is always a chance that shit can go sideways and I could take the big dirt nap on the operating table. And so, I was thinking it might be weird if all those posts were still running after I died and then just one day there was a final post about a woman with a pet lion who launched a feminist newspaper in France and then that was it. I mean, it’s a good story to go out on, but there was no wrap up. No … adios muchachos.

As I was getting ready to leave for the hospital, I wrote a wrap up. You know, just in case. This is what I programmed to run as my “final” Facebook post:

It has been deleted now, because, to quote Monty Python, “I’m not dead.”

Side note about the Mandela Effect. Many of us believe the quote is “I’m not dead yet.” I thought it was, but the old man doesn’t say “yet” in the movie. Hmmm. I think it sounds better with yet included, but what are you gonna do?

In other news, I understand that Owl’s Nest Books is down to fewer than 30 signed copies, and they won’t be getting more until December. If you want to guarantee getting a signed copy delivered before Christmas, you better order now. If you’re not familiar, Owl’s Nest is the only place to get signed copies, and all books of mine ordered via that link are signed by me. They have top notch customer service, and please note the prices are in Canadian dollars and our dollar sucks right now so the exchange is pretty good. The price is the same as what you’d pay on Amazon or whatever, but yeah you will get nailed on the shipping costs. That’s basically the price of the signed copy: getting gouged on shipping. You can fill out an order form and it will give you the shipping cost and you can see if that’s something you can stomach for this lefthander scrawl:

Since we’re on the subject of Owl’s Nest, I’ll also be doing an event there on the evening of Tuesday, December 12. I think it’s around 7pm. I better check on that. Anyway, it’s a book signing but I guess I’m also reading a couple of stories and doing a Q and A. So, if you’re planning on being in Calgary on Dec 12 then please come on by. They are located at 815A – 49^th Ave SW.

It's good to be home and not feeling like a bag of shit. Back to the history writing on Tuesday. Oh, and if you don’t want signed copies but still want the book, don’t forget to pick up a copy of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.

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