And I'll Take "Cell Phones Suck" for $500, Alex

I resisted for years on the whole "cell phone" thing. I whined about it once in a while -- the fact that there are fewer and fewer public pay phones in the world. But really -- what if I did get stuck somewhere? So Mom and Dad, in their infinite wisdom, though it was time that I became "cellularized." They gave me a phone; they told me I couldn't use it.

Now, how fair is that? I have to share 500 minutes of peak calling with both my mother and my father. Granted -- Mom never leaves the house (or her room, for that matter). Why does she need minutes? Dad works at home and has a phone to use here. If he doesn't work here -- he has an "office" that he can use his minutes on.

Okay -- I have a phone disorder -- If there is a phone, I need to -- I am compelled -- driven, if you will, to make a call. But shit -- a few days in the hospital and I am at 200 minutes already with another 3 weeks before the new month. What the hell was I supposed to do? I had students to deal with -- papers that were being turned in -- professors of my own to contact -- library work to get picked up ... I had to fucking make calls! And then, really, I was freaked out a bit with my medical situation and the thought of my future terrified me for those few days.

So here is my point -- I promise I have one. I made some calls that if I had not been so completely doped up on steroids I would have N-E-V-E-R made. If I could change something that happened over this week -- it wouldn't be the fact that I was alone 4 times while doctors told me about the disease -- it wouldn't be telling my mother that I yell because she always yelled at us as kids -- it wouldn't be crying in front of my Bibliography & Research Methods instructor over NOTHING -- it wouldn't be "sharing" with every fucking moron I meet on the street. I WOULD TAKE THOSE TWO PHONE CALLS BACK. I am mortified. I have no control over my mouth, my thoughts, my actions at all. I really just don't know what I am doing from one minute to the next.

I lost 6 hours of my life -- just lost it -- I don't have a clue what happened at all -- from mid-Wednesday evening to sometime Thursday morning. That scared the shit out of me and I called my doctor first thing -- he told me that it's the steroids but that I must continue taking them until I have finished the slow taper. I can't freaking think. I have 15 lucid minutes maybe out of every hour and the irrational crap that runs through my head is so fucked up ... well, that's it ... I was nuts to begin with but these drugs amplify any impulse that I have spent my adult life learning to surpress.

I am furious with myself. As soon as I sober up, I will "deal" with my own guilt -- my own role in this mess. But "sure as heckfire" I won't be making those phone calls again.

And that number is not even in my cell phone! It's not even on my home phone speed dial. I have it written down exactly nowhere. How the fuck did I remember that as drugged and whacked as I was and why?

So to the unlucky recipient of those two calls: I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I cannot excuse it -- I can only say that I am sorry.

I think lucidity is slipping away again. I have an overwhelming urge to write a paper.