My boss was recently in Madison and brought me back a couple hard copies of The Onion. Most people don’t know that The Onion started as this little alternative newspaper started by a couple college kids in Madison. Seeing those papers brought back some of my own memories of Madison. When I was put on the vent, I was 13 and a patient at the University of Wisconsin Hospital. I spent three months there recovering from pneumonia. While I was there, I met a lot of amazing doctors and nurses. They were the ones who helped me understand that an ordinary life was still possible with a ventilator, that I would still go to college and get a job someday. They never discussed with me the possibility of living in a facility, something which could have easily happened. And in the years since, I’ve come to realize just how important those people were in my life and how ahead of their time they really were. In the mid 80s, it was still relatively unheard of for someone on a ventilator to live at home. Much of what I have now, I owe directly to their efforts. So if any of my former physicians and nurses from the UW pediatric ICU and F6/4 & F4/4 units are reading this, thank you.

Another day, another complaint from my friendly neighbor. I’m beginning to think that I should give him a monthly bribe to leave me the hell alone. It’s either that or turn off the ventilator while I’m home, which probably isn’t a good idea.
As I speak, it’s snowing heavily outside. We may have 2-3 inches by the end of the day. Why do I have the feeling that this winter is going to be really long?
Wired has an amusing but melancholy story about the spammer seeking time-traveling equipment. It would be funny if the guy wasn’t so earnest in his beliefs.

I just got back from seeing the director’s cut of Alien. I was only six when it was originally released in the theaters, so I never got to see properly it until now. It still ranks as one of the grungiest science fiction films ever made, with Blade Runner a close second. And I think it’s one of the first movies to establish that women can play strong, kick-ass protagonists without losing their essential femininity. Sigourney Weaver’s character set the stage for Buffy and Alias and Lara Croft, among countless others.
I was on my way to a meeting at a federal building in St. Paul the other day when something odd happened. We had to go through a security checkpoint and the guard instructed my nurse to bring “her over here.” Her being me. He referred to me as “her” a couple more times before we were through and I didn’t bother correcting him, figuring it wasn’t worth my time. But this has happened to me a few times and I’m not sure why. I don’t know if it’s my small size or my hair or if people just don’t look. One of my other nurses told me I don’t make an attractive woman. Not that I make an attractive man either, but that’s just my opinion.

I want to thank those of you who sent me Friendster and Tribe invitations. I’ll post my thoughts on them in a few days.
I listened to the original radio broadcast of War of the Worlds while at work today. It’s still a great piece of storytelling, even though the science is a bit questionable (rockets travel from Mars to Earth in minutes!). I can’t imagine that a stunt like this would work in today’s age of media sophistication, but I envy the fun that Welles and his crew must have had in putting this together. And the 1950s film version is great too. Speaking of which, what are some suggestions for a Halloween movie marathon. I have to admit that I have a special fondness for the film Pitch Black. Despite having Vin Diesel in the cast, it’s still a scary and even somewhat original story. Others?

One of my colleagues at work had a baby shower today. Man, the amount of stuff she got! It was a little overwhelming to behold. But her daughter is adorable. I don’t think about this much, but sometimes I wonder what kind of father I would be. I think I’d be terribly insecure about not being able to meet the physical needs of a child; things like bathing, dressing, feeding, etc. I might be okay once the kid hits five or six. I could turn my chair into a kind of jungle gym (Careful, Daddy needs that to breathe) and start turning them on to books and music and stuff. Not that I foresee fatherhood as a likely part of my future, but stranger things have happened. And a kid could probably do worse than have me as a parent. For one thing, the whole corporal punishment thing is absolutely removed from the equation. The kid will acquire a healthy repertoire of expletives, but that’s just part of building a good vocabulary.