lynnchen thinks i’m a little claustrophobic. i don’t think i’m that particularly. i think i’m people-phobic. tight elevators, stadiums, big parties, stuff like that. at my MRI yesterday i was perfectly fine, although i did wonder how far into the machine i would go. getting an MRI is kind of exciting. it’s a big step up from an x-ray and it kind of legitimizes my injury. “yes, i am hurt, get me some coffee. and some food.” the machine is huge and it sits in a stale room at the back of scripps hospital. there were hardly any patients or technicians there because my appointment was late at nite and i felt like i owned the place. it was great. i tried to imagine myself as a big sports star, lying in the bed, with giant magnetic imagers pummeling me from all sides. i looked at the pictures of junior seau and various padres on the walls. i was one of them. then i realized that the machine i was in was a little one. the entry hole was too small for anybody other than big children and small women. and me apparently. football players evidently get special MRI machines. ah well. another sports dream shattered.



the chinese paste turned into chinese turd. really hard chinese turd. trying to get it off my knee was infinitely more painful than getting two hepatitis shots the other day. the stupid thing dried out and attached to every single one of my leg hairs. all twenty of them. going slowly was yielding low results so i contemplated just yanking it off like a band aid. then i thought better of it, wisely realizing that walking around in the summers with one hairless knee for the rest of my life was probably not overly attractive. in the end, i had to soak the turd in hot water and slowly rub it off. now the tub smells faintly of old chinese people. better that than me i suppose. the hidden perils of chinese medicine.