I would like to able to run out the door right now. I would like to enjoy the unusual hot spell, because it is unusual and hot, without having to think about my tubes of hydrocortisone (which do not work), tea-tree soap, balls of cotton, etc. I would like to not be self-conscious of the rash that speckles my body. I would like to be stress-free and sleep longer than 4 hours at a time (sans gloves). I would like to simply concentrate on painting monsters, the magazine, the show I will curate, and the novel.

Because I will not, goddammit, always be the alcoholic donut-obsessed ne'er-do-well my father thinks I am because he reads this site as all truth when really these are exercises in autobifictionalography, to steal Lynda Barry's term. (Read, read, read her One Hundred Demons, published by Sasquatch Books.)

...

Is it impetigo, aided by Staphylococcus aureus? Or Rhus dermatitis, perhaps contracted near Lake Merritt during the accident? Or is a combination of heat, stress and poor healing? (The hypochrondiac in me, I fear, rolls these more foreign and thus dramatic words too easily...)

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