Pushing Against a Parenthesis
Friday, February 29, 2008
It's no fun being sick. Illness has decimated WCU's campus this winter, with many of my friends going down with the flu or some like malady. I can imagine what the plague might have been like in the Middle Ages, only my friends would have died during that time rather than just disappear from class for a few days.
On Wednesday of this week, it was my turn. Either food poisoning or a stomach virus violently attacked me at 5 am. It is now Friday night at 10:30 pm, and I have yet to sufficiently recover. I think I've eaten two meals since Wednesday, and only rarely have I ventured from my bed and my room. There was a fever for a while, but that is gone now, I believe.
Fevers do strange things to your mind. In my "Academic Steroids" blog, I mentioned that I do not use drugs, though Javalanches come close. A fevered brain also probably shares many characteristics with one on drugs. The imbalance of chemicals takes your imagination down some wild and original paths.
My first job after earning a B.A. was with the National Park Service in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park-- Cades Cove, TN to be specific about the location. I lived in a house in the woods of the park about 15 miles from the nearest store or any other settlement. My roommate was from Wisconsin. For about two weeks, a couple of his friends-- boyfriend and girlfriend-- came and stayed with us.
They were straight up hippies, complete with a flower power van. They were also great people. We sat around a camp fire each night, sang songs and told stories. I remember them as being some of the only people I have ever met who said I had a strong Southern accent. Most people, particularly Southerners, think I'm from outside the South.
When the hippies left the park to continue their random journey, the girl wrote us a note thanking us for letting them stay a while. I saw it pinned to the door, and I wish now that I had saved it. It was one of the most remarkable documents I have ever seen as evidence to what drugs do to someone's mind. There was nothing malicious or really even sad about the note-- it had a happy tone. But this girl was simply on a different playing field. I can not mimic it or give a like example. I would have to see her direct quotations again and show you the zany connections she made with her multi-dimensional logic.
Having a fever last night, though, and what went through my head made me think of that note again.
According to the alarm clock on my desk, last night around 3 am I spent about 20 minutes pushing against a parenthesis. I had shrunken down to be the size of a case letter on some unknown printed page, and I wanted to push against the parenthesis next to me. See what a parenthesis looks like ( The points at the end jutted out too far for me to get much force on the concave center curve, so I borrowed a lower case "l" to add leverage... see (l It was a very satisfying sensation to feel the lower case "l" make contact with the points on the parenthesis. When they hit, a noise echoed like the metal on metal clang of Han Solo in the Carbon Freezing Chamber of The Empire Strikes Back. I was able to get a lot more force in my push. Neither I nor the parenthesis were going anywhere, but I was quite content to push until my arms became tired.
Eventually, I grew bored with the exercise, so I interlaced my hands over my stomach and rested. At this point, I felt my arms detach from their sockets. It was not painful. Actually, it was easier to move my torso to a comfortable position in bed without arms getting in the way. My arms then floated down to the foot of the bed, yet I could still feel my hands and wrists lying dead weight on my stomach. It was a singularly unique sensation, to see my limbs in one location but feel them in another.
There were other hallucinations my fevered mind brought me last night, but I suppose I should end this blog in case I want to run for political office one day. Don't take this stuff too seriously. I've just been in my small dorm room in Madison for almost three days now, and the strange imaginations of last night have been the most interesting thing to happen.
Once I'm over this virus or food poisoning or whatever it is, I will rejoin the mainstream society and sound a little more normal again.
Everyone enjoy their spring break.
Until Next Time,
Nathan Marshburn
On Wednesday of this week, it was my turn. Either food poisoning or a stomach virus violently attacked me at 5 am. It is now Friday night at 10:30 pm, and I have yet to sufficiently recover. I think I've eaten two meals since Wednesday, and only rarely have I ventured from my bed and my room. There was a fever for a while, but that is gone now, I believe.
Fevers do strange things to your mind. In my "Academic Steroids" blog, I mentioned that I do not use drugs, though Javalanches come close. A fevered brain also probably shares many characteristics with one on drugs. The imbalance of chemicals takes your imagination down some wild and original paths.
My first job after earning a B.A. was with the National Park Service in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park-- Cades Cove, TN to be specific about the location. I lived in a house in the woods of the park about 15 miles from the nearest store or any other settlement. My roommate was from Wisconsin. For about two weeks, a couple of his friends-- boyfriend and girlfriend-- came and stayed with us.
They were straight up hippies, complete with a flower power van. They were also great people. We sat around a camp fire each night, sang songs and told stories. I remember them as being some of the only people I have ever met who said I had a strong Southern accent. Most people, particularly Southerners, think I'm from outside the South.
When the hippies left the park to continue their random journey, the girl wrote us a note thanking us for letting them stay a while. I saw it pinned to the door, and I wish now that I had saved it. It was one of the most remarkable documents I have ever seen as evidence to what drugs do to someone's mind. There was nothing malicious or really even sad about the note-- it had a happy tone. But this girl was simply on a different playing field. I can not mimic it or give a like example. I would have to see her direct quotations again and show you the zany connections she made with her multi-dimensional logic.
Having a fever last night, though, and what went through my head made me think of that note again.
According to the alarm clock on my desk, last night around 3 am I spent about 20 minutes pushing against a parenthesis. I had shrunken down to be the size of a case letter on some unknown printed page, and I wanted to push against the parenthesis next to me. See what a parenthesis looks like ( The points at the end jutted out too far for me to get much force on the concave center curve, so I borrowed a lower case "l" to add leverage... see (l It was a very satisfying sensation to feel the lower case "l" make contact with the points on the parenthesis. When they hit, a noise echoed like the metal on metal clang of Han Solo in the Carbon Freezing Chamber of The Empire Strikes Back. I was able to get a lot more force in my push. Neither I nor the parenthesis were going anywhere, but I was quite content to push until my arms became tired.
Eventually, I grew bored with the exercise, so I interlaced my hands over my stomach and rested. At this point, I felt my arms detach from their sockets. It was not painful. Actually, it was easier to move my torso to a comfortable position in bed without arms getting in the way. My arms then floated down to the foot of the bed, yet I could still feel my hands and wrists lying dead weight on my stomach. It was a singularly unique sensation, to see my limbs in one location but feel them in another.
There were other hallucinations my fevered mind brought me last night, but I suppose I should end this blog in case I want to run for political office one day. Don't take this stuff too seriously. I've just been in my small dorm room in Madison for almost three days now, and the strange imaginations of last night have been the most interesting thing to happen.
Once I'm over this virus or food poisoning or whatever it is, I will rejoin the mainstream society and sound a little more normal again.
Everyone enjoy their spring break.
Until Next Time,
Nathan Marshburn
posted by wcugradstudent at
7:19 PM
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