Greetings and salutations! It’s great to see you again! Is that a new hat? I love it. It goes well with your eyes!

These Days …

Supposedly there’s a Chinese curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” A quick googling (actually Duck Duck Go but “Duck2Going” doesn’t verb as well) reveals that the phrase is another one of those fortune cookiesque statements of Western origin that gets attributed to the Wise and Mysterious East. I don’t remember anyone tossing the curse my way but this week was far more interesting than I like.

On Monday I had dental surgery. The Pandemic and the retirement of my previous dentist had me putting off an appointment for awhile. One errant tooth on the lower jaw started encouraging its companions to join it in being loose and groovy and I couldn’t put things off any longer. Not being able to take bites of ones food does give one focus. I had an emergency exam last month and scheduled an appointment for this week. Now I have spaces in my mouth and my tongue has stitches to poke at. When this heals (and the upper jaw has been worked on) I’ll be getting some plastic substitute ivories. Until then pandemic health cautions (wearing a damned mask) hide the gaps in my grimace.

The dental stuff was more or less expected. X-rays from my previous dentist had told me that my jaw was losing its love for some of my teeth. Wednesday’s emergency room visit was more of a surprise.

I started having … brain fog … in the late morning. I was at work, delivering my route. Some of the addresses on some of the mail started looking unfamiliar. As the day went on the distance between my physical memory and my mental memory got wider. My body knew where to go and where to deliver. My brain was having trouble recognizing names and addresses. I managed to finish my route. I think I delivered everything correctly.

I had a follow up dental appointment scheduled for a half an hour after work. I remember sitting my car trying to remember where my dentist’s office was located. I knew it was somewhere in the same mall as the Post Office that I work at. That’s part of why I chose that dentist in the first place. I kept thinking it was in one building but every time I looked at the building I couldn’t see any signs for my dentist. I finally had to google the location on my phone. I had been looking at the wrong building.

I vaguely remember going to the dentist. I don’t remember going home afterward. Sarah tells me I had enchiladas for dinner. That I kept asking her the same questions over and over. That I couldn’t remember why I was missing teeth. That I couldn’t remember names of former roommates or birthdays of old friends. That I had forgotten that I’m officiating a wedding in October. We got a ride to the emergency room. I had a CAT scan and, when that didn’t show any obvious problems, I had an MRI. While going through the ER process my memory started knitting itself together. I remember the MRI. I remember that the doctors didn’t find any clear cause for my memory problems. I remember that they sent me home with a referral for a neurologist.

I took Thursday off from work. I felt mostly fine. I had pain in my jaw from the tooth extractions but I could think clearly and remember what was happening as it happened.

Yesterday I had my second cataract surgery. My memories of the first surgery had been vague and surreal. The anesthesiologist told me I was more likely to remember this second surgery. I don’t remember it at all. I remember asking a nurse when the surgery was going to happen and being told it was already done. I’m okay not remembering that. I’m not supposed to remember much about the surgery.

I have the next week off from work to let my eye heal. I’m not supposed to lean over or lift anything heavier than five pounds for the next few days. Right now I’m wearing a plastic eye shield and my right eye sees halos around all the lights. I’ve got an appointment with my eye doctor later today to evaluate how the eye is healing.

Mugshots

This week’s design is of strange worshippers of odd gods. Or maybe they’re alien treasure hunters who have located their prize. Or maybe they’re extradimensional beings playing a game. Or maybe … That final image in the process GIF didn’t come out well. Below is what the gradients look like in the actual art.

The above design is available:
On a mug in my Zazzle store.
On a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

The Weather Report

Below is another of my concept/promo illustrations for Kaiju Weather, my in-process graphic novel featuring giant monsters.

This image is available on schtuff in my Redbubble store.

My apologies for posting late this week. Hopefully I’ll be on time next time. Hopefully the next few days will not be interesting.

I hope that, if the next week is interesting for you, it’s because you’ve it sought out and are enjoying it. Take care and take care of those you care about. See you again soon.