{"id":11,"date":"2006-12-05T03:54:07","date_gmt":"2006-12-05T08:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=11"},"modified":"2006-12-05T04:00:23","modified_gmt":"2006-12-05T09:00:23","slug":"resuming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=11","title":{"rendered":"Resuming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi.<\/p>\n<p>So much for writing every day.  There are more days, however.  <\/p>\n<p>To recap, I did say everything from my last entry to the medicine man, and he made some unintelligent sounds, like &#8220;I could take those meds and they wouldn&#8217;t hurt me,&#8221; right before saying &#8220;Well, I wouldn&#8217;t take them because of the toxicity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hmm.  <\/p>\n<p>That was the HIV doctor.  After my visit with him, I told my regular doctor (whom I hardly ever see) that I had decided to stay on the drugs.  &#8220;Better living through chemicals,&#8221; I told him.  He grimaced wryly.  Then he said, &#8220;You have emphysema.&#8221;  I had gone to see him because I had been having trouble &#8216;catching my breath&#8217; so to speak.  Actually it felt as if my lungs had gone away to the islands and left me here alone with lots of air which I could move in and out, in and out voluminously, but to no avail.  Damn lungs.  <\/p>\n<p>So now, in addition to obscenely expensive HIV meds, my health plan can pay for one of those cool tiny aerosol cans with ozone killing stuff in it which I spray onto the infinitely sensitive tissue of my lungs (which apparently have become a little less than infinitely sensitive, one might even say a tad leathery).  <\/p>\n<p>Spray, spray, spray.  <\/p>\n<p>I also told my regular doc that I would appreciate it if he could get a pharmaceutical company rep to come to my house.  He suspected the reason before he asked, but he was being polite; &#8220;Why?&#8221; he asked.  &#8220;Because they&#8217;re all so damn cute.&#8221;  &#8220;I knew it!&#8221; he said.  Then he laughed out loud.  <\/p>\n<p>I like that.  <\/p>\n<p>Also, I have been updating my links (they should be over on the left, unless you are reading this a hundred years from now, in which case they probably do not exist any more).  And I have been updating myself.  I have been re-reading one of the sites I used to visit daily&mdash;way back when I wrote daily.  I&#8217;ve covered most of the last two house moves that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldgreypoet.com\/\">John<\/a> (the oldgreypoet) has made since I stopped reading, and I am halfway through re-reading the entire last year of his journal.  <\/p>\n<p>I do life like I do laundry&mdash;I wait for it to accumulate unattended, then I try to catch up all at once.  <\/p>\n<p>I thought I would get up to date with the Journal of a Writing Man, then resume this one.  But <a href=\"http:\/\/exliontamer.wordpress.com\/2003\/01\/30\/a-flower-in-the-dustbin\/\">something<\/a> moved me to put off no longer.  <\/p>\n<p>While checking the old links I was restoring (over on the left there, unless&#8230; oh, nevermind) I happened to visit the one archive page that contains exliontamer&#8217;s first reference to me.  Flattery will get you a long way with me, and I was very moved by his sentiment (which, significantly, I had completely forgotten.  Flattery; though I love it, I am very uncomfortable with it).  But what he was referring to was probably the <a href=\"http:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blogchive\/2003_01.htm#001197\">best hundred words<\/a> I ever wrote.  If I do say so myself.  <\/p>\n<p>And so, I have resumed the silly meds (which might possibly be better than nothing).  I have resumed reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldgreypoet.com\/\">John<\/a>, the Old Grey Poet, and in addition to him, I have resumed reading a few of my old friends who I lost along the way (on the left, unless&#8230;).  <\/p>\n<p>And I have resumed writing.  See you tomorrow.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi. So much for writing every day. There are more days, however. To recap, I did say everything from my last entry to the medicine man, and he made some unintelligent sounds, like &#8220;I could take those meds and they &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=11\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,36,27,35],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-chemicals","tag-grey-poet","tag-hiv","tag-pharmaceutical-company-rep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}