If you haven't seen me around much lately, it's because I've made the UW hospital my second home. At the beginning of July, I had an attack of pancreatitis which turned out to be caused by over 50 (!) gallstones, so out went my gallbladder. I had some phantom abdominal pain after that, so I went back for some more dilaudid. (I was happy to be on a painkiller that shares a name with a Mountain Goats song.)
Then, last week, I was en route to the hospital for my surgery follow-up when I stopped to move some garbage cans out of my driveway. There was a hole in the pavement, and I fell, spraining my ankle, which instantly swelled to the size of a tennis ball. Good thing I was already en route to the hospital.
I do have to say that if you have to use a hospital, UW Health is the way to go. They took care of me through and through, and there's wifi there, and I had great friends who brought me my laptop to take advantage of it and books so I could work on a book review I had due.
That review was of Josh Ritter's first novel, Bright's Passage, and it can be read here.
Speaking of my stay in hospitals, I wrote about it for The Rumpus' "Where I Write" column: here.
And, speaking of the Rumpus, yesterday my interview with Marissa Nadler (whose great show I recently saw) just went live: here
And on my own website, I have recently posted all kinds of good stuff, like an interview with Blake Sennett (The Elected, Rilo Kiley), Gold-Bears, and a two-part interview with Her Space Holiday.
Hope everybody out there in the ether is doing great. No surgeries or sprained ankles for y'all, ya hear?
