ODs A-Go-Go

Funny story, or possibly tale of the macabre, depending on your point of view:

In the 1905 hospital records I'm reading, there are all of a sudden a rash of poisonings with (from? by? I'm not sure which is the proper preposition) a variety of substances, including but not limited to: lead, phosporus, alcohol, opium, and cocaine.  Don't worry, that's not the funny part.  There was also a "ptomaine poisoning," which is obviously not the same sort of poisoning but made me think about how my parents used to refer to any shady restaurant as a "ptomaine palace" and how I really should find more excuses to use that term, because alliteration is funny.  Which is all beside the point.

I clearly had to include some of this poisoning outbreak in my research, as it is an unexpected trend in admissions, and also because earnest, bougie Edwardian doctors interacting with druggies is sure to produce hilarious results (but not sexy results, more's the pity), even though the doctors were probably all on laudanum themselves.  And you know what?  Hypothesis: proven.  From the cocaine poisoning case: "he kept constantly grabbing at all pieces of paper his eyes fell on.  He only wanted them to put them in the fire."  Heeeeeee.  It's the sniffy tone of it that kills me.  You have to wonder how many pieces of paper were snatched, and how important they were, before the doctor thought, "I say, he only wants them to put them in the fire!"  He is out of his everloving mind on cocaine (and whiskey, brandy, and beer, reportedly).  Clearly, he doesn't want the paper for any useful purpose, such as jotting a quick missive to the local newspaper regarding the state of the roads, or origami.  The ancient Japanese art of paper-folding being a second use to which the paper might be put, I mean, not a second subject upon which one might write to the newspaper.  But I'm not here to judge.  After all, the next day, "He said he wanted away as he had business to attend to."

Interesting side note: dude had injected the cocaine, as he had done for the past seven years.  Only 45 years after the modern syringe and the drug itself were invented.  But maybe he was just a Sherlock Holmes fan.  Or had just purchased a handy kit from Parke-Davis for the purpose.  Or appreciated Pope Leo XIII's endorsement of cocaine-laced wine.  All this after some nutjob tried it out as a ophthalmic anaesthetic by instilling it into his own eye, which he then pricked with pins.  A general thumbs-up from the medical community greeted the knowledge that a drug had been discovered that would allow one to painlessly poke one's own eyes with sharp objects.  How could over-the-counter use not follow closely behind?

(Image via Wikipedia)

When You Put it That Way ...

An episode of Antiques Roadshow is described in part in our TV on-screen directory, "Michael Aspel and the team marvel at an array of historic items."

I wonder if the powers that be who greenlighted the show see that, look at each other, and ask, "Did this always sound so bad on paper?"  I mean, seriously: an hour of watching people say, "Oooh!  It's a tiny silver pig, manufactured only between 1787 and 1789!" does not sound particularly riveting.  But then you see an episode in which a cabinet housing a miniature Victorian parlor scene populated with anthropomorphized taxidermied squirrels is earnestly praised and valued at several thousand pounds, and you do indeed marvel along with Michael Aspel and the team.

FYI, a Google image search for "squirrels parlor scene taxidermy" yielded nothing close to the objet d'art in question to share with you.  But I'm pretty sure it put me on some kind of government watch list.

Mind Warp: Complete

 My dissertation research involves reading 150-year-old hospital records, which means I spend 40 to 50 hours a week reading about people suffering from horrible diseases and receiving often-horrible treatments (heavy metals: good for what ails ya!).  This has apparently warped my conception of "funny" into what most of my friends and relations would place squarely under "morbid".  Such as the 6-year-old with a tapeworm whose own history of his illness was taken in his mother's absence, and earnestly entered by the doctor: "[a piece of tapeworm] was like a broad riband and as long as his finger ... he [the boy] is fond of sugar and butter." (LHB1/129/2/12)  Cute, right?  I mean, sad, obviously, but a little bit funny?  ... Anyone?

I think it's the kid's irrepressible-by-tapeworm enthusiasm sneaking through that cracks me up.

This leads to, I imagine, a general dread when people ask about my research and I start by saying, "Oh, this was funny!"  But you have to find some reason to laugh, or all your free time is taken up trying to cry quietly in a public restroom stall and/or plotting exactly which powers-that-be (Social Darwinists?  Hospital administrators?  Doctors?  The power-drunk and paternalistic bourgeois?  That hospital clerk who can't write an intake record less than four pages long?) you will slap in the face, and how hard, when you finally get your time machine.  Which is kind of my philosophy on dealing with heavy shit in general, when you get down to it, so there you go.

ETA: And now I'm imagining the effect in Victorian Britain if I were to appear from the future in my denim trousers and short haircut to deal massive and richly-deserved roundhouse face slaps to, like, dudes saying disease decreases the surplus population, and then wink away back to the present.  And it is hilarious.  I say, "You just got slapped!" or, I don't know, "Slap justice!" to avoid copyright infringement on How I Met Your Mother and disappear, and they all stand around blinking and stunned for a while while one guy clutches his muttonchop whiskers.  And then one dude finally says, "I say, that was taking the point a bit far, old chum; my mistress was diagnosed with consumption just a se'nnight past."  I wish I could draw comics so you all could see it too.

There Goes the Bride

For anyone who didn't know, I got married a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty awesome. Pros: lifetime commitment, friends and family, fantastic dress and shoes, confetti cannon shocker at send off. Cons: passing out. And no, not in the manner of a drunk-assed bride or frat partier, but in a Victorian lady, smelling-salts kind of way.

It happened thusly: I had a super time getting ready, then did the whole walk-down-the-aisle, lifetime-pledge bit, then balanced in pointy heels on a sunny, grassy slope for awhile while the photographer tried to get all four children involved in the ceremony both standing upright and looking pleasant simultaneously (not possible). Then I shooed my family, including my bridal-emergency-kit bearing sister away to the reception to take couple portraits. Then after a bit of that, I felt really dizzy, reportedly murmured, "I feel like I might pass out," and then kind of keeled over, dropped the water bottle the photographer had donated to the cause, and my new husband had to catch me to keep several hundred dollars' worth of dress (and my skull) off the UNM campus pavement. There was only one casualty:


I had a nice little dream about my alarm clock going off, then came to in the midst of drama, with the photographer running to get the limo, the limo driver and husband (mine, not the limo driver's) stowing me, somewhat like a mob corpse, in the backseat, and the photographer asking what I'd eaten that day (answer: clearly not enough and not recently enough for a hypoglycemic). We pealed off to the reception, and I pulled my sister's cell phone number out of the depths of pre-cell phone memory so the limo driver could call ahead for emergency snacks and hair assistance -- you know, to avoid making our entrance to the reception in a style less triumphant/joyous and more staggering/bedraggled, in much the same way a long-thought-dead foiler of plans totters into some early-20th-century murderer's party celebrating said murderer's ill-gotten inheritance. Not the tone in which one wants to kick off a lifetime together.

Where was my cell phone, you might ask, if you hadn't gotten distracted by that long digression? In my little wedding purse. Sitting next to the photographers bag 'o' expensive cameras and camera bits. Right in the middle of campus all by themselves, because in the midst of lady-catching/limo-moving/corpse-stowing, everyone forgot the bags. Which were missing by the time the photographer (the excellent Ginger Russell, by the way) realized they were gone and rushed back to get them.

Not to worry, though: after a charming wedding night of getting a friend to loan me her asthma inhaler, calling credit card companies and sending missed calls/texts to my missing phone (sample: "Do you have my stuff? I want it back."), some hotel and spa in Santa Fe called to say they had my purse, and after some shuffling around in the luggage room, found the photographer's bag, too. Apparently another limo driver picked them up -- possibly noticing they were left sitting there after the unconscious bride drama -- and unloaded them with his wedding's luggage in Santa Fe. So we took a little road trip to the fancy spa, found the limo company had collected it to bring back to Albuquerque, and I finally got everything back from the limo office on Monday ("It's a VERY cute purse," the limo company's desk people assured me). Yay!