SD 2123–2172: Well, January certainly January’d. And somehow February is almost over before it started.
Bad things are bad. FYI. Important to get that out of the way first.
Now let us continue to tick the boxes.
It’s always bittersweet the first week or so in January when the Christmas decorations come down. The lights especially just make home feel that much cozier.
It’s been a “real”-ish winter with long periods of cold and a moderate amount of snow. Our November snow fully outpaced the last couple winters if I recall correctly.
Have made some time to fight the cold and horrors to get back to the Art Institute to see Jane Alexander’s Infantry with beast (2012).
Saffron is acclimating well. She’s finally become a lap cat… to Matt and Dane. I have to start feeding her so she’ll love me too. 🙁
Also finally made it to the MCA to see the City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago exhibition. Immense emotional reckonings not included for reasons unknown.
I was also very taken with the Firelei Báez exhibit.
But I suppose the real reason I was there was for the incomparable Yoko Ono.
All of the interactive bits of the exhibit really helped bring it to life. I also find it’s important to step up and do the activities everyone else is too shy to do in a museum.
I also made it out to the fashion outlets at Rosemont to see the new Gundam store. I haven’t put together my starter level kit yet, but it was a cool space to drop a few hundred dollars if you’re deep into Gunpla.
Some random moments. And The Moment. Brat summer, we miss you.
I’ve had a vague desire to buy a Virtual Boy for years. Luckily, Nintendo knows there are many suckers like myself and released a collectible model that’s compatible with the Switch. Unfortunately I’ve been too busy with work to actually use it yet.
We finished our 240 hour adventure watching all of ER the other week. Season 2 of The Pitt is fantastic and filling the void, but it still wasn’t quite enough Chicago ER action for me. So in order to recapture some of the magic I decided to pass out in my bathroom Thursday night and cut open my head on a baseboard so I could go experience the ER in person at 1am on Friday morning.
It… certainly was an experience. Shortly after getting there with Dane we heard the theme song from ER play, which would play repeatedly for the next 12 hours. It turned out to be an eventful night, with two patient deaths (not sure they were supposed to tell us that), computer system outage (not just a plot point on The Pitt!) and all the beds upstairs being full preventing patients from being moved out of the ER who needed to be admitted (not just a regular plot point in ER!).
I had a head CT relatively quickly at 2am or so, which I was wheeled to while the ER theme played. At 4am or so my patient portal alerted me the results were all normal, which was reassuring. There were not a ton of people in the waiting room but no one was moving, other than people giving up and leaving. Most of the excitement throughout the night was people yelling about the wait. After shift change at 7am it was announced that the wait time was likely to be 8–11 hours. After 6 hours of waiting… that was not reassuring. I made Dane ask if that was in addition to how long we’d already been waiting (luckily it was not).
We finally got called back a bit after 8 to the “fast track” area, which apparently isn’t staffed overnight, adding to the wait. Staff was all very apologetic and could barely believe how long the wait had been. Even six hours is atypical I guess, so I really just got lucky. Even after getting taken to a room it was still awhile before a very nice resident came through to assess me, rule out anything too severe, and confirm I needed stitches.
It was then a bit of a wait before a nurse came to clean out the wound followed by a surprise EKG which no one had mentioned (also normal). Nurse came back surprised I hadn’t gotten stitches. Resident eventually came back apologetic again and gave me 3 stitches. They’re the dissolvable kind meaning I don’t have to go back in which is pretty exciting. Then I had to wait for an attending to come and give me the all clear to go home. He came in with a ton of manic energy and tried to make up for the wait by stealing medical supplies for me to take home. I ended up being in the fast track area about 4 hours. We learned the ER theme song is the ring tone for when an ambulance service calls in. Truly darkly funny.
Very thankful I didn’t hurt myself worse than a cut on the head and some bruises on my knees and shoulder. Kind of wish I had a better explanation for the fainting. I’d messed up my back earlier in the night and was feeling waves of pain in the bathroom getting ready for bed that I assumed was just my back acting up and would be fine once I laid down. Then my body made me lay down. It was likely vasovagal syncope which I’ve had a couple of times, all just made worse by stress, dehydration, and maybe the back pain.
Anyway, I think I like the TV show better than the pop up experience, no matter how immersive it is.