Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 5/21/22
Junk in the Trunk Edition
Administration would like to apologize for the lateness of this missive. It seems a great many of you were worried when it did not appear in a timely fashion and blew up my various channels of communication asking if I had fallen down somewhere and could not get up.
I am fine, albeit still on the mend. I just had a full schedule on Friday and in the shuffle to cover all of my action items, the newsletter ended up at the bottom of this list. It won’t happen again; I know, because some of you will make damn sure of it.
And now, here’s an update on my tumescent scrotum.
Week Two Update
Yes, it’s back, folks! A by-product of any of these types of surgery is that the lymphatic fluids that build up at the wound site have to be drained, or they will cause discomfort, infections, and worse. The J-P drains are installed to take those fluids away.
The drain hoses need to be at, well, the lowest point of the torso, in order to act as a proper drain. This means that I have two lines of surgical tubing sewn into either side of my horn o’ plenty. Here’s a fun fact about the ol’ scrotum: it’s full of vascular tissue, which is how, under normal circumstances, the acorn becomes the mighty oak. Evidently, any fluid—doesn’t have to be blood—will saturate and engorge said vascular tissue, which is currently producing in my body by the pint, evidently. These drains can’t quite handle all of it, and so the overflow goes to—you guessed it.
And so, the tumescent scrotum has returned, although this time, there are small victories to mitigate my discomfort. For the first time in many years, I have access to the equipment, and I have found that with a little jiggering, I can coax the bear out of his cave when he needs to urinate.
I’m peeing standing up, y’all!
That’s the good news. The bad news is this: historically, I have always “dressed” down and to the right, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. The panniculectomy involved pulling the bottom half of my waist up, just like how you’d pull up a pair of pants, and then it was attached to the torso with zippers, hot glue, and safety pins. Fun stuff.
What this has done is, currently, I am dressing, um…up. Straight up. I’m told this will settle and drop down, once everything re-situates, but for right now, once I’ve pulled Excalibur from the stone, I have about two seconds to take aim before my urine shoots out at a high pressure 75 degree parabolic arc.
So far, I’ve peed on top of the toilet—the lid of the toilet tank, not the seat—and across three walls, hit the soap dish, and the bathroom sink. I found that I can lean into the stream, like how firemen direct water out of their hoses, but that usually is too little, too late.
To keep from covering the entire bathroom in crime scene sheet plastic, I’ve taken to peeing in the shower when I have to go, because I have zero aim and zero control. I’m like Crash Davis, explaining Nuke LaLoosh’s pitching to a nervous batter. “I don’t know where it’s going. I swear to God.” The original Ghostbusters had more accuracy with their proton packs than I do with my Nerf Super Soaker.
Ah, well. The drain output continues to decrease, which is good, and what we want to see. I’ve been tending to the scar, and it’s healing up nicely. Everything is going along as it should. My cough is 95% gone, and Janice has been taking me and the dog walking every day to help with balance, blood flow, and mobility in general.
Mail Call
I have a wonderfully wide and varied acquaintance, and on occasion, they send me nutty stuff in the mail. This was in the post this morning, courtesy of Craig York, a dear chum of some twenty or so years. Let it never be said that y’all don’t get me.
Earlier in the week, I also got the third issue of Dwellings, one of the most batshit insane horror comics I’ve seen in many years. You might have seen his beautiful Harvey comics cover recreations featuring classic horror films, one of the most original mashups ever. Jay Stephens has hit it out of the park with his Harvey Comics-inspired art style, coupled with a serious story with deep folklore roots.
The beautifully cartoony, iconic art really serves to emphasize and underscore the horrific moments in the story, often in shocking turns of the page. Jay has crowdfunded all three issues successfully, which means he’s keeping all of the dough you send him. If you like horror stories and want to try something truly original, seek these books out, and consider joining the crowdfund for future issues.
Playing Catch Up
I’m still behind on several projects; I’ve had to cancel my appearance at North Texas RPG Convention this year, due to surgery recovery keeping me from getting the things I needed to get done for that show. I will still be attending Robert E. Howard days, hopefully sans wound binder, and I will be showing up at SoonerCon 30, too. There will be N.T.A.B. Special Projects Badges on hand for both of these events, available on a first come, first serve basis. If you’re going to be there, seek me out before they are gone.
I will be getting everyone’s B.E.S.T. packages together ASAP, so that we can bask in the glory that is Bunker Living. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I promise you, it’ll be worth it. In the meantime, feel free to wander over to the blog and read the five-part series on the Movies of Dungeons & Dragons, a re-post of a series I wrote on another blog from several years ago. There will be a new post each day, and those of you in a certain Gen X age bracket will marvel and delight at all of the movies from our youth that I throw under the bus.
New goal: Work "lollygaggers!" into as many conversations as possible.
Looking good