So…what’s been going on?
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I mean, it’s been well over a year since the Texas Triffid Ranch shut down, with all of the drama that this entailed. All of that food you left behind spoiled a while back, and the cat doesn’t recognize you any more. I’m not even going to go on about the bag of russet potatoes you left in the back of the car wrapped in baby clothes and a note reading “PLEASE LOVE ME,” with the sound chip that screamed when I picked it up. I’m just glad you’re back.
So what’s happened since that day in March 2023 when the gallery closed, the keys went back to the leasing agent, and the U-Haul went back to the rental dealership? Grab a seat and I’ll rehash the last 19 months. No, not THAT seat. That belongs to the cat, and he threatened to shiv me the last time I tried to move him. Trust me on this: you don’t want to get on his bad side.
So. Yeah. Lots of incidental recovery from the gallery days went on through 2023, mostly involving catching up on reading. Reading, either for research or for pleasure, went by the wayside through most of the gallery years, and going through the To Be Read pile remains an ongoing quest. After a while, though, if the material is sufficiently compelling, reading isn’t enough and you reach for a cold chisel and a hammer to crack your head open and let the squirmy things laying eggs in your brain out, erm, I mean, you return to the keyboard. Hence, for the first time in 22 years, I’m writing solely to write, not as a sideproject to promote a carnivorous plant business. Please pity me.
Another part of life around here that was only starting when the gallery closed is Parker. If you missed the fun, right bout the time I’d become comfortable with the idea that I’d probably never have a cat again (this being the longest I’d gone without a cat in my life since 1988, when my late cats Jones and White-Ears were dumped as kittens at a Goodwill truck near my apartment), I was waiting for a client at the old gallery one Sunday in October 2022 when mayhem ensued. The mayhem was a lynx-point Siamese who walked up to me and claimed me right then, and whom I adopted after a thorough search for his original home. His name is “Parker” because as soon as the alarm clock goes off in the morning, he’s on the bed wanting to discuss the bonus situation, but considering his prodigious escape skills from both the house and the back yard, I really should have named him “Number Six.” This is completely separate from his derisive nickname “the Lint-Covered Breast Implant”: several friends have worried about what this nickname says about my dating life, but the real horror lies with the true story, a tale from my high school years. Yes, it’s that bad, and Parker knows he’s being insulted, but until he starts paying his share of the rent, he has to put up with it.
(As for his paying rent, Parker has become quite the sensation on Facebook and Bluesky, to the point where his fan base half-jokes about setting up an OnlyFans with nothing but pictures and video of him. Instead, should you choose to subscribe, Fridays are going to be Mandatory Parker days, with photos and video going straight to your email box. Yes, the internet is full of cat photos, but Parker is special, especially when he’s stropping his fangs on my forearm. The little monster plays rough.)
Speaking of medical issues, the real fun hit last October. I was preparing to make a trip to Michigan for my maternal grandmother’s 100th birthday (true, she’s been dead for 21 years, but she would have enjoyed the party anyway, and if anyone could figure out a way to visit the mortal plane for a time after conquering Hell and making it her kingdom, it would be my grandmother) when a bit of intestinal upset started and wouldn’t quite leave. Well, after a day, it did, to the point where I figured that it was just indigestion, but several nurse and nurse practitioner friends insisted that I get it checked out, so I grabbed reading material and went over to the local ER for a trip on the grease rack and a change of plugs and points. Four hours of waiting later, after a quick run through the hospital CT scanner, the discomfort suddenly shifted from “Taco Bell Mild” to “Does this wolverine belong to someone, or am I stuck with it?”, requiring reservation of an examination room and judicious application of morphine until an operating theater opened up. (Friendly note for friends and cohorts: between a lifetime aversion to needles and a general loathing of all natural and synthetic opiates, to the point of going cold turkey a week after rotator cuff surgery in 1994, should you hear of my dying of an opiate overdose, it was murder.) The diagnosis: appendicitis. Before being put under by the kind and thorough anesthesiologist, I asked the resident surgeon if he could take photos of the actual surgery, and was told that there wouldn’t be much to see because it would be a laparoscopic incision. In, out, remove the offending vestigial organ, and send me back to the Day Job in a day or two. No problem, right?
Ah, my body had other ideas. Not only was my appendix already nearly twice the length of a typical human appendix, to the point where I had to ask if I was a werekoala or something, but I’d spent a lifetime shoving it so full of fiber and assorted nuts and bolts that it burst shortly after getting out of the CT scanner. I still have the laparoscopic incision along with a big one across my abdomen that bisects my navel, the former being abandoned when entering the abdominal cavity apparently made me impersonate a tube of Go-Gurt. Worse, the resultant fecal explosion (there’s something about a surgery report that includes the words “poop grenade” to describe the mess) led to several abscesses along my small intestine, requiring pulling everything out, hosing it down, and putting it back. By the time I regained consciousness, as I was being put into a hospital bed and checked for bed circulation and fit of my catheter, I was a royal mess, but if I’d waited until I was unable to drive myself to the hospital, this newsletter would most likely be transcribed by Ouija board, and having one of the best lower abdominal surgeons in the United States contributed extensively to my survival. As it was, recovery meant nine days in a hospital room until I could walk and use the toilet again, with another month of bed recovery before I could return to the Day Job. Now, seven months later, I’ve made a full recovery, even down to the thick keloid scar on my abdomen considerably softened thanks to a regular regimen of abdominal crunches every evening and morning, but it was rather touch-and-go. I spent my grandmother’s centenary taking care of trick-or-treaters on my own front porch, but there’s always next year.
But back to the subject at hand. And what IS The Annals of St. Remedius? It’s something rolling around among the squirmy things since about 2010, combining modernizing secret societies, the realities of paranormal investigation if the phenomena being studied actually existed, the repercussions of the Silurian hypothesis, and the problems with derelict Dyson swarms. Oh, and a great opportunity to savage a number of tropes in 2010s/2020s fiction (books, television, and movies) that really need to be punted into the sun. Add spice from a third of a century of exposure to David Lee Ingersoll, and we’re just getting started. Expect new installments of the St. Remedius backstory (we start with the ending, and everything else is running backwards to get there) every Monday, and backgrounds on the main characters and situations very soon. Subscriptions, either free or paid, aren’t necessary, but they’re definitely appreciated, nd the plan is to be done with the main story in about four years. Of course, with all of the sub-situations herein, it may be going on for a lot longer, and it all depends upon what the squirmy things want. And so it goes.
Essential Reading
Hints as to what to expect with the St. Remedius project:
Lemuria: A True Story of a Fake Place by Justin McHenry (Feral House, 2024)
Best. Movie. Year. EVER. by Brian Raftery (Simon & Schuster, 2024)
HR Giger, 40th Edition (Taschen collection)
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
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