SO about the surgery date. . .

On Monday I had my pre-surgery appointment.
It was magical, they drew blood. poked at my stomach, took medical history.  They also drew a lovely black spot on my tum. They then covered it with a weird medical tape and told me if the tape falls off and it starts to fade, that I need to draw over top of it.

They also informed me that my surgery has moved.  Instead of it being next Friday, it's now on Tuesday.  Which means I am really running out of time.  I had planned for a leisurely weekend full of gluttony, alcoholism and general debauchery. Followed by a couple days of recovery, and then the last meal, and then surgery.

Now it is all fucked up, because they needed my slot for someone else*. It's not like I'm calling a restaurant for a last minute reservation, I booked this shit back in February.  My wonderful room mate has agreed to run around buying stuff for me, provided that I make a list**.

I need to figure out what the last solid food to go through my colon is. If I'm lucky I'll have an epiphany in a drunken haze and figured out what it will be#*.


*With that said it is for a cancer patient, but I need to assume that there are other patients who aren't as prepared as me.
** I cant make lists, I blank out every morning when I buy my standard breakfast of poptarts milk and cigarettes and the variety store#.
#Because I care about nutrition
#*As opposed to the last time I was in a drunken haze a long time ago^ and had a conversation with my mother, she called the following week and I had no recollection of the conversation ever taking place.
^By "a long time ago" I mean last week.

Good Night Sweet Prince

For the remainder of this post, please play the song "The Final Countdown" by Europe

So the date has been set.  June 24th 2011.  I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand it was inevitable, I've know it was coming for some time now.  But it was always sometime in the future, it was intangible, but now it's defined.  The there is a definitive point in my life where I will no longer have a colon.

In addition to searching for my colon's "last meal", I plan on eating en masse, not particularly mass amounts of food, but with friends, large groups of them. Food by itself is just something to eat, to doesn't become a meal unless you enjoy it with others***.

Last Saturday I was at a bar with a couple of friends, and after I told them the date one of them said something along the lines of "There it is, you have five months of feasting".  As I write this* I'm currently sitting in an airport lounge drinking free alcohol and eating mediocre food.** And it's true there is five months left for my colon to experience all that it can.

*I had planned on writing this post a couple of days ago, when it would have actually been 5 months of feasting, but technical difficulties have plagued my connection, i think it's my router.
**While technically not free, I paid $30 to get in, I have 3 hours to kill as my flight to England was delayed, I figured it's either pay a lot of money for okay food, or pay slightly more for okay food and an open bar#.
***By "enjoy it with others" I mean a massive party which will be considered a failure unless some get alcohol poisoning. Everyone is in invited##
#I know for a fact I can drink $30 in 3 hours.
## Everyone except Scott+ (that guys' a dick)
+ Specifically Scott Campbell of Mississauga^
^A group of us were at the Artful Dodger@ for my birthday party 4 years ago, while I was out smoking that asshole made some racists comments, almost got into a fight, and then left leaving me with his bar tab.
@I really recommend the Artful Dodger as a location for a birthday gathering.

England!

I've been a little silent recently.  There have been major technological issue in my life, my faithful laptop may have died completely this time. it's been chugging along for over years and may have finally given up the ghost.  Then my router died, then my blackberry died. Both router and BB have since bee replaced, however I'm reduced to using my netbook, writing stuff was the reason that I bought it, but It was better when I was using it by choice.

Anyway.

In January I am off to England, specifically London.  Now this moderately ties in with this project due to the reason I am going, it's not my colon's last meal, but it ties in with the blog. I get to that later..

I was there once in 2003,and fell in love with the city.  Two things that always bring back strong and specific memories have been music and food, both very related topics. For me there are very specific memories triggered by tied to that trip. Some things trigger those memories and some memories trigger longing.  I spent an evening celebrating a mid-summer festival with a bunch of Swedish people drinking heavily and eating strawberries on the porch of the hostel I was staying at.  Whenever I hear the song Moving by Supergrass, I'm reminded this one night where one of the guys* staying at the hostel played the song over and over again as we sat drinking with a bunch of people. And every so often  think of how I would go to Marks and Spencer, buy a pint of milk, a bag of salt and pepper crisps and a roast chicken and stuffing sandwich, then find a park somewhere and eat lunch.  It was a good sandwich, not the best sandwich I have ever eaten**, but I would kill for one.  I've tried to recreate it, but it's never the same. Perhaps the location I was in made it taste different, maybe the fact it is completely inaccessible fuels the desire***.  It's hard to say, but if I get there and for whatever reason they are no longer selling them, I'm going to be super pissed.  I'll find a pub and drown my sorrows.

When I started this the first person that I wrote to was Isabel Monteiro of the band Drugstore.  I have long been a fan, and in my musical hierarchy they are in the second tier alongside Radiohead and The Magnetic Fields.  Below Tom Waits, but above Supergrass.

They are heading into the studio to record in January. I'll spare you the details, but for reasons unrelated to this blog or medical conditions, I get to spend  a day at the studio while they record the new album. And that is why I'm heading to London.

*That guy was named "Snoop", because he looked a little bit like the rapper Snoop Dogg, he lived at the hostel and made a living selling pot to American backpackers.

**For the record the best sandwich that I have ever eaten in my life (that I did not personally make), was in June of 2004 when I visited a friend in Kentucky. It is the sausage sub sold by the American east coast based sandwich chain Penn Station. 

***This is most likely the reason why whenever I get back into Canada after being away for  more than a week, I have an unholy desire to eat back bacon+ and consume maple walnut ice cream++.

+this is not entirely true I desire to eat back bacon on a fairly regular basis.

++ The only time I that ever eaten maple walnut ice cream (at least in the past decade) has been in the first 2 days in Canada after getting back from a trip#.

#Does any one know how to create proper footnotes using Blogger? I'm tried of using random symbols.

Gin Soaked Boy

I have yet to meet with the surgeon, and beyond Isabel, no one that I have written to has sent a response so I have no news on either front, however something is starting to set it.

Now aside from the obvious duty of the colon, it's secondary function is to reclaim water from food.  Now seeing as mine only partially works, I already get dehydrated a fair amount. Once it's gone the risk of dehydration is even higher.  The main cause of hangovers is dehydration.

Once I have the surgery I will no longer be able to drink heavily.  Now drinking is something I am good at, I always have been.  I don't drink daily or even weekly, but when I go out I like to have a few.  Shortly after being diagnosed,I found out (the hard way) that I am prone to hangovers. I've gotten hangovers while remaining completely lucid and sober the night before, it's the curse of having a high tolerance. (On vacation there was an occasion where I managed to open and close a bar, keep in mind the hours of operation were only from 9am to 6 pm, but I still did it (Cuba, 2007- Brisas Santa Lucia))

So in addition to providing my colon a last meal, I think I'm going to need to go on a some sort of drinking binge.  Not a multi-day bender (I am a semi-productive member of society after all), but a night to a remember that I probably won't.

Any suggestions as to what and/or where I should be drinking?  Keep in mind location really doesn't matter, if the suggestion is awesome, I'll try to make it happen (The sharing of drinking stories is encouraged)