Living with disease and novelists

Alright, trigeminal neuralgia isn't AIDS. You only die from this if you get an attack whilst driving or if you just fucking give up. I've now experienced the first, so I know you can hang on long enough to find a parking lot. After several weeks of trying it on, I also know that I can hold the beast at bay. I appear to be part of the lucky one-third who don't respond to medical treatment. Fine: I know what to expect now. I can live normally for seven or eight months a year, have a life that sucks for one or two months, and get on with drugs the rest of the time. It's better than the other ratio. Sooner or later, there's surgery.

This does put other conflicts into perspective.

I've been reading E.L. Doctorow's "The March" during the festivities. I once had a subject matter expert (consult your local technical writer for translation) who was a Georgian and who--although 20 years younger than me--could be counted on to bristle at the mention of the name "Sherman." I'm not entirely a Doctorow fan...too much bravura at times...but he carried this off quite well. The jury may be out. I should re-read it when I'm not on anti-convulsants, to see if I react the same way. He struck the essential chord, which is that the "march" (from Atlanta to the peace in 1865) had a life and essence of its own, separated from the previous existence of either side. The historian in me doesn't think he got Sherman quite right. He got the rest perfectly, or so it seems to a drugged mind.

According to a bit of wisdom sent me for New Years', in the 1960s, people dropped acid to make the world seem weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it seem normal. I take Tegretol to make living bearable, and E.L. Doctorow understandable.