don't_call_the_fucking_ambulance epitome of incomprehensibility ...Following jesus_fucking, I've been badly influenced by raze to pepper swear words throughout blathe titles. No, but I saw that remembrance_day was linked and that reminded me of the incident I hadn't written about two years ago: November 11, 2021. It started with me at a clinic near Concordia getting a flu shot. Nervous, I tried to focus on Mark Hale's book, to parse one of his diagrams representing language change. But the flu shot wasn't as stressful as what happened after. I came out of the building, oriented myself, and headed towards the tutoring centre where I'd be doing some admin work. But next to the drugstore, a young woman was sitting on the ground, asleep. She was leaning against something, I forget what, but what alarmed me was the way one of her hands was dangling, a cigarette still hanging from her fingers. I worried she had lost consciousness suddenly, worried more when another woman and I tried to wake her up and all we got were faint grunts. It wasn't as cold as it was this Nov. 11, but it was cold enough for that to worry me too. I think I called my dad first. Then I called 911, noticing how, after I dialed, the cell phone showed an exclamation mark or some sort of special graphic to mark it as an emergency number. That jolted my nervousness back to the foreground, even though my logical mind told me the emergency wasn't mine - even though I was able to sum up the situation and location quickly enough. But then the sitting woman woke up fully and, at first, got mad. "What are you doing? I was waiting for my prescription. I was just taking a nap." She turned to me. I noticed she had blond hair and she wasn't as young as I thought. Not that old either - probably my age. "Are you calling the ambulance? Don't call the fucking ambulance!!" But when the other woman talked to her, she calmed down. That woman offered her a sandwich besides having an enviable calmness and understandingness to her voice. I don't know who she was, but I was glad she was there. The sitting woman got up, sighed out something like, "I'm sorry, I know you're trying to help." She still seemed a little groggy, so I thought she'd had some kind of drug, but not enough to put her in immediate danger. So I called the 911 number back to cancel the ambulance. The people on the line were professional - they didn't seem fazed by either my report of an unconscious person or my report of a probably okay one. And so, seeing things were taking care of, I resumed my way to the tutoring centre. The woman also had a guitar. I don't know why I should particularly want to protect an owner of a guitar, but I think that was in my mind too. 231112 ... kerry i have had to say this to people before, knowing that the natural reaction is to call an ambulance, because people aren't supposed to move and sound the way they do during a tonic clonic seizure. i was having tea with mary kathryn in jackie's parents' house because she was taking care of their cat who never emerged from beneath the bed or couch. i melted off my chair and onto the ground, woke up on my back face to face with a fireman asking me my name. he could've been a model. it felt like a dream. at the hospital they put me on an IV drip and asked if i'd had seizures before. yes, many times. blank faces--well, i guess you can go home. when the bills came--one from the ambulance company, another from the hospital--i didn't tell mary kathryn. i knew she'd feel guilty. i didn't want to imply she owed me $1200. one evening a few years later, i was working at the dispensary, opening a jar of indica for a customer. he was a regular. probably only a couple years older than me but prematurely balding, kind, a lingerer. i don't know what prompted it but suddenly my ears were full of static, rushing noise, my head was floating above my body, and i said i had to excuse myself, wait just a moment, but i didn't make it to the back room. i woke up on the floor again, on a rubber mat. my manager, diana, was usually red-faced but this time her cheeks were purple. she was practically hysterical. lane was leaning against the bakery case, watching over me. i pulled myself into a seated position and waited for the aphasia to end, for my mouth to be able to make sounds and form words, i gestured at him and he nodded as if to say, don't worry. they closed the bud room, put me on a chair with a cup of water and the ambulance came. i told them no. i had to say it several times; it was still hard to speak. the EMTs had me sign some form saying essentially that if i died it was my own fault, they'd done what they could. alex picked me up in the old white buick, asked me what i needed. ice cream, he said, and soon we were drifting through fluorescent aisles in fred meyer. (i kind of miss fred meyer--you can buy anything there.) on the way to self checkout i looked down and noticed the drool crusted like a bib on the front of my sweatshirt. i couldn't do anything besides laugh. so now, that's one of the first things i say when i'm telling people what to do if i have a seizure. don't call the fucking ambulance! if you do, i'll send you the bill. 231113 ... raze my dad got this job stacking fifty-pound concrete blocks. not with a machine. with his hands. i don't know how many years ago now. i want to say five. on his second day, he sat down in the empty off-site lunchroom and the world turned white. all he could see was a thin slit that sliced through the absence of everything. a horizontal line that let him know he wasn't blind. he had to walk to the parking lot, find his car, drive through a maze of lime and clay, and make it to the punch clock so he could get paid for the hours he'd worked. he knew he wouldn't be coming back the next day. he staggered into the factory and did his business. i don't know how. he sat down at a picnic table. he hung his head. breathing heavy. sweating all over the place. most of his coworkers ignored him. one guy laughed. he thought it was funny how he was all fucked up. someone gave him a can of five alive. he took one sip and felt like he was going to throw up. the only person who talked to him was his foreman. his name was darren. he helped my dad call me. he couldn't see the numbers on his phone. i'd never heard him sound like that. i thought he had a heart_attack. i thought he was dying. darren drove him home. we had to help him out of the car and up the front steps. his skin was clammy and cold. he couldn't say much more than, "i'll be all right," until darren said we should get him to the hospital. "this is crazy, john," he said. "let me call an ambulance." "no," my dad slurred. "no fucking ambulance." he stomped to his room, knocking a plastic guitar humidifier off a ridge that reached out of the wall like a fingerless hand, and let his body fall into bed. "i know your dad's stubborn," darren told me. "but you watch him like a hawk. the second he seems to be taking a bad turn, you call an ambulance. even if he tells you not to." i thanked him. he left. i poured my dad something to drink in a green sippy cup. the same one i trusted to pump ginger ale into my guts when i was a kid with the flu. i tried to massage his leg when he started cramping. i put a cold washcloth on his head. i figured he was dehydrated. he needed fluids and rest. every time his eyelids fluttered, i wanted to make that call. but his breathing didn't change. he didn't lose consciousness. and after a while, he started to seem a little better. i thought the washcloth kind of looked like a bandana. something about the way i folded it. "you look like a bedridden rambo," i said. he launched into a half-remembered monologue from "first blood". "it's not my fucking war! i didn't ask for this! you don't just turn it off!" that was when i knew he was going to be okay. 231114 what's it to you? who go blather from