I failed Geek Summer. Plain and simple. I knew that I would get depressed with my wisdom teeth removal, and I did. I've spent most of July and August just trying to recover. I have not completed any of my ambitious goals. Therefore, Geek Summer will expand into Geek Fall and Geek Winter and Geek Spring until I feel satisfied in my survey of geek culture.
A few weeks ago I watched Wrath of Khan. It's hard to write a comprehensive post when I'm writing several weeks later. Khan's white hair threw me off, but he was a (Hispanic, not Sikh) baddie. Unfortunately, a baddie who led to the death of Spock. Unacceptable. I cried like a baby that night. I watched Search for Spock immediately the next day unable to cope with the loss, and I was given a chance to breathe finally when Spock recognized his old friend Jim Kirk. Both movies were gut-wrenching and exciting, and not only because of Spock but because of every character. They all excelled. Every actor did an amazing job, though I wish I saw more from my queen, Uhura. I'm not sure how I feel about Saavik. The character didn't seem to be given enough screentime to develop between these two films and I hope that gets resolved whenever I decide to watch the others. For now, I am catching up with the series which I love so dearly.
I began watching Mr. Wizard's World recently. For those who don't know The Big Bang Theory lore, Sheldon and Leonard both grew up watching a fictional show called "Professor Proton," a show about a scientist who taught kids science experiments they could do at home, who was known to be boring and monotone to the non-science-freaks. I found out that "Professor Proton" was based on a real show that ran in the 80's, Mr. Wizard's World. This was not Don Herbert's ("Mr. Wizard") first show, but it seems to have been the most popular and the only one still widely available. In this show, there are a regular cast of kids who work with Herbert on the science, usually physics, experiments and he treats it more as a teacher would a lesson than a television host would a show. He is very monotone and concise, not trying to fill space at all or really even hook attention. There are some cutaways with classic 1980's children's science illustrations, where he does a voice-over with a fun fact or pop quiz that cannot be demonstrated through an experiment as with the regular content of the show. Besides this, scenes cut directly from one to another. No loud noises, bright colors, or any feature you would expect from a kid's show. I like it. It is available for free on Pluto.
I started this blog in June with the plan to document my summer as I traversed through classic "Geek" media, and I had a plan defined in my own notes. I even intended to spend my recovery time from my wisdom tooth removal to consume even more content than I could on a healthy day. If you'll notice this blog is extremely sparse since I had that surgery. If you follow my story on Instagram, you'll have seen my recent post about becoming aware during the surgery. In that situation, I had not been given full general anesthesia but rather IV sedation. Whether by design with the medication, or by coincidence, or by the fact I may have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (which I had been saying for months may affect my experience with anesthesia or sedatives, but no medical professional wanted to listen) I became briefly conscious during the procedure. I'll try to describe the experience for you here:
When the medication was started, I fell asleep quickly. I don't think the oral surgeon had even finished talking to me. What felt like only a few seconds later, I regained consciousness. I could not move, not even to open my eyes. I could however hear and feel. I could hear the machines, some scraping sort of noise, and talking though I could not make out what was said. As for feeling, I could feel my mouth being held open, and extreme pressure in my lower left jaw where I assume they were working at the time I became conscious. Similar too being poked and prodded harshly. My first thought was just that I knew this would happen. I had told them I had concerns about it happening at my consultation and the day of. My second thought was panic, as I realized I had no way to communicate this to anyone in the room. I assume some paralytic was mixed in with the sedative that caused this, but let me tell you: it is absolutely horrifying to be awake and unable to move. This lasted only a few minutes before I fell out of consciousness again. It was still enough to haunt my dreams.
Moving on, throughout recovery I was unable to focus on anything for any length of time the first 48 hours. I was awake for only a few hours at a time, if that. I could not eat anything of value for almost the first two full weeks. What I could eat made me feel sick, exacerbated by the fact that one of my stitches had partially dissolved and started hanging in my mouth in such a way that my tongue pulled at it every time I swallowed which made me feel like I was about to throw up. Even after it finally fell out, I couldn't stomach any of the foods that were safe for me to eat anymore. I spent those two weeks on less than 500 calories. It took me another week, almost two, after all extraction sites had healed just to relearn how to eat and use those muscles again. Absolutely all motivation that I had to do any activities or even just leave my house was gone. Energy was hard to come by for a while even after I could fully eat. And now I've lost the inertia.
Somehow, I managed to gain about fifteen pounds very rapidly during that time that I was hardly eating. This could be explained by fluid retention, but it hasn't gone down yet. I don't necessarily have any issue with this, except for the fact that my entire wardrobe practically has to be rebuilt. I've had so many of these pieces for years at this point, and it's hard to accept that they just do not fit anymore. I'm keeping a few for material, donating most, and thrifting most replacements. I'm worried about my wool winter skirts that are currently in my attic, if I don't lose any weight between now and the cold season, we're looking at roughly $250 in replacements, and they will have to be replaced with me now having to walk several blocks outdoors daily. Beyond that, just I have so many clothes to replace. I haven't had a thrift haul over $40 in years, and this Saturday I spent $80 with a sale because that's just how bad my available clothing options have gotten.
0/10 I failed Geek Summer.
As one of your elder geek cousins, there IS no failure in this venture, only delays. Sometimes life gets in the way of discovering these things, but it NEVER ends them.
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