Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Embarrassing moments: WHEW!

I thought the six previous posts would make for a fun little walk of shame through some moments from my youth that continue to haunt me for reasons both amusing and horrifying. But they seem to have been met with a roaring yawn by my readers—at least as far as the volume of comments suggests.

I am relieved, though, that my deepest, darkest source of embarrassment—the events in my Afro-American Literature class—generated little more than a “so what” from people. The realization has kept me perpetually upset with myself for 15 years, so it was nice to discover that perhaps I have been overanalyzing and overreacting all this time. (Me? Overreact? Alert the media!) In any case, it felt great to get this secret off my chest—and to learn that it was not the unspeakable shame I’ve been treating it as. Thanks for helping me discover that.

And I apologize for the weird construction in the last six posts. It thought writing them in the present tense would give the buildup more immediacy and the final embarrassing event more impact. But the stories kept needing backstories to establish the right context, and the whole experiment ended up being a mess of verb tenses. Sorry about that. I hope nobody got hurt.

IN OTHER NEWS, I had my exercise echocardiogram on Monday. And it was just like a picnic in the park—assuming the picnic is at the top of Mount Everest and you have exactly 21 minutes to get there. Best of all, once they get your heart levels up to the point where you taste blood in your throat and you are gasping for your very survival, they won’t let you breathe because they need your lungs to be as collapsed as possible so they can get a clear ultrasound image of your heart.

The cool part is that you get to see the images of your heart beating, and it’s both fascinating and profoundly moving. Seriously.

The coolest part, though, is when they tell you that there’s nothing wrong with your heart, and that the abnormality in your EKG—while not ideal—is well within the range of acceptable abnormalities, so don’t worry another moment about it and go forth and enjoy a full, healthy life.

At least that’s what they told me. :-)

6 comments:

trey said...

Great news about the stress tests. I appreciated your sharing the "moments." The world would be a better place if more people could do that. It never hurts me to be reminded, even viariously, that I'm part of the human condition. Verb tenses didn't bother me at all--once I figured out what was going on. Thanks for your writing. I always look forward to the next post.

Will said...

Way to go, Jake. Good news that your running and active life can go on unaffected.

just call me jeff said...

Sorry for being part of the silent majority of non-commenters, but I truly laughed my ass off at some of your precious moments. Well written!

Good news about your results. I suspect you'll be keeping us amused for a loooong time to come.

Tuna Girl said...

I didn't comment either, but I enjoyed your embarrassing stories. I guess it is just hard to find something to say in response other than, "I'm laughing at you!"

And I'm glad to hear about your heart.

Rick Aiello said...

Don't feel bad. I've posted some things that I thought were profound and wonderfully written as of late and they've been met with a resounding zero comments. Maybe we were just stunned to silence. I know I was. ;-)

Glad your heart thingy is OK. You had me worried there.

Cincy Diva said...

Glad to hear your heart is okay.
I tried to comment on your embarrasing moment but Blogger was acting up. I really didn't feel like you had anything to be embarrassed about on the Afro-American literature class. It was a subconcious thing and probably due more to your enjoyment of the class than any kind of racially motivated thing. Did the professor mention it to you? If so, he should be the embarrassed one for making you doubt yourself.