Last night I had a sensation in my chest that was identical to one that sent me to the Emergency Room a couple of years back. Then as (most likely) now, electrocardiogram was normal. Nevertheless, they referred me to a cardiologist, who recommended a CT scan with contrast, which the insurance company denied, and we appealed to no avail, so they gave me a “nuclear stress test” instead, which disclosed that my heart’s “profusion”–blood-pumping action–was on the high end of the Normal range, and so they pronounced me Normal. That didn’t reassure me any too much, because “normal” people with a history of cardiac disease in their families (my dad died in 1983 at the age of 49 from “massive myocardial infarction”) are walking time bombs, despite all efforts at weight control (I’m a whopping 218 pounds now, or, to be euphemistic, “less than a hundred kilos”) and avoidance of contraindicated activity such as smoking (I don’t smoke, but sometimes succumb to the Gamblin’ Fool urge, and hang out in one of the local casinos, where smoking is not only permitted, but with the ubiquitous ashtrays, encouraged) and healthy diet (I am eating more yogurt and using more olive oil lately). So every day is a blessing, and every sign that all will be taken from me in a non-heartbeat is a curse. And last night I was Accursed.

What to do? Distraction to the rescue! I set myself a challenge at the stroke of 10:15: go from Blank Card to Completed Acrostic Poem with Image as FAST AS POSSIBLE. And when I finished, including signature and date, I looked at my watch and it said 10:35. And my chest had quieted down.

The above card, therefore, and to be the Drama Queen I undeniably am, May Well Have Saved My Life. That’s my Spin and I’m sticking to it.

And–the poetry is pretty darn good for so few words, and the image illustrates the poem serviceably, if not all that eye-pleasingly. Two people, one a stereotypical Busty Blonde and the other a stereotypical Busty-Blonde-Ogler, are both wearing X-Ray Spex, a novelty item which through light diffraction gives the illusion that the viewer can see through things, especially clothing. Both are dismayed that their Spex do not actually let them see through things, and they feel as if they have been suckered. Meanwhile tanks (and I had to rely on my memory as a 6th-grader sketching a tank from a big, thick book entitled Weapons, which I had to get special permission from Mrs. Bailey to check out) rumble in the background.

It’s a fairly nifty synopsis of the toxic absurdity that passes for Current Events today, what with all the saber-rattling and distraction and fakeness and accusation of fakeness–almost Biblical in the “wars, and rumors of wars” aspect–whoops, Friends, that’s the Drama Queen talking again…

…or is it? Faced with a personal crisis, my “distraction” seems to have been a focus on a more dire, impersonal, global crisis. I may be a Drama Queen, but the Bureau of Atomic Scientists DID quite recently move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” one minute closer to midnight.

“Courage is our greatest present need,” my friends.

Next Echo

Now a ROBIN may be Thicke
Entertain with Vid or Pic
X-RAY SPEX were full of Pooh
Tanks & Silicone are too