There There(17)

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I sit down and wait for my computer to come all the way on. I find that I’m rubbing my hands together and stop myself, put my hands in my lap. I look up at a picture I have taped on my wall. It’s Homer Simpson in front of a microwave wondering: Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot he himself couldn’t eat it? I think about the irresistible-force paradox. How there cannot be both an irresistible force and an immovable object in existence at once. But what is happening in my blocked, coiled, possibly knotted bowels? Could it be the working out of an ancient paradox? If shitting mysteriously stopped, then couldn’t seeing, hearing, breathing, do so in turn? No. It’s all the shitty food. Paradoxes don’t work out. They cancel out. I’m overthinking it. I want it too much.



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    Sometimes the internet can think with you, or even for you, lead you in mysterious ways to information you need and would never have thought to think of or research on your own. This is how I found out about bezoars. A bezoar is a mass found trapped in the gastrointestinal system, but when you search bezoar you’re led to The Picatrix. The Picatrix is a book of magic and astrology from the twelfth century originally written in Arabic and titled Ghāyat al-?akīm, meaning “The Goal of the Wise.” Bezoars have all kinds of uses in The Picatrix, one of which is to make talismans that aid in certain kinds of magic. I was able to find a PDF of the English translation of The Picatrix. When I scrolled down to an arbitrary place in the document, the word laxative caught my eye, and I read the following passage: “The Indians indicate that when the moon is at this position, they travel and use laxative medicines. Thus, you may use this as a principle in making a talisman for a traveler and his safety. Also, when the moon is at this position, a talisman can be made to create discord and animosity between spouses.” If I even remotely believed in any kind magic aside from the kind that led me to this very entry, and if I could somehow surgically remove the bezoar, I would make it into a talisman—granted the moon was in the corresponding position—and take care of my constipation while also possibly destroying my mom and Bill’s relationship.

    Bill’s not an asshole. If anything he goes out of his way to be nice, to make conversation with me. It’s the forced nature of it. That I have to decide whether to treat him well or not. This stranger. My mom and Bill met at a bar in downtown Oakland. My mom brought him home, let him return, again and again for the past two years, and I was forced to have to think about how or if I should like or not like the guy, get to know him or try to get rid of him. But then I struggle with resisting Bill because I don’t want to be some creepy man-baby jealous of my mom’s boyfriend because I want her all to myself. Bill’s a Lakota guy who grew up in Oakland. He’s over almost every night. Whenever he’s over I stay in my room. And I can neither shit nor not shit. So I hoard food and stay in my room, read about what I can do about this possible new phase of constipation, what I just found out on a constipation forum thread might be obstipation, which is severe, or complete, constipation. The end.

Forum member DefeKate Moss said that not shitting could kill you, and that she once had to have a tube stuck down her nose to have it sucked out. She said if you start feeling nauseous and have abdominal pain, you should go to the emergency room. I feel nauseous thinking about the idea of shitting out of my nose through a tube.

I type “the brain and constipation” and hit Enter. I click on several links, scroll through several pages. I read a lot and come away with nothing. This is how time skips. Links just lead to links that can lead you all the way back to the twelfth century. This is how it can all of a sudden be six in the morning, with my mom knocking on the door before she goes to work at the Indian Center—where she keeps trying to get me to apply for a job.

    “I know you’re still awake,” she says. “I can hear you clicking in there.”

Lately I’ve become a little obsessed with the brain. With trying to find explanations for everything as it relates to the brain and its parts. There’s almost too much information out there. The internet is like a brain trying to figure out a brain. I depend on the internet for recall now. There’s no reason to remember when it’s always just right there, like the way everyone used to know phone numbers by heart and now can’t even remember their own. Remembering itself is becoming old-fashioned.

The hippocampus is the part of the brain connected to memory, but I can’t remember exactly what that means. Is memory stored there, or is the hippocampus like the limbs of memory that reach into other parts of the brain, where it’s actually stored in little nodes or folds or pockets? And isn’t it always reaching? Bringing up memories, the past, without being asked? Typing in the search bar before I can even think to do it. Before I can think I am thinking with it.

I find out that the same neurotransmitter related to happiness and well-being supposedly has to do with your gastrointestinal system. There’s something wrong with my serotonin levels. I read about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which are antidepressants. Would I have to take antidepressants? Or would I have to reuptake them?



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I stand up and back away from the computer, put my head all the way back to stretch my neck. I try to calculate how long I’ve been at the computer, but when I shove a two-day-old piece of pizza in my mouth, my thoughts move toward what is happening to me in my brain while I eat. I chew and click another link. I read that the brain stem is the basis of consciousness, and that the tongue correlates with the brain stem almost directly, and so eating is the most direct path to getting the feeling that you’re alive. This feeling or thought is interrupted by a craving for Pepsi.