IN WHICH OUR VICTORIAN LADY TAKES OPIATES, BUT DOES NOT WEAR A FRILLY WHITE NIGHTGOWN
Just a belated note for those of you who do not yet know: after surgery I was taking prodigious amounts of an opiate called Oxycodone for head-aches and also some Steroids to keep swelling down ( Decamethezone—which I kept calling Death-mexizone on accident). The opiate thing is funny to me, in a very nerdy sort of way, because nineteenth-century art often shows ladies in frilly white night dresses passed out cold with a bottle of laudanum (a liquid opiate) on the bedside table. I wrote about it in my thesis actually. Opiates are known for their ability to give insane and brightly-colored dreams. I would like to say I had these, just for interest’s sake, but I believe the steroids counteracted this considerably. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to physically beef up like a Russian or East German Olympian either.
It occurs to me much later that I should have referenced Alice in Wonderland when mentioning drugs in the 19th century. Blue caterpillars that smoke a large hookah? How about a bottle of some unknown liquid that make a girl's size change according to circumstance, swelling large one moment and then shrinking small the next? Could it have something to do with laudunum?
ReplyDelete“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do, and if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn 'em. 'cause you know the musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrrrrrrrreal f**in high on drugs.” ~James Maynard Keenan (Member of the band Tool)
ReplyDelete