Things you find when you're packing.
Jun. 8th, 2003 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivka1. The hospital bill from my hip replacement. Not counting the bills from the surgeon and the anesthetist, which were sent separately, it came to $20,055.30, of which I was obliged to pay $593.09 myself. I find that in 1997 a single morphine injection cost $42.39, which seems high given the street price of heroin. Operating room time cost $14.50 per minute after an initial base charge of $688.50. My artificial hip itself was billed in several pieces - the stem cost $4,375, the head $711, and the acetabular cup $1,875. The whole melange was held together with screws ranging in price from $135-$405. I was also charged for three "space suit sterile view gowns," which at $275.25 were each nearly as expensive as my wedding dress ($315). Fascinating.
2. A Lesbian Avengers flyer, written by me. It's protesting a bill that would have made it illegal for an unmarried woman to be artificially inseminated. Excerpt: "The only thing Kevin Mannix's bill accomplishes is to make it illegal to have a baby without first having sex with a man. Having a baby is a very private thing. How a woman gets pregnant is none of Kevin's business. Why is it so important to Kevin that would-be mothers have sex with men? Kevin Mannix: He's not pro-family, he's pro-penis." Okay, I know, but give me a break. I was only twenty.
3. My first love letter from Michael. He left it on the table in my apartment after he'd been up to visit me for a week. I'm not quoting from this one, but reading it still brings tears of joy to my eyes.
4. The menu for our wedding. I remember nothing about the food, except that I kept taking one bite of cake and putting the piece down, and then the next time I looked it would be gone. I see that we had smoked salmon, grilled brie on pesto, cold poached shrimp, fresh melon and berries, spicy Duxelle meatballs, petite quiches, seafood stuffed mushrooms, and cake. Okay. I hope it was good.
5. A picture of my ex, Lane. She'd dramatically asked for all my pictures of her back, so I thought I didn't have any anymore. Finding this one was a bit of a shock. It's a great picture - we were on the teacups at Disneyland, and she's grinning madly and her hair is flying all over the place. I don't want to keep it, though. I gave it to Michael and he threw it away for me.
6. My personal suicide note from Hilary. Hilary was my girlfriend when I was nineteen. She left a general suicide note to the world, but she also wrote some personal letters. The note's paper-clipped in to the journal I was keeping at the time. The day before she died, I had just started my journal up again after a gap of several months, and I wrote, "Hilary just called, really depressed. She says transitions are hard for her." I'm not going to quote from the suicide note either. I'll just say that it was loving.
I don't know what makes me save some things. The momentous stuff, sure. But why do I still have address labels for my last apartment in Iowa?
2. A Lesbian Avengers flyer, written by me. It's protesting a bill that would have made it illegal for an unmarried woman to be artificially inseminated. Excerpt: "The only thing Kevin Mannix's bill accomplishes is to make it illegal to have a baby without first having sex with a man. Having a baby is a very private thing. How a woman gets pregnant is none of Kevin's business. Why is it so important to Kevin that would-be mothers have sex with men? Kevin Mannix: He's not pro-family, he's pro-penis." Okay, I know, but give me a break. I was only twenty.
3. My first love letter from Michael. He left it on the table in my apartment after he'd been up to visit me for a week. I'm not quoting from this one, but reading it still brings tears of joy to my eyes.
4. The menu for our wedding. I remember nothing about the food, except that I kept taking one bite of cake and putting the piece down, and then the next time I looked it would be gone. I see that we had smoked salmon, grilled brie on pesto, cold poached shrimp, fresh melon and berries, spicy Duxelle meatballs, petite quiches, seafood stuffed mushrooms, and cake. Okay. I hope it was good.
5. A picture of my ex, Lane. She'd dramatically asked for all my pictures of her back, so I thought I didn't have any anymore. Finding this one was a bit of a shock. It's a great picture - we were on the teacups at Disneyland, and she's grinning madly and her hair is flying all over the place. I don't want to keep it, though. I gave it to Michael and he threw it away for me.
6. My personal suicide note from Hilary. Hilary was my girlfriend when I was nineteen. She left a general suicide note to the world, but she also wrote some personal letters. The note's paper-clipped in to the journal I was keeping at the time. The day before she died, I had just started my journal up again after a gap of several months, and I wrote, "Hilary just called, really depressed. She says transitions are hard for her." I'm not going to quote from the suicide note either. I'll just say that it was loving.
I don't know what makes me save some things. The momentous stuff, sure. But why do I still have address labels for my last apartment in Iowa?
