I like to stare at cake.

When I had an accident last week and it first became clear that my intended summer of climbing super awesome rocks in ways that made me super strong and awesome had suddenly and unpleasantly morphed into a summer of laying on a lawn chair in terrible pain, friends told me encouraging things like listing all the "fun" and "awesome" things I could do in a lawn chair.

Learn to play guitar! Improve my Italian! Get a head start on data analysis for my thesis! Knit a sweater! (err... maybe start with a scarf) Read all the books I've always wanted to read! Write emails to all my friends!

Unfortunately, the terrible pain portion of the equation was solved by the ER doctors with a prescription for percaset. (how do you SPELL that word?) This is how percocet works:

Hour 1: Pain gradually begins to ease....ahhhhhh.
Hour 2: "1-2 drinks phase" I become outgoing and super chatty. Everything is funny.
Hour 3: "3-5 drinks phase" I become dizzy and disoriented and should not be allowed near stairs by myself.
Hour 4: "6 or more drinks phase" My eyes unfocus, arms go limp, and I begin to drool.
Hour 6: "morning after phase" I gradually regain some semblance of lucidity, which lasts for roughly 20 minutes before the pain returns and I am useless for a different reason. Now it's time for the next dose!

It should be clear that under these conditions I will not be learning any fun new lawn chair skills anytime soon. Nowhere in that schedule is there time for so much as a sequence of rational thoughts. That 20 minutes of lucidity is wisely used for important things like peeing and eating.

I was particularly disturbed to discover that even movies were out of the question. Eric came over to make me an awesome dinner, which involved several different things from different food groups and was way nicer than even the dinners I usually made for myself pre-accident. Post-accident, the closest I came to a balanced meal by myself was when I found an unopened Snickers bar in my backpack. We then sat down to watch a movie, which seemed like an activity that should be within my power.

We watched "Batman Begins". I couldn't follow it. People, I have SEEN this movie before! I love Batman! Plus, you would think that you wouldn't really need to follow the plot and could enjoy it on a simpler "action movie" level. But these are some of the thoughts that went through my head:

"Who is that guy?"
"Wait, are they in a different country now?"
"Why are they being so MEAN to each other????"
"Did that guy change his clothes or is this a different guy? Change his clothes, and his face?"
....
"Why am I in this house, do I even LIVE here?"
"...oh hey, there's ERIC! I know Eric! Haha, I must be in the right house. I know that guy."
"Oh hey, there's a movie!"
...
"Who IS that guy?"

The next day, I tried watching some episodes of the Office. This is my standard go-to 20 minute entertainment. I love this show, have seen every episode at least twice, and it is brief and uncomplicated. Nope, couldn't handle it.

Then while searching the offerings of Netflix Watch Instantly I stumbled onto "Cake Boss". I loved it. Watched like 12 episodes in a row in a pleasant stupor. I'm not proud of this. It is a reality show about a bakery, and they make crazy cakes. Like, people will be like "I want a to-scale model of the statue of liberty, made out of cake! Except PURPLE!" and then they make it. Out of cake! Or, people will be like "I want a penis cake for my bachelorette party!" and the baker's mom is like "NO PENISES! We are a nice moral bakery!" and so the baker is like "No worries, I will make a SECRET penis cake!" and hijinx ensue. Or someone drops a cake on the floor, and everybody is sad.

I think the appeal was in the pretty colors, yummy-looking cakes, and complete lack of plot. I lay there in a drug-induced semi-coma and thought "those colors are nice, and that cake looks yummy" without any unreasonable demands made of my cerebral cortex to keep track of what had happened 10 seconds prior in order to enjoy the current 10 seconds to the fullest. I feel like I finally understand the mental level required to truly enjoy reality shows. I'm sorry if that offends anyone, it's knowledge that will always slightly disturb me to have so maybe we are even.

My description of my mental capabilities may cause you to be suspicious of my authorship of this blog. (or not, I don't know, it's not like a great blog. But I do think I am putting all the words in some sort of order, so that's good) This is because I am on new and better medicine now and also why I am writing about things from 10 days ago. But even now, with my brain more or less under control, I think I shall always have a nostalgic soft spot for Cake Boss.