6.21.2005

The Ennui Hour

Ever since I returned from Portland, I've had a debilitating case of ennui. Coupled with the flu, it's allowed me to stare out of windows for hours on end, thinking and sighing. I lay awake at night, blinking, smiling softly, thinking some more, scowling, and sighing. I thought going back to work might help, but I'm a scattered, spacey mess. I've been unexpectedly rattled to the core, and I know I'm not the only one.

I called Ted to see if his own ennui had subsided, and he claimed that it had, if anything, gotten worse. I hypothesized that at work, the presence of ennui adds one hour to every hour, making your 8-hour-long workday seem like a brutal 16.

During one of my extra ennui hours, my co-worker and I came up with a new project involving ICD-9 codes. ICD-9 codes are basically diagnosis codes, and there are millions of them. They range from 783.9 = hematuria, to 795.4 = spider bite, to 988.3 = self inflicted paintball wound. I kid you not. Almost anything can be a diagnosis, and every diagnosis has a code.

She was going through the codes, picking out some of our most common ones and adding them to the computer system, when we came across an interesting one, "zoophilia." "What's that?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said.

"Look it up on the internet," I whispered. The Internet is generally a no-no, but I figured it was for job-related informative purposes, so why not? She typed it into Google and clicked on the first site listed.

As the words "ANIMAL SEX" appeared on the screen, along with a naked woman holding a dog, we gasped. Zoophilia, apparently, is humans having sexual relations with animals.

Now that's a diagnosis.

2 comments:

Derek said...

I miss you. By the way did you leave your round hairbrush for me as a hint to brush my hair, or are you just moving in with me one piece at a time. In any case I haven't touched it nor the flowers you left on my kitchen table, though they have begun to mold it their unchanged water, I feel that if I leave these artifacts just as you left them it will seem as if you haven't left and at any moment you will walk over and fuss with them yourself. But alas, sigh...

Crystal said...

Oh pols-I keep expecting to run into you on the street or something. I seriously feel something is missing since you and Ted left our fair city. Keep those diagnoses coming, there must be on for our condition!