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I should take a moment now to describe a body catastrophe that was fairly acknowledged to be the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, of my relationship with Jefferson: about a year ago, I was sitting at my kitchen table grading papers on various historical aspects of cartography, when I was overtaken by an abdominal pain so enormous, I dropped my pen, pushing the papers on the table out in front of me. They flew into a cloud, in what appeared to be a slow motion, finally dropping and spreading onto the floor. They breathed around, as if spreading wings, due to the window being open.
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I looked down at my stomach, noticing a deep brownish blemish in my crotch, bleeding through my denim. The seed I had not known was planted was then blooming out in a spectacular death-blossom, looking more and more eager and menacing as it spread down my legs.
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I ran to the bathroom, stripping off my pants to sit on the toilet, feeling a huge urge to pee, but that was not to be.
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What did come out was more blood, thick and clumpy. Enough of a loss that I felt the need to call an ambulance to take me to the emergency room, where I waited to be admitted to the hospital and put on a minor blood transfusion due to the loss.
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It did not feel like a loss to me, having not known I was in possession of it to begin with.
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We take our blood for granted, after all.___
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