And so, 10 days or so after having a surgical procedure I still hesitate to describe bluntly, lest the few remaining readers of this blog barf and run screaming for the exits, it’s back to work.

I’m still, as Marsellus Wallace said, pretty far from OK, but I’m mending. The redness in my eye is gone (thanks, prednisone) although the pupil remains dilated (atropine eyedrops) and will for another few days. Still basically blind on that side, but I’m assured this will resolve itself. I’ve started driving again, gingerly — short hops only. I did a little freeway piece on Sunday in light traffic, but it was jarring enough that I’m putting that aside for a while. The depth perception I’m growing used to, but the blind side is still too dangerous for the sort of combat-driving conditions one can expect on a Detroit interstate.

But I’m hale and hearty enough that we threw a little dinner party Saturday, and I managed not to fall into the grill or anything. (I had a hell of a time getting my mascara wand back into the tube this morning, however.) So Monday I’m back at it. Which is today.

I’m still feeling a little giddy about being sprung from facedown life, frankly. The night of the day I was cleared to stand up, I went to bed early, swallowing two ibuprofen and a melatonin on the way. I slept like a corpse for eight hours and rose feeling 10 years younger, or maybe 15. Recovery, even from something minor like a cold, always gives you that ESCAPED AGAIN feeling of having beaten something, and you walk around grateful for everything from a warm breeze to a hot cup of coffee. I hope it lasts, although I know it won’t.

So a lot happened last week.

I’m amazed that so few media outlets, in their coverage of the Cleveland kidnapping cases, are failing to mention, or mentioning only obliquely, the case of Ariel Castro’s daughter, now serving a 25-year sentence in Indiana for attempting to slash the throat of her own 11-month-old daughter. As one of you noted in the comments last week, it seems there’s a long history of craziness in that clan, or maybe it’s just, in the trite phrase, a history of violence.

One of the movies I watched during my facedown recovery — or started to watch, but didn’t finish — was “Goon,” a comedy about a hockey enforcer. The decent cast did what they could, and it had promise, but like so many Apatow-influenced movie projects these days, failed to find its way. Funny is funny, but there’s only so much you can do with one punchout after another, and I abandoned it around the 30-minute mark. Reading about the late Derek Boogaard in the New York Times a year or so ago sort of spoiled hockey goons for me for good. His family is now suing the NHL, which will be an interesting case to watch.

Finally, enjoy: A video made for the bid to get Detroit selected as the next X Games venue. Very well-done in the usual manner, which is to say every rust stain is a brushstroke of paint on our ruined masterpiece of a city, etc. But inspiring in its own way:

So we’re back, we’re all back, and let’s see how the week goes, eh?

The surgery was surreal. I entered the outpatient center, was called back to the pre-op area, and the usual preparations began. A gown over my clothes, covers on my shoes and hair, an IV started. Monitors. Oxygen. As I’ve discovered at other points along this journey, I was the youngest person in the room by a long shot.

“I hope I don’t hurt your young skin,” the nurse fretted as she pierced the back of my hand. Young skin. That’s a new one.

Then the anesthesiologist dropped by and said he’d be putting me out for a while, and he did. I asked for the demi-Michael Jackson, he chuckled, and the next thing I knew, I was awakening in a warm cloud of opiates.

“Is it over?” I asked.

“The numbing is,” the nurse said. They’d put me all the way down so that two shots could be administered above and below the eye, but the surgery was still ahead. And for that, I’d be awake, although the anesthesiologist would be on hand “to take the edge off, but only if you need it.”

And then they were wheeling me back. “Fentanyl, please!” I called out to the room. No, none of that. “Then pour me another Michael Jackson,” I said. Nope. “You’ll be fine,” someone said. The surgeon said, “No more talking” as he laid the drape over my face and the world went black.

But I was awake. I heard the machinery beeping, a computerized voice announcing numbers. The procedure started — pressure here and there, but no pain at all. No anxiety. I could feel my shoulders were tense, so I told myself, relax your shoulders. I did. The doctor began to whistle. The nurse said, “Are you playing any golf this week, doctor?” He said maybe, and they chatted about teaching the game to their children.

This must be good news, I remember thinking. Golf is better than “oops,” anyway.

And here’s the thing: I could see the needles. I couldn’t see-see them, but their shape, their movement within the eye, was quite visible. There were two. They appeared as shadows on shadows, and I was totally calm, able to think, those are the needles in my eye and not FLIP RIGHT OUT. It must have been the drugs.

And then it was over, the dressing was taped on, and they wheeled me to a post-op cubicle. The monitors and IV were removed, the gown and other stuff taken off, and up we go. I was sitting next to Alan in recovery probably five minutes after leaving surgery.

The doctor appeared to say it all went well. The nurse kept asking if I wanted a blueberry muffin. I had a glass of water and went home. Two hours in and out.

Before we left, I told the doctor I could see the needles. Really? he asked. Absolutely, I said. He shrugged. “Must be some sort of optic-nerve thing.”

It reminded me that doctors, for all their education, can be as tough to interview as anyone. About 10 percent studied enough poetry in college to have a sense of wonder about the miracles they perform every day, the drama they witness as a matter of course, and can talk about it with some feeling. The rest are flesh mechanics. You wouldn’t expect the guy who fixes your Buick to marvel at the magic of internal combustion, would you?

The rest was the recovery, by far the hardest part. Lying facedown with your head supported by a donut pillow feels a little like, as Jeff Foxworthy said, a St. Bernard coming in through the cat door. It wasn’t so bad during the day, when I raised the donut, stacked a bunch of pillows and assumed a position not unlike humping a pommel horse. I put the iPad under the donut and watched Netflix. I watched “The Trip” and I watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” I watched some “Mad Men” and I watched nine! hours! of “House of Cards.” I watched the FalconCam. I read the news and stayed up on Twitter. And when the night came, I lowered the donut, adjusted the pillows and tried to sleep. Wasn’t easy. I tried to drift off to Netflix, which only led to puddles of drool on the iPad. I tried drugs, but all I got was some lousy Tylenol 3, which didn’t do much. The final night was the worst of all by far, but Tuesday came and I had my follow-up. The macular hole is closed, and I am cleared to rise to my feet, watch TV from the couch again, read and ditch the damn donut.

Now all I have to do is recover the vision in my eye. It’ll take a few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll be frightening people with my bloody orb.

There’s a lot going on in the world, and I’m going to spend the next few days letting it pass me by. No regular blogging schedule until next week. The world is half-blurred, and I plan to ride the blur for a spell.

Carry on however you like. Open thread, all.

This is me. Still too face-down to write much, but I shall. In the meantime, a fresh thread and a gory picture.

It might be because I’m sitting here with one eye blown out from the dilation solution and the other with its smeary Macular HoleVision, but I’m thinking this will be my last blog until post-op. I’ve got some chores that must be done beforehand, and I’m going to do them.

But right now it’s a lovely evening, and I’m watching Alan install my new Shimano pedals on the new bike. A robin just went flap-flap-flap over my head, or it might have been a dragon. I feel really fucking weird right now.

“Don’t go out,” Alan counseled. “If you got in a wreck, the ER staff would be drilling into your skull, looking for the cerebral hemorrhage.”

Fortunately, for you? I have some great bloggage today:

Oh, wait — I have an update. The good eye with the floaters is merely having an age-related floater-thing problem. “No tears in the retina!” the chirpy ophthalmologist said, having lost her condescension from the last visit. Instead, she praised my good sense in having everything checked out 48 hours before the surgical event.

“So, am I just going to have to live with this?” I asked. FYI, my good-eye vision is of a translucent spider straddling a world speckled with black pepper.

“They’ll either migrate to another part of the eye, or your brain will learn to ignore them,” she said. Fucking bloody hell.

So, back to the bloggage:

My former congresswoman, reppin’ in Washington:

Washington — Former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick said Monday she was ready to boldly go where others have not gone before and called for an international probe into space aliens.

After a day of hearing testimony from believers in alien life forms, Kilpatrick offered up herself to launch an effort with other countries to bring to light the existence of extraterrestrials.

“It’s important that we work with foreign governments,” an impassioned Kilpatrick said after she and five other former members of Congress heard nearly eight hours of testimony. “There’s been 10 or 15 already identified who have acknowledged this existence. I want to be part of that.”

If you can’t quite figure it out, this is her, out of a job, taking a gig with an alien-chasing organization that rented out the National Press Club to hold “congressional-style hearings” on extraterrestrial issues. Persons who resemble congressional representatives will then be YouTubed into eternity, scowling at witnesses giving valuable testimony on this vital issue. Extra-weird detail:

Also in the audience were a man and woman from Chicago wearing metal headbands with quartz to better conduct communication with extraterrestrial life.

All in all, I still prefer her to Mark Souder.

Those of you who are fans of Roy Edroso will enjoy this interview with None Other, which includes a clip of his band, the Reverb Motherfuckers. Roy bought Adrianne and me dinner when we were in Washington last fall, and I just lurve him to death. So there’s that.

Pinterest fails. Because Pinterest fails.

If Russell Brand really writes this well, I want to know why he’s a bleh musician and actor and not a writer. Because based on this, he’s a pretty fair writer.

Finally, I’m only a few chapters through The Prophets of Oak Ridge, but I’m really looking forward to the rest of it — a story of how three people penetrated the Oak Ridge Security Complex, and by “three people,” I mean a drifter, a house painter and an 82-year-old nun. So far, it’s a gripping yarn. Hope you enjoy it, too.

So that’s it for me. I have a big box of furniture to unpack, a lot of loose ends to tie up and a laser knife to go under. See you when I surface. Whenever that is.

Up early, made Kate her lunch, packed her off, did a little this ‘n’ that, showered, headed to Ann Arbor, did radio, headed to Lansing, did lunch, did this ‘n’ that, took some pictures at the Capitol for a thing. Here’s one:

I like symmetrical things with some asymmetry sprinkled in. Don’t know why.

Then I did some more this ‘n’ that. Drove home. Cycled to the market for some lettuce ‘n’ crap. Made dinner — pasta with white beans, rosemary and onion; green salad (the lettuce), tomato/mozzarella salad.

Now it’s 9:35 and what I’m asking is, WHERE IS MY MEDAL? For the this ‘n’ that, at least. And the dinner, which was pretty good.

Somewhere along the way, my other eye — the good one — started acting weird, so tomorrow promises to be even more exciting, because I get to see the doctor! Again! With the specialist co-pay! But of course we must now say I’m so lucky I have health insurance, because I am.

Remember: If I’m blind, I’m going to feel everyone’s face. So I know you’re smiling.

Is there any bloggage? Just one: Ten types of shitty coworkers and how not to murder them. I’ve been them all, I think.

Let’s hope for a fabulous Tuesday.

To the stated complaints of a few of my Facebook friends, I’ve cut back on my once-weekly excoriations of Mitch Albom. I just felt like I was running out of things to say about him, and it started to feel like a waste of time. But what the hell, he’s still out there, writing and collecting a fat paycheck. And so here I go.

Mitch on Sunday:

I recently visited my wife’s family in Mexico.

“You’ll stay with us,” they said.

“Which of you?” I asked.

“All of us,” they said.

At first, I thought this was a language barrier thing, the way these particular relatives say, “I love you too much” (translation: “so much”), or the way they pronounce “Meetch.”

But as it turned out, when they said “all of us” they actually meant “all of us.”

They live in the middle of Mexico City.

In a family compound.

Let me start by violating my three-paragraph rule for quoting others’ work, but when you pad out your Sunday column with white space and all those one-sentence paragraphs, you’re asking for it.

And let’s also set aside, for now, the stupid and offensive joke at the Mexicans’ expense for calling a different pronunciation of “Mitch” a “language barrier.” Because I’m hoping that once the guy leaves the family compound, they have a good laugh at how he pronounced “huitlacoche.” In fact, I hope they served him some. But I digress.

Mitch, it turns out to the surprise of not one sentient being who read the first few lines, thinks family compounds are the best:

It’s such a loving, embracing environment, that inevitably, I wondered, “Why don’t we live this way in the States?’”

And then I remembered.

We used to.

Yes, we did. It was not uncommon, once upon a time, for children to sleep four to a room and grandma to have a little room off the kitchen. We lived that way for one reason: Because more people were poor, and there was no safety net, and anyone who thinks it was all fun and games should talk to the people — 99 percent of them female — who bore the brunt of all that loving and embracing. Because it came with a lot of cooking and butt-wiping, too. Mitch’s wife must come from some money in Mexico, because the compound he’s describing — four walled houses sharing a common inner courtyard — is not exactly the way the rank and file lives in North America’s largest Third World city. So let’s allow there’s a goodly amount of loving and embracing there, with the harder work left to maids.

Finally Mitch gets around to acknowledging maybe family togetherness isn’t all beer and skittles, with this:

According to the 2010 census, 4.4% of American households are multi-generational. That’s up from 3.7% 10 years earlier, or about 1 million households.

I’m guessing it is because of the economic downturn, foreclosures pushing families under one roof. But it’ll be interesting to see once we get used to having grandmas and grandpas and cousins and in-laws around, how fast people will want to disengage.

My guess is, they’re going to want to disengage pretty damn quickly. I’ve known my share of big families sharing small spaces, and it left me with a new appreciation for a room of one’s own with a door that closes. And those were only large mom/dad/kids families. Add some in-laws and grandmas, and I don’t see how anyone stays sane.

But of course, the ultimate irony to all of this is Mitch Himself, a man who has apparently made the choice to remain childless. He married his girlfriend after Morrie Schwartz persuaded him to make a little more time for non-work life, but it never went further than that. From time to time he’ll write about his nieces and nephews, but if he has any regrets about not increasing the Albom family through birth or adoption, he only shares them when he’s envying someone else’s arrangements, and even then he doesn’t seem to get it. Why don’t families live together anymore, he whines, without noting that he never let anything other than work guide his decisions.

I hear he has a big house. He could take in a few family members, if he’s missing ’em so badly.

And there’s a one-sentence paragraph for you.

Oh, my, more rain today. A beautiful day yesterday, but I had to work. Today I filled the prescriptions for the eyedrops I have to start taking two days before my surgery, which brought it all home a bit more. Along with the typos. And the testiness about Albom.

But for now, let’s let this all go. And get some bloggage:

Big language warning on this, but worth your time for some of the excellent obscenities trotted out to abuse this InfoWars dipshit, caught trying to do a standup in Boston by a passerby. Who had his own camera. And let him have it: I’m the smart guy, because I’m not telling people the FBI blew up the Boston Marathon, you fucking shitheel.

I’m thinking that story is going to get the Boston Globe at least one and maybe several Pulitzer Prizes this time next year, and one might be for this great tick-tock in Sunday’s paper.

Although I also liked this piece from the Sunday NYT, on the thwarted dreams of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and how readily the hole in his heart was filled by the radical posing he pursued next.

And now it’s on to Sunday evening, pork tenderloin on the grill and “Mad Men.” Let’s have a good week.

Sorry for the late entry today. It was another evening out, although I had the distinct pleasure of driving home into the rising full moon, which registered not as a crisp round disk of light but rather roundish, with a smeary side. For days, I’ve been fretting about my upcoming eye surgery, wondering if I really, truly needed it. What’s a little smudge in one’s central vision? It’s only on one side, etc. Last night settled it. I want to see a rising full moon in sharp focus. Also, I’m seeing way more typos in my work these days, and I can’t handle that.

One more week. Then I will suffer for my sight.

But as I’m getting a late start here and really should be working, I’ll keep this brief:

We’ve had a bit of a dust-up here the last couple of weeks, right here in Grosse Pointe. A brand-new student club at one of the high schools, the Young Americans for Freedom — called that to distinguish them from the Young Americans for Slavery, I guess — announced they wanted to bring Rick Santorum in to speak. The national chapter had fronted them his $18,000 fee, and he was going to address the student body on “leadership.” This was originally scheduled for during school hours. Some parties objected to this, and it was abruptly cancelled. Then it was uncancelled, with an opt-in permission slip attached. It was, in other words, from beginning to end, an administrative fumble and a giant win for the Young Americans for Freedom, which lurves this sort of thing.

So then the day for the visit arrives, which was Wednesday. The speech was live-streamed. I didn’t see it all, but I saw enough. “A nothingburger,” went one description. And as you might expect, it went off without a hitch, but there was one hitch-ette: One of the kids at the school tweeted “Hey Mr. Santorum, would you sign this bomb for me?” I gather the kid is known as a joker, and he’s a kid, and while the tweet was thoughtless, you’d have to live in a police state to see this as a credible threat. Even the local police seemed more irritated than alarmed. But it couldn’t end there with a stern talking-to, a grounding and the suspension of the Twitter account.

No, now the Wayne County Prosecutor is getting involved.

Sigh.

OK, off to the mangle. The best email I got yesterday follows. For you non-journos, a style guide is the collection of individual style quirks of a particular publication; whether you capitalize The in The New York Times, say, or if Road should be spelled out or abbreviated. Sometimes they get really baroque, and the one from Penthouse magazine is a minor classic of the form. Anyway:

I’m working on our in-house style guide. It’s one of those projects that could turn into one’s life’s work, if one were so inclined. Really, there is no end to the crap that has to be explained. To maintain my sanity, I’m having some fun. I thought you’d appreciate this excerpt:

penultimate: Means next to last. Example of how not to use this word: “We were called the Rock Bottom Remainders, and when they write the penultimate history of rock ’n’ roll, we will not be in it.” Now you know something Mitch Albom doesn’t.

And you know what? She’s right.

Good day, all. Good weekend, all. See you Monday.

On edit: A good read on the Boston carjacking victim. Tasty morsel within:

The story of that night unfolds like a Tarantino movie, bursts of harrowing action laced with dark humor and dialogue absurd for its ordinariness, reminders of just how young the men in the car were. Girls, credit limits for students, the marvels of the Mercedes ML 350 and the iPhone 5, whether anyone still listens to CDs — all were discussed by the two 26-year-olds and the 19-year-old driving around on a Thursday night.

It was a long day, and it rained for most of it. Rained, rained and rained some more. Barely cracked 40 degrees. Still, it’s hard to keep a good baseball game down:

Yep, great seats for the Tigers. So that happened.

Just one piece of bloggage today: This piece of shit.

People tell me I should ignore Politico, and I mostly do, but when I read a story that bad, I just get testy. What purports to be a keen examination of Jill Abramson’s tenure as editor-in-chief of the New York Times is such a steaming pile of sexist crapola, I just go ber….serk.

As Billy Jack would say.

Abramson speaks in a slow drawl — “the equivalent of a nasal car honk,” according to Ken Auletta, who profiled her for The New Yorker. It gives her the impression of being distant, almost bored. But the condescension is often noted by others present at meetings. On at least one occasion, sources said, an editor has privately approached Abramson to recommend she apologize to the offended party.

I’ve heard Jill Abramson speak. I didn’t find it condescending. But then, I don’t work for Politico.

I’d rather think about baseball.

A Lansing day. A long one, but a good one. Alan had a similar one. Which is to say, it was a hot dogs-on-the-grill-and-a-bag-of-chips sort of evening. Then we remembered we had some McClure’s pickles in the fridge, and the evening improved.

Yeah, more rain.

Let’s take a look at what the Internet tide washed up on NN.c’s beach, then.

I strengthened all my important passwords around the new year, but obviously someone needed to at the AP — a hack of the Associated Press Twitter account touched off a brief 100-point drop in the Dow when the hackers tweeted a prank about the White House being bombed. Everything recovered, but as the linked story points out, it’s time for Twitter to start getting serious about security.

My former colleague Jack Lesssenberry had a good commentary on Michigan Radio yesterday. He touched on something that has always bugged me about the current discussion of public education, that schools aren’t doing a better job at turning out workers for the new economy. I see their point, but, well. There was an education summit in Lansing Monday, and the state school superintendent said something about it. Jack put his finger on it:

What (superintendent Mike) Flanagan said that bothered me so much was this. “Most of us in education have grown up with an ethic that was something like this: Education for Education’s Sake. That’s just silly.”

Well, excuse me, Dr. Flanagan, but no, it’s not silly. There’s nothing wrong with education for education’s sake—if that means teaching people how to think, and how to learn.

You didn’t used to have to explain that to people, but I guess you do, now.

Speaking of learning how to think, may I break out of my rainy slough of despond to ask, calmly, WHERE THE HELL DO THEY GET THESE PEOPLE, AND WHY AREN’T THEY WEARING STRAITJACKETS?

Not that I am grumpy.

The sun was out today, the temperatures reasonably mild, and in what I hope is the first of many mild, sunny evenings, I headed out on the new two-wheeler. Did I tell you I bought a new two-wheeler? I did. A used one, of course — a Volkscycle, an old frame tricked out with new components from the hipster bike shop down in the Cass corridor. Weren’t too much money, and I’m adding some clipless pedals. Look for me to add a broken elbow to my wounded eyeball any day now.

But it was a glorious ride, and I am so, so glad to be out of the house after all these months. What happened to me? I used to love winter. Now it’s just an ordeal to get through. Is this how people end up in Florida? Because this is disturbing. Along with this eye thing, this is making me feel very, very old. Other than the standard-issue lower back and knee pain, I’ve not really had any age-related decrepitude yet. And now it’s just dawning on me that I’ll be seeing a fucking ophthalmologist every six months for the rest of my life.

Makes me want to get on my bike and ride until I reach some other place. Someplace younger. Not Florida.

Oh, but before I do, I have bloggage:

This is so damn disturbing. Remember Patiend Zero from Randy Shilts’ AIDS book, “And the Band Played On”? The sexy Canadian flight attendant, whose promiscuity jump-started HIV all over the globe? He existed, but he didn’t really function as the Typhoid Mary of AIDS. It was exaggerated to sell books. Doesn’t that make you feel wonderful about American health reporting?

Here’s a long, readable and compelling story about what happens when the Satmar sect of Hasidism takes over an entire town.
And what do they do? Dismantle the public schools. Because they don’t use them, and besides, they really want to the few non-Jews left around to move out. It’s a fairly horrifying story.

This might be worth a trip to the National Archives: Searching for the Seventies. This woman could have been me, c. 1978. I loved this decade.

Finally, the Boston bombers’ horrible parents.

And now, let’s get Tuesday under way, OK?