Doctor Suicide

Ok, so I went to the dermatologist to have a “biopsy” about… meh, six or so months ago. One of my nifty little vampyre bite moles on my chest was disappearing and (considering genetics) it caused me no small amount of worry.

When they were ready for me (apparently after seeing how long I could wait without breaking down into tears of boredom) they ushered me into this yellow looking room and told me to undress my top half and put on a paper towel-esque garment.

So I lay down on the table that I know they took straight out of the Silent Hill hospital and the nurse started to numb me… on the wrong mole. Why I didn’t run screaming out of the offices and hide under my bed for a week is beyond me.

After clearing up what part of my body to numb, in comes

Dr. ImTooRushedToSpendVeryLongWithYou... ButYouShouldBeThankfulForEveryMomentYouHaveWithMe...
ForIAmWOnderfull.

I was reclining during the procedure so I couldn’t see what was going on, but from my sister’s account Dr. TooRushed took out a cookie cutter like object and started wheedling it down into my chest. I could feel the pressure from the tunneling as she did this. Obviously she took out WAY too much tissue.

After totally REMOVING my mole (Hey, I thought I was in here for a small biopsy?!) and half of my underlying muscle layer, she began stitching me up. Good thing I was numbed, right?

They didn’t even do that correctly. Out of five stitches total, I felt all the outside stitches (just three, but that still is not pleasant). She even bungled one of them, went “oops” and ripped it out to start again.

But, whatever. That isn’t my problem. My issue with Dr. DoNothing is that she made a circle in my chest… and tried to stitch that up. You can NOT make a neat closure out of a circle… simple geometry.

After brutally closing me she handed me a brown paper bag and mumbled something about ointment and ran from the room like I hadn’t brushed my teeth in a month.

Needless to say I have an icky pink scar on my chest where my pair of cute vamppy bite moles used to reside. It even had eyelashes where she allowed the stitches to grow into the skin (she waited 13 days to check up on me again).

I get to go see her wed morning (with my enraged father -- he happens to be a medical doctor -- and very fiery mother). I almost feel sorry for Dr. Wench.

Almost.

HitlerZ MinionZ

Ok, here is the question that has been nagging me for the last year:
If writers are meant to be such awesome creative beings then why is the publishing process/industry such a Nazi institution?

For those of you who really have no clue what I am babbling about, here are a few examples:

1. http://www.speculations.com/format.htm The writer’s manuscript (MS) must -- and I seriously mean MUST -- be formatted exactly as this link shows. It must have the same font, same spacing, same underlining and dividing techniques.
2. http://www.speculations.com/slush.htm If said writer’s MS is not, indeed, picture perfect then this link shows how your Magnus Opus, your hearts pouring, your piece of art that you have spent months if not years working on, will end up… in the recycle bin.

Everything I've read says these miserly guidelines are to make the editor’s job an easier one. The font and the double spacing are there to protect the editor’s eyesight, adding the universal # to signal the end of chapter is there because… well I've no clue. To top it off, the writer must have the word “end” at the finish line of his MS… or if they are feeling particularly inspired they can even get away with “####” but defiantly no more than the four #’s.

I can understand that text that will be italicized must be underlined in the MS because italics are easy to overlook, however, when an editor busts out a ruler to check that my margins aren’t an mm off? What is that exactly? Ill tell you what that is… it is a kickback from Hitler’s rule.

In an industry that requires the writer to be more imaginative, artistic, and original than those that came before him, how are these rigid rules helping to maintain that creativity? How can they expect such resourceful beings to accept such stifling rules so easily? (I'm not going to answer that, I'm just posing another question that has been scratching away at me.)

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