You can blame it all on Percocet.



I was three days post-hysterectomy and a little loopy on painkillers. After five years of weekly testosterone injections, the canal (I can’t stand calling it a vagina, much less referring to it as “my”) had atrophied to near nonexistence. This made surgery difficult; I tore. The pain was bad enough. The fact that it was in an area of my body I had tried to ignore made me feel even worse.

I had been treating the ache with Percocet, at the cost of my lucidity. In a minor delirium, I developed a sudden need to tell a charismatic acquaintance — a girl from India in my physics class — just how beautiful and funny she was.

It was winter break, and I was at home in Wisconsin, while she had remained in San Antonio, where we went to school. So I decided to send her a quick message.

I ended up writing her a rambling letter.

“Hey,” I began, “you have cow eyes. I know that sounds like a bad thing but have you ever looked into a cow’s eyes? They are so deep and brown and beautiful. I’ve looked into a lot a cow eyes because I’m from Wisconsin.”