25 Going On 21 And 48 Months June 25, 2008

The trouble with trying to make 100 Jello shots for your 25th birthday, you learn, isn’t the selection process of Jello flavors since - deep sigh of relief - there are plenty to secure your very grown-up theme of “rainbow” quite easily. Nor is it the task of procuring all the necessary alcohol because a little more than half a handle of Smirnoff, some Jose and Bacardi should already be on hand in any self-respecting drunkard’s liquor collection. No. When all seems smooth sailing, trouble, you learn, presents itself in the unassuming matter of space.

 
That is, leaving you unsure of where exactly to store the little fuckers while they harden to become - well - Jello.
 
Which is how I came to spend my birthday cleaning an overstuffed refrigerator and throwing away anything I wasn’t able to consume on the spot while trays of Jello shots covered every hard surface in my kitchen and living room once I realized air-conditioning my apartment to “very cold” wouldn’t cut it.
 
Luckily, I subscribe to the understanding that sacrifices must willingly be made sometimes for Jello shots. (Like, as another example, one’s commitment to remembering things the next morning.) So I happily ate slices of cheese and drank gallons of orange juice and wondered why I hadn’t used cleaning out the fridge as an excuse more often to stuff my gullet.  
 
The sight was glorious after five hours. Rows and rows of shiny red, orange, yellow, and green three-quarter filled Dixie cups of boozed-up Jello ready for consumption as far deep as my refrigerator went. Bliss was mine.

Multiple this by five. Rows.

Until I realized my next unforeseen debacle - securing a way to safely transport 100 Jello shots to a bar blocks away from my apartment, where everyone had been instructed to meet promptly by nine to scarf down some margaritas while awaiting the trolley that would take us all over the city.
 
A feat made even more difficult by the fact that water guns filled with tequila,

 
leis and streamers,

 
pointy birthday hats decorated with the faces of Ernie and Big Bird,

 
and multiple coolers filled with beer, more hard alcohol, and Sparks also had to be towed along.
 
This is about when I began to wonder why the hell we didn’t just tell everyone to meet us at our apartment and have the trolley pick us up from there.
 
(In case questions of my maturity level are now being raised, my boyfriend and I had thought to purchase a case of water bottles after clearing Target’s children section of all its birthday accessories because you come to learn a thing or two when it comes to boozing by the time you’re this old. But once we realized we were only two people with four hands - two of which were mine (read: useless) - it was clear that some things would have to be left behind. And so went the bottles of water. And not, say, the pointy birthday hats because God knows we absolutely needed those. Yes. I hope this clears up a thing or two about my maturity level.)
  
Thanks to one very large metal cookie sheet, yards and yards of tin foil and a boyfriend who was willing to carry everything else, we - as in, my jello shots and I – were able to make it to The Blue Agave safely. All the more impressive, really, when you factor in my 5 inch heels, short little dress, and the overwhelming weight I had to carry on my shoulders knowing that I am now closer to the age of 50 than I am to the day I was born and a thank you to co-worker Michael for that little tidbit needs to be said for that.
 
But where was I. Oh, right. The dress.
 

A big fucking thank you to everyone for taking the time to input in my last post. It was pretty great to see how you all voted. Each one, I think, got its fair share of supporters - although the heavy favorites appeared to be 1, 4, and 7. I can’t say who was right, but I can say you all have excellent taste.
 
Unfortunately, when push came to shoving myself into a tight little party dress and why hadn’t I thought to find somewhere other than my stomach for all the food that couldn’t fit into the fridge, I ended up having to wear a party frock that was not one of the seven I begged you to dress me in while I stood around, hopeless and naked, until you did.
 
But! See!
 
Dress #1 - the one I affectionately referred to as my prom queen on acid - was only available in sizes 0 or 12. I think this was God’s way of teaching me a little thing about my love for extremes.
 
Dress #2 would have totally passed muster. Had I been in the mood to look like a naughty nurse for my birthday. In hindsight, I wonder why I wasn’t.
 
Dresses #3, #4, #6, #7 all could not be delivered in time. Shame on me for lusting after obscure designers.
 
And Dress #5 was a little too sexy and elegant for a night I just wanted to look silly and over the top.
 
With time running out, patience wearing thin, and every other customer at Bloomingdale’s getting on my last fucking nerve - I’m looking at you, mom and daughter pair who could not get over how FAT, OH MY GOD, we look in EVERYTHING - I ended up buying this Nicole Miller trainwreck confection:
 

 
(Ed. note: While this very much looks like the picture I would have taken had I known how difficult it would be to find this fucking dress online once I came into work today, I found this picture on the Internet. So I should probably give credit to whomever I ripped it off from. But that would mean having to admit that I found this on a site focused on things like high school prom dress fashion and Kelly Pickler.)
 
It ended up matching the tiara my friend Damien brought for me perfectly. And God bless friends who bring you tiaras on your birthday.

 
No prom queen on acid. But tragic 80s prom queen, maybe.
 
Even though no fault was mine that not one of the seven dresses ended up working out because, let’s face it, nothing is your fault when its your birthday, I do hate that I can’t report back the winning dress since y’all were wonderful sports for humoring my last (shameless) post. So as a peace offering, I will end this post with one of my favorite pictures from the night. Sans blacked out face and all.
 

[Picture redacted due to this blogette coming to her senses.]

OverdrunkBirthday Girl Gripping Trolley Railing To Prevent Death Via Open Windows, 2008

 
For the record though, I was leaning towards Dress #1 or #7.

Where I Ask You To Dress Me While Suggesting With The First Part Of This Title That I’m Naked Until You Do June 4, 2008

Multiple webpages displaying various party frocks decorate my computer monitor right now.
 
Hectic office setting? Sorry, you can be damned.
 
In two days, it will be my birthday. And while some people may take this time to reflect on What It Means To Be A Quarter Century Old And Still Not One Step Closer To Owning Their Own Personal Island Or At The Very Least Not Living From One Paycheck To The Next, I am quite adamant about Not Going There right now. Because I’m at work. And the janitor who can comfort my sobs with his broken English chants of No tears, Missus doesn’t get here until later this evening.
 
So instead, I distract myself with a search for the perfect atrocity that will cover my natural birthday suit this Saturday night. Because, well, I survive by living in denial.
 
Which is where you come in.
 
I tend to happily align my taste with the borderline ugly. Two weekends ago, while trying on a pair of heels at Nordstrom’s, I gleefully squealed to my boyfriend, “Aren’t these the most ridiculous things ever?” He agreed that they were. I promptly purchased said shoes.
 
I crave the absurd. Wearing loose v-neck tees and ripped up jeans to the oh-so-hot clubs where all the other chicks are decked in their “Here’s my boobs and - oh! - my crotch” monotony is fine with me and choosing to don my Alexander McQueen fuck me boots to the scummy dive bar that lets its patrons play beer pong until 4 in the morning is instinctive. Because fashion, to me, is a whim. It’s an opportunity to not take yourself too seriously and be silly. Like those shoes up there that I would have bought solely because they’re named EVIL.
 
But knowing all this about myself, a second opinion never hurts. Especially when I have my gay best friend Teddy encouraging me that Yes, the dress that’s electric aqua blue and shaped like an upside down tulip is the BEST IDEA EVER AND OH IT WOULD LOOK SO GOOD WITH A TIARA BECAUSE IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS, AND YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT while a little voice somewhere in my head peeps: Prom Queen On Acid. Move along.
 
So, help. Please.
 
Dress #1:
 

 
Nope. Not joking about the electric-blue thing and the shaped-like-an-upside-down-tulip thing. But! It’s my party. And I’ll dress like a high school prom queen on acid if I want to?
 
Dress #2:

  
So this is when you learn that I have a love for all things preppy. And pleated. And white. Because white against my olive toned skin? Helps me convince myself that I’m much tanner than the cloudy gray weather that is Chicago this spring has allowed. Plus. I think I remember how to make faux-carnations out of tissue paper from my first grade art class that would go perfectly with this dress.
 
Dress #3:
 

 
Yes. It’s black gingham. Gingham. Maybe only second to seersucker (or wait, no, MADRAS) when it comes to fabrics I’m ashamed to admit I’m deathly obsessed with. Don’t put it past me to braid my hair in pigtails should I wear this dress. That, or some ridiculously voluminous high ponytail tied with a shiny fat ribbon.
 
Dress #4:
 

 
I can pair this with the afro wig I bought for our 70’s theme party last year.
 
Dress #5:
 

 
So that once my quarter-life-crisis catches up with me, I can take this dress and go try out to be a Deal or No Deal briefcase-carrying girl.
 
Dress #6:
 

 
This dress must be too normal. I don’t have a single thing to say about it.
 
Dress #7:
 

 
Because I was born in the 80s. And proud of it. (Ed. note: HOLLER NEON.)
 
Celebrations are set to begin with a booze trolley - a surprise planned by my boyfriend because yes, he’s that awesome - decked to the mess with streamers, balloons, and - if I get my way - Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Because trying to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey on a moving vehicle with open windows while completely sloshed demands that hilarity will ensue. Or broken limbs.
 
More likely than not, I’ll demand drinking games with rules centered around taking shots every time a car is seen. Shouting at hoards of people is a given. And all while capturing everything on the disposable cameras I plan to provide by the handfuls because fuck digital cameras and getting that oh so perfect picture on the third try. Not on this night.
 
So. Right. I guess I’m asking for your help in choosing a dress that will help me stand out even more on an evening that will surely help me acquire 3 million Chicagoans - plus or minus a few - as my new enemies. 

 

Mondays, Revisited January 28, 2008

A nearby boss has begun to clear her throat approximately every three minutes this morning and it is completely unacceptable.

It is a sound so grating and impossible to ignore that I am now hungrily eyeing my knife-like letter opener, trying to determine just how much it would hurt if I proceeded to stab myself in the ear with it. And, if nothing else, whether I think the resulting blood would be enough to persuade HR to let me go home.

I conclude that I’m not sure.

Thus. The music. Which, currently, is blaring from my speakers. And every time - every single time - I hear her clear her throat, I turn the dial just a little bit more to the right. The volume reached an “unprofessional level” about 12 minutes - or, more precisely, three throat clears - ago. But still I turn the dial. Emails have begun to be received asking if I am the one who is playing the old school gangster rap at 9 in the morning. The music is so loud, in fact, that I just missed three very important phone calls from three very important clients. Which makes sense, really. I assume a phone is only as productive as long as its ring is audible.

Lest you assume I am exaggerating (cherish the thought) or simply have a case of the Mondays (oh please no), the sound in question is one that has led people who have come to visit me at my desk this morning to scrunch their faces and involuntarily make an expression as though they’ve just smelled shit. And then been forced to eat that shit.

I came to work with the intention of posting photographs on my blog today because I woke up this morning and thought, “It can’t be Monday already. I don’t think I even got drunk once this weekend.” And the stuck throat chunk sounds simply confirm that today is not a day meant for anything but light, easy things for the mind. Were I to approach any kind of topic in this post that might fuel the Angry in me further, I would have to just permanently assign my keyboard to CAPS LOCK and turn off the spell check because - last I heard - words like FUCKINGDOUCHEBAGBITCH and ASSFUCKINGHATDOG are still not included in Webster’s.

So. Picture show of pictures that have no tying theme will now commence. And if you see a random burst of expletives in capital letters among the captions, please just nod your head in sympathy and move along.
 
*  
 
Last December, my boyfriend’s fancy hedge fund did something completely out of the ordinary and threw a holiday party. (That’s about as good as it’s going to get in terms of “humor” today, I think.) The theme of the party seemed to have something to do with Bollywood or Hindus - admittedly an odd theme for a financial institution’s party. But seeing that the only thing I really know about the advanced world of economics is that I don’t know anything, who am I to judge?

I think my boyfriend’s mother had been hoping to see pictures from the evening. That request remains to be fulfilled.
  

  
Look! Tulips! In the winter! In a new Pucci vase!If you are the type of person I would really enjoy, your eyes may have immediately been drawn to the methuselah of champagne in the background. What? You want a close up of the champagne bottle? Well, lucky for you that people-pleasing is the Achilles’ Heel for at least one of  multiple personalities.

 
 
It was bought for my boyfriend’s 25th birthday rooftop party because, well, why the hell not? And it was finished not even an hour into the party. There is a picture from that night that involves me, pouting, while looking into the empty bottle as I hold it up like a pirate holds up a telescope. For shame that this blog is anonymous.  

 
Here is our pet stuffed monkey Bernard just being Bernard and hanging around on our rubber tree, which is fake and from World Market. Are you starting to doubt that my grasp on reality is even a tenuous one? Me too.Are you starting to think that I spend my money on too many frivolous things? Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, my theory is that when you have money, you spend it. And when you don’t have money, you eat from the dollar menu at McDonald’s.

 
 
My nightstand has become home to a small fraction - like 1/500th - of the books I own. Piles of books like this are all around our apartment. The same apartment my boyfriend and I have lived in since September. To our defense, it makes complete sense that we wouldn’t have purchased a bookcase by now, seeing that we just bought a coffee table last week.As an aside: Who has read and - more importantly - finished The Emperor’s Children? I personally had some trouble getting past the first chapter after another one of Claire Messud’s forced fucking attempts at cool colloquials made me roll my eyes. Reading happens to be a lot easier for me when my eyes can stay on the page.

[Update: So. There have been some questions regarding the Pamela Anderson book. And that's fair. How can someone demonstrate that they actually own her book then provide no kind of explanation?  My taste in books is like my taste in music, art, people, fashion, sex, food, life. It's eclectic as hell. And tries to never take itself too seriously. I read Lahiri and Tolstoy and there's piles of Martinez and Kundera lying around my apartment. Reading Pam Anderson's book is the same reason why I watch porn or America's Next Top Model. Or wear my hair in pigtails even though I'm 24, dance in the rain, and eat french fries even when I know they're nothing more than vehicles for pork lard to enter my mouth. Life just seems more fulfilling when you approach it always ready to appreciate the laughs and the fun it tries to throw your way.

Also. It needs to be said that the big, black tome on top of Pamela Anderson is Harry Potter, Book 6.]
 

 
  
This is our apartment’s view of the Trump Tower. While I’d probably backhand slap Donald Trump hard enough for his rat nest hair to flop around were I ever to see him in person (Ed. note: Look at me - what a fan of hyperbole I am), I must say that the one great thing about his gaudy piece of phallic architecture is that it bounces sunlight right into our living room. I love sunlight. I love sunlight so much that it makes me dance and write nice things about the man who wanted to patent the phrase “You’re fired.” Or am I confusing this with Paris’ attempt to patent “That’s hot”? 

 

Remember how I said I have an addictive personality? Well maybe that applies to something as benign as rainbow shoes. And maybe I felt the need to lovingly lay this shoe down on our hardwood floor and take a picture of it in all its glory.
 

 
Wii Suck. But hey - thank you, Nintendo, for reminding us that we’re all winners just by trying.
 

 
 
I used to have a subscription to Us Weekly. Then I realized that that alone is a good enough reason for me to burn in hell. So I cancelled the subscription and began to pick it up at the grocery store. Apparently, in between their Celebrities - They’re Just Like Us! and This Week’s Fashion Disasters, they want me to forever become obsessed with the term “Cookie Soulmate” thanks to this ad that I of course had to rip out and display on the refrigerator.

At the end of your dinner at Alinea, the waiter hands you a menu of the dinner you just spent the last 5 hours of your life eating - perhaps as  some kind of distractionary measure to keep your mind off the fact that you just spent more than half a grand of dollars on bread egg smoke and liquified caramel corn. December 28, 2007 was my boyfriend’s and my one year anniversary. Does this remotely justify spending so much on one dinner? I’m not sure, but we have no regrets.

Should you enjoy delicious things, I recommend you run to your nearest Trader Joe’s and purchase these little forms of heaven immediately.

If you don’t enjoy delicious things? Then feel free to come by my office and hear my nearby boss clear her throat. And if you’d like to say hi, just look for the girl who is literally bleeding from her ears. 

The Visible Deformity of WebMD January 25, 2008

There is a bump that has recently swelled on my left shoulder. 

I could begin to lie spin a tale of a fight or a moment of klutziness that caused this particular piece of ugly. Anything that would be far more flattering than the actual story of this bump. But that would be kind of like how the Bush administration began with 9-11 and, five years later, ended up with a dead Saddam (Ed. note: What? You don’t take every opportunity to bash the Bush administration?). So we’ll try out the truth.

It is a mass of pain that not even a bottle of Chilean Red and a box of Barefoot Contessa’s Outrageous Brownies could overshadow when I bumped my left shoulder against a wall while dancing to Ice Cube’s You Can Do It last night. (Ed. note: Suggested music pairing with this post: http://www.deezer.com/track/6077) So I decided to shower. I had - after all - gotten chocolate brownie batter in my hair.

And when I undressed? This bump became the only thing I could see. It was, as they say, the elephant in the room that is impossible to ignore - if that elephant had decided to jump onto the back of my left shoulder and stay fixed there. (Ed. note: I just pictured myself as Quasimodo and laugh-cried.)

What had begun as a little white bump has apparently transformed into a swelling lump of purple and red and it’s HARD and it hurts. And it’s the size of Montana. Or a Chicken McNugget. Whatever.

The real back story of this lump is that it may have first appeared two summers ago (Ed. note: Yes, as in Summer 2006) when I lived in my very first apartment post college, a place I liked to affectionately refer to as The Little Dungeon That Could. It is the reason why I will never live in a ground level apartment ever again. The first place I encountered a cockroach in my life and the place that saw me beginning to fall asleep in galoshes and a can of hairspray. So when I first noticed this bump, I pretended it must be some sort of spider bite and proceeded to move on with the rest of my life.

After one and a half years of bump hibernation, the rest of my life has now come to a screeching halt.

Finally seeing the ugliness of this bump before my very eyes triggered action, and I did what any normal person does who isn’t scared to learn that they may have the gout no matter what their symptoms are and visited Web MD.

Well, no. The first thing I did was google whether spiders could plant baby eggs into people skin and if so, how long they took to burst open.

Because I do not normally use WebMD. It’s pointless. While I enjoy the unintentional comedy it can sometimes provide, I made the mistake of learning about roundworm in 10^thgrade Animal Science to know that as long as I don’t know about a certain ailment, I cannot convince myself I have it. And like the little denialist and extremist I am, this suits me just fine.

And the futuristic androgynous models scare me a little.

But to WebMD I went. Because, I concluded, why not. If I must learn I have Elephantitis of the Shoulder, I should at least be allowed the comfort of my own home, a bottle of Chilean Red and a mound of cooked butter and chocolate that the Barefoot Contessa dubs a brownie. God bless not ever trusting a skinny chef.

Age: 18-24. Check.

Bleeding? No.

Drainage or pus? No.

Lump or bulge? Oh God. Yes. Check.

Swelling? Unless the Chicken McNuggets from Saturday night took a course from my mouth to my shoulder, I certainly goddamn hope this monstrous lump is due to swelling. Check.

Tenderness to touch? Ouch. Yes. Check.

Visible deformity? Hm. Visible deformity. Well, yes. It is visible and it certainly isn’t normal. Check.

POP-UP: ! If you have a new visible deformity of your shoulder please seek prompt medical attention !

Gah! No, WebMD. No, you don’t. There is a reason why I am in my kitchen drinking wine and eating brownies while naked and dripping water from the shower onto the hardwood floors rather than seeking prompt medical attention. Your livelihood depends on people like me. So no, don’t you tell me to seek prompt medical attention. Call 911 and tell the operator that I am calling because WebMD told me to? I don’t like unintentional comedy that much.

I continued.

Another pop-up.

On which side of your body is your visible deformity located?

I paused. I had already clicked on the left back shoulder of the futuristic androgynous model to begin this whole process. I wondered if this was intended as some kind of deeper question. But seeing that “Everywhere” or “My brain” were not options, I closed the pop-up unanswered.

And I was left with my list of conditions.

WebMD considers a “deformity” related to a dislocated or separated shoulder. Cellulitis, hematoma, or Crohn’s disease – which is when parts of your digestive tract get swollen and symptoms often include belly pain and diarrhea - were also possible reasons for My Little Tumor. To list a few.

I realized then the real problem with WebMD.

And it’s not as simple a diagnosis as mistakenly telling people that shoulder bumps indicate ulcers. 

In a doctor’s office, you get to sit, increasingly nervous, on the padded bed with the crinkly white paper that shifts whenever you move your exposed ass due to the uncomfortable robes that I’m still fairly convinced is the medical equivalent of a good joke. When the doctor finally arrives to tell you what you may or may not have, you are just grateful to hear that No, The spots you have been seeing lately are not because of Mad Cow Disease and you happily stroll away to the pharmacy to pick up your inhaler and go along your way. (Oh? I haven’t told you about the time when I went to the doctor’s office this past summer because of a possible sinus infection and desperately wanted antibiotics and my prude of a doctor prescribed me an inhaler that I then took out later that night and sprayed into my Frozen RumRunners at Cactus for fun?)
 

Cactus 2007, May You Rest In Peace and May The Corporation That Tore You Down Burn In Hell

WebMD, on the other hand, has too much competition for my attention.

I could almost believe WebMD if I really wanted to. I mean, I am just a girl with no MD in her name. Given enough time, I could start justifying its suggestions. “Well, now that I think about it, my stomach did hurt a little bit today after I ate that Chipotle burrito bowl at lunch. And my hands havebeen feeling cold lately and sure, it’s winter, but maybe it’s because my blood is weak and hema-ed and not flowing properly.”

But how much time does a girl have to contemplate such matters when she catches a glimpse of these Betsey Johnsons on a website up in the background?

 

All of a sudden, I don’t really give too much of a damn about anything other than where the hell is my credit card and can I get these delivered to me in the next 5 minutes?

And it hits me. As I stand there, with brownie on my fingers and maroon wine tint on my lips, I realize that all WebMD has done is distract me with visible deformities and questionable digestive tract systems while the cause for the bump on my shoulder remains unattended and I purchase pretty things that outweigh my concerns for my health and well-being.

So.

If you have any ideas what this bump might be, please share. There’s only so long that a girl can feel like her insides and outsides are ugly without starting to cry in public and whimper, “It hurts, in here.” And point to her heart. Then her head. Then the lump on her shoulder.

I’ll leave you the shoes in my will.

Give The Model Some Porridge November 29, 2007

Humor me, please. Because reality TV is my brain’s yoga. It helps it breathe, relax, be one.
                
[Spoiler Alert: If you have not seen last night's episode of Project Runway yet, please stay far, far away from this post until you do. Then, once you have, please come back. Immediately. Please?]
 
Did Eliza “I want to imbue the fabric with natural elements” warm your heart a little last night? With the being shy and the covering the eyes and the I have only intimately dressed my boyfriend talk? Did anyone else think that her outfit - while ignored for commentary on last night’s episode - looked more appropriate for a fairy or elf that scurries around a moonlit forest than former NY Giants running back and current Today Show commentator Tiki Barber?
                                
Did anyone else find Carmen’s outfit from last night’s episode of Project Runway to be oddly reminiscent?:
   

The model actually wears less clothing than poor Oliver Twist and tis more ill-fitting.

(Photo of model courtesy of newsday.com and the powers of Save Picture As and Upload.)

                               
Hm?
 

The woman wrapped a blue piece of fabric around the model’s neck in lieu of a shirt and, Carmen, aren’t you scared of Nina Garcia Fashion Director of ELLE Magazine? Sending that down the runway to be seen by Nina Garcia Fashion Director of ELLE Magazine (Ed. note: That’s her full name, right?) is akin to looking directly into the eyes of a gorilla. Or something. It’s just unnecessary provocation.
                                    
I really wanted the model to strike a pose at the end of the runway, whip out a wooden bowl, look to the camera, and ask, “May I have some more, Sir?” before turning around and sayshaying away. (Ed. note: How awesome would that have been? Poor Michael Kors would have had a heart-attack right there on the spot.) Because at least then, I’d understand that Carmen the Former Model - while not a great designer - at least had a sense of humor. Or the initiative to abuse her spot on a reality television show to get herself talked about on all the celebrity tabloids or blogs the day after the episode aired.  
                  

Which would have been a hell of a lot easier to stomach (and so much more fierce) than her sniffles that the world, the whole wide world, never got to truly see her amazing designs.

    

        

O Hai November 16, 2007

 

We Iz On Our Wayz To Knittin Class To Make Moar Fashunz

 

I couldn’t resist.

I’m cheating a bit by counting this as an “extra post”.  But when baby animals dressed in miniature sweaters are involved, I think we can agree that everybody wins.

[Cue: Caption contest!]

13,500 Feet Above Sea Level November 8, 2007

He yelled into my ear, “You gotta be willing to die in order to live, right!?”
 
I whipped my head around, glaring You can’t be serious!, just as he - the skydiving flight instructor strapped to my back - threw us out of the airplane with no warning towards the very hard, very cold earth that awaited us 13,500 feet below.
  
To our deaths.
  
(Just kidding.)
  
(Laptops would melt quite quickly in Hell.)
  
Back on November 1, I suggested to myself a few themes I could employ for the month of November to help the NaBloPoMo posting-every-day-process. I’m tagging one in now. Because I’m sick. And what I briefly suspected to be food poisoning now seems to be the flu, and I’m sorry, food, my love, how could I have ever questioned you?
 
My brain finds anything beyond sitting hunched over moaning in pain taxing. And I’m at work. And that shit’s just not fair. And funny is far beyond me. Putting thoughts together is far beyond me.
  
So I’ve chosen to post some pictures that currently call my work computer home. From the day I jumped into a plane only to jump right off of it once it was up in the air, with a skydiving instructor attached to my back who found jumping out of planes and letting gravity pull his body for approximately 5,000 feet towards a very hard, very cold earth as easy as breathing. As breathing.
 
 

This is the point when they yell jokes about how they hope everything is working properly and you want to kick them in the balls. Notice my sneakered foot in his crotch?
  
 

If you look really closely at the right side of this photo, you can see that I am attempting the fetal position.
  
To the people who skydive and have awesome pictures to show for it, I commend you. I don’t know how it’s possible, but congratulations for being able to defeat the elements of falling to the earth at speeds of 120 miles per hour while having wind whip against your face so intensely that, even though your mind has other matters it should preoccupy itself with, you stop to contemplate what people’s reactions would be if you returned to the ground with what used to be your face nothing more than a fleshless skull.
 
Oh, and a tip. If you decide to purchase the video & picture package, and you’re in the air and the videoman/photographer starts beckoning you with his left hand, please don’t forget that he had already explained to you that during the free fall process, he would signal you with his hand when it is time for you to hold onto it with one of yours so that he can twirl you around 360 degrees to capture a breathtaking panoramic scene for the video, and instead, become very confused, and then conclude that he’s asking you to “ham it up” for the camera, you know, 12,000 feet above earth as you are falling in midair, because you will end up with pictures like this:
  
 

  
 
Moments after landing with all bones intact and euphoria pumping through our veins that no drug - not even you, meth! - could come close to achieving, the videoman, still filming, turned to ask my boyfriend if he’d recommend skydiving to everyone, expecting a hearty Yes of course! for the video. My boyfriend? Quickly protested, “NO!”, then after seeing the shocked expression on the videoman’s face, explained, ”If my mother knew I did this, she’d kill me!” 
 
I, on the other hand, recommend skydiving to anyone who is not severely pregnant, suffering abnormal heart conditions, or possessing weak bladder control.

The Egyptian November 7, 2007

I once didn’t see my friend Rachel for approximately 12 straight days during the winter of our senior year in college.
 
My friends and I had a habit that quarter of not letting each other out of our sights, equal parts co-dependence and what’s that theory about how when you find people who do and believe the same things you do you then become a tight cohesive unit even if those things you do or believe may be wrong because it provides you with validation? Cultism Right, Friendship! What with all the binge-drinking, food-gorging, and crash-studying, where was the time to be alone?
 
Once Rachel’s lovely face reemerged from the black hole we had assumed she had accidentally fallen herself into, we were all very eager to hear what she had been busy doing.
 
“The Egyptian,” she began, while we stood in her kitchen mixing drinks.
 
We leaned in, excited. This was our friend Rachel, after all, a girl who would sometimes have to avoid house parties in college because she had already slept with each of the housemates holding the house party in question, unbeknown to the housemates themselves. My mind instantly foretold misadventures with a tall, dark mysterious stranger, a man with a foreign accent and broken English, a man who needed not the English when his primary concern was making my friend Rachel his Cleopatra. (Historical note: Cleopatra was not in fact “Egyptian” but a descendant of the Hellenic Ptolemy line, but this isn’t The History Channel, so let’s move on, shall we?)
 
All of us paused to let her continue. In the silence, she raised her right hand to her mouth and lowered her left hand to her tailbone, began demonstrating the Walk Like an Egyptian dance, and said, “You know, the Egyptian.“
 
Apparently, the woman had been severly ill for 12 straight days and was unable to keep anything down or inside her body, and, apparently, the Egyptian is when one’s body feels the need to expel from opposite ends at the same time. And that is all I am going to say about that.
 
It’s not a coincidence I remembered this story today. My body has spent all night and day systematically throwing up every 40 minutes. The last 6 or so times have been nothing but bile. Gross, disgusting, no-matter-how-many-times-I-brush-my-teeth-I-can-still-taste-it bile. I’m hesitant to blame it on food poisoning since food is my love and finding out that it may have poisoned me is probably similar to the heartbreaking betrayal Screech felt when he saw Zach kissing his precious and life-long love Lisa right before she held her fashion show at The Max for the FIT admissions recruiter, but that sushi I ate for lunch yesterday may want to prove me otherwise.
 
Thanks to my friend Rachel, through the cold sweats, the non-stop shaking, and the uncontrollable tears streaming down my face, I cannot stop repeating to myself: No Egyptian, no Egyptian, please God no Egyptian.
 
Which, incidentally, has led my boyfriend, while comforting me, to soothe, “Of course, baby, of course, no Egyptian food. How about some Saltines?”