Wednesday, May 30, 2007

sicko

I've been running a fever for 2 days now. I only have the energy to write this right now because I pumped myself full of acetaminophen which has brought the fever down temporarily and stopped my muscles (mostly) from feeling like they've been invaded by a tiny battalion of vicious hermit crabs.

Yesterday for lunch I ate potato salad out of a plastic baggie. This morning I had leftover cake for breakfast, a cupcake for lunch, and chips and dip as an afternoon snack. Apparently I cannot be bothered with nutrition at a time like this. I haven't had much of an appetite anyway, so I figured I was justified in eating whatever I wanted, as it's better than not eating at all, right?

This afternoon I had a violent case of the chills--even my fingertips went numb, which I thought was odd, considering I had a temperature of 102. This episode was immediately followed by a sweat that soaked through my nightgown. I'm pretty sure I don't have malaria but with the number of mosquitoes we've had around here lately, I wouldn't be surprised.

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Update: I wrote the above yesterday and I still feel like shit. Still having massive chills (we're talking about episodes an hour long) followed by massive sweating. I don't particularly mind not having to work but I don't enjoy the feeling of wanting to crawl out of my skin. Plus I have slight hypochondriacal tendencies so I've already googled West Nile Virus to see if I have it. J suggested Lyme disease, so I'll have to look that up next. Send me some healthy vibes, please!

Friday, May 25, 2007

no good deed goes unpunished

Poor Jay. I thought I was doing a nice thing, sending her a little good luck charm from Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo in New Orleans. Well, I guess Madame Laveau knows the extent of my non-belief in any kind of religion, voodoo included, because she went and put some kind of stalker-attracting hex on that thing. [Yes, I realize the blatant contradiction within that last sentence...] Check out Jay's blog to read the hilarious yet frightening results (the hilarity part mostly comes from the fact that Jay is an awesome writer, another reason to check her out if you haven't already).

Her story made me think of something that happened to me when I first started grad school. I had just moved into my first "place of my own"...in an apartment complex off-campus. Because parking on campus was ridiculously expensive, I was relieved to find out that there was a bus line that stopped right in front of my apartment complex and went straight to the building where I worked. One day that first fall of school, I was on my way back to my apartment when a man on the bus struck up a conversation with me. Despite the fact that I was not the least bit interested in continuing any kind of relationship with this guy, casual or otherwise, he managed to wrangle my phone number from me. (Was he just that persuasive or was I just that much of an idiot? Probably a bit of both). As a further testament to my stupidity, when I went to exit the bus and he asked "do you live in those apartments?" I believe I told him that yes, I did. (I am cringing thinking about how DUMB I was!) He responded by telling me that he lived across the street, and pointed at a complex of buildings that I had been wondering about. They were clearly not apartments, but I hadn't seen a clear sign so I wasn't sure what they were.

Well, I found out what those buildings were that night...when the guy from the bus called me and told me that he had been in prison (for nothing that was really his fault, of course), and that he was currently living in a halfway house, where he was permitted to have a job but had to be back by curfew. Great, not only was I unknowingly living across the street from a halfway house full of ex-cons, but now one of the residents was sweet on me AND knew my phone number and where I lived. I don't know how I did it, but I did manage to blow the guy off successfully. I probably just stopped answering the phone (or maybe that was when I decided that caller ID would be a really great thing to have?). I do know that I didn't ride the bus for a LONG time after that.

Of course a year or two later I was semi-stalked by the drunk garbageman who moved into the apartment above mine, but that's a story for another time.

Friday, May 18, 2007

imaginary pictures

Since returning from The Big Easy, I haven't had a chance to upload my pictures...so I thought I'd give you some verbal descriptions of my time there (also, I don't have pics of some of the very best bits)!

Imagine:

1) Two married couples in their 40's--possibly swapping wives for the night, in the audience at a blues show. Both women had blonde 80's poodle hair and kept disappearing into the bathroom for long periods of time. At first we thought, coke? But then after one trip they returned with a third poodly blonde and we thought--recruiting for some kind of little orgy? As you might guess, we spent the entire show watching these people rather than the musicians on stage. Blondie #1 (fake tits almost spilling out) proceeded to get more and more intoxicated as she and Blondie #2 (tall & horsey-faced) groped each other to the great delight of the 2 men. Blondie #1's man did a lot of ass groping, even sticking his hand right into her pants a number of times. The Poodle Girls followed us into the bathroom at one point, where I was sure I would find out more about what their group was up to. Unfortunately, the only action I got to witness in the bathroom was Horsey-Face holding Fake Tits up and leading her into the stall to puke. Post-puke, the action in the audience got even better, as Fake Tits demonstrated her love of licking Horsey-Face's armpit (NOT accidentally, I can assure you), and Fake Tits' man continually poured water into her mouth, grabbing her chin for stability. Whatever their plans were for later, I'm pretty sure nobody was sober enough to make them happen.

2) Things are in full swing on Bourbon Street as we stroll past tranny hookers and bachelorette party groups. Just as we pass some street blockades, some drunk guy lets go of his stomach contents about 2 feet from the cops on duty. They ignore him completely, and he just keeps on drinking.

3) At Jazz Fest, we spot a guy wearing a shirt we'd chuckled at the day before in a gift shop: it had a large picture of a rooster and said "Ask me about my cock." He was spending his day at the Fest roaming with a sharpie marker, asking women to sign the shirt. By the time we saw him a second time, he was passing through the area where we were sitting waiting to hear John Mayer play, seeking out new autographs, though the shirt was getting full of comments. I started reading some of them--some women had played along, while others were obviously more half-hearted in their efforts. I was thinking about what I might write if asked, when a girl seated nearby unknowingly took up my mission. She signed the back of his shirt with "I checked--it's tiny!"

4) This one can't be communicated in a picture anyway...our last night in town, after a day spent drinking at Jazz Fest in the 90-degree heat, we had a huge dinner at Paul Prudhomme's restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. We scored a great table on the balcony, and enjoyed wonderful food while a little brass group played traditional N'Awlins music on the street below. After dinner, we were all too full and too tired to go do any more drinking, so we retired to our rooms. J and I were sharing a room with my aunt, and [because other activities were off-limits in this situation] we decided to rent a movie. It was after 2 am when the movie ended and we finally turned out the lights. Perhaps as one last compliment to the chef before going to sleep, J let out a huge, long, loud fart. Just as the fart came to its conclusion, we heard a perfectly-timed "woo hoo!" from a reveler on the streets below. I guess there's always something to celebrate on Bourbon Street.

Friday, May 11, 2007

poll

So, J and I have been invited to some kind of fancy dinner thing with his parents tonight. I love getting dressed up, but almost every nice dress I own is SOOOO 10 or 15 pounds ago. So here's the dilemma...do I wear:

-the cute dress from the plus-size store that I just wore to a work meeting on Tuesday (provides ample coverage but I'm a little bored of it at the moment and because I wear it to work things, does not seem very sexy to me right now)

-a very hot number that shows off the curves (one of those black lace over tan fabric types...sizzling!), but that is dangerous in terms of displaying a belly pooch once I consume any type of food or drink

-an even hotter chiffon tiger print dress that is flowy enough to eliminate any stomach worries, has total cleavage exposure (which, if you were wondering, is a plus in my book), but is just snug enough around the top to create a bit of back fat overflow behind the arms

--a burlap sack

What's a girl to do?

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

I'm off to New Orleans for a few days of drunken revelrie, music, gumbo and voodoo. Not necessarily in that order...