I think I have tonsillitis. Seriously.
Friday I cleaned house (did tons of laundry) and had a fairly good day. It was the first day in a whole month when I didn’t have at least one panic attack! Late in the afternoon I showered and put on my new cute dress – the one I bought at a consignment shop in Iowa City recently. (Cute dresses are fun. I want a dozen more.) I made and served dinner to my hubby when he got home from work, and he, predictably, fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV before dark.
I text messaged Hattie a few times; she was waiting at the Red Rock for Misty so they could go to see Steve’s band play in Ft. Madison. I was invited, but didn’t want to be out quite that late. I wandered around the house in my cute dress with my clean hair, listening to my husband snore and folding laundry.
By the time I went to bed, my throat was sore.
Saturday I was in HELL. Oh my GOD my throat hurt! Fuck! Swallowing was like an explosion. I ran a temperature on and off all day. I ached and everything hurt and I was in agony. My husband, who has the compassion of a fucking rock, showed me no sympathy and was kind of a jerk because I wasn’t paying him proper attention – he’s of the opinion that I’m being “lazy” when I don’t wait on him hand and foot, keep the fridge full of dead animal flesh, and make him lunch. (I’m kind of getting sick of his shit again, frankly, but that’s another post.)
He left for town without even telling me he was leaving, and he didn’t answer his phone any of the three times I called him to beg him to bring me some ibuprofin and Gatorade. He apparently thought I was just fucking off or something. I finally had to stand in front of him yesterday afternoon and say, “Hey! I’M SICK, you fucktard. My tonsils are huge, my throat hurts like hell, and I’m running a temperature.” Being who and what he is, he did not ask if I needed anything, nor did he offer any kind of help or assistance in making me comfortable. He’s a heartless twat. In fact, he went out to dinner with Joe, Misty & Steve in Mt. Hammil.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I do not expect him to stay home on a Saturday night just because I’m sick. But the decency of a simple, “Can I bring you anything?” would go a long goddamned way around here, I can tell you that much.
Today I got him to buy me some Advil (but only because he was already going to town to take Joe home), and now I can kill the pain long enough to eat and get some hydration in my body, but I’m still miserable. Miserable, I tell you. Miserable! It’s a hundred degrees out and my tonsils – which have always been unusually large to begin with – are massive, and they HURT, and swallowing feels like my head is exploding, and I have a fever so my skin and bones ache.
When you turn seven or so, your tonsils are supposed to shrink. By then you don’t need them quite so much, having already been exposed to most of Earth’s germs. Mine never shrunk. They’re pretty big. Which means that when they swell up they’re huge.
WebMD, who assumes all persons with tonsillitis are children, says,
“A sore throat along with sudden fever and swollen lymph nodes may indicate a bacterial infection. Anyone with these symptoms should see a health professional to be tested for strep throat, which requires treatment with antibiotics.
“Tonsillitis is usually caused by a virus and does not require prescription medication. Gargling with salt water and taking nonprescription pain medications (such as acetaminophen) can help manage symptoms as the body fights off the infection.”
Lovely. Either I hope for strep and therefore antibiotics, or I have to suffer through a damned virus.
I guess I’ll be going to see my sympathetic-but-disturbingly-vacuous GP tomorrow for a strep swab. You know, just in case. And I guess I’d better hit the grocery store on my way by, lest my neanderthal husband should feel the lack of snack food and dead animals in the fridge means I don’t love him… God forbid he should be required to ever cook for himself! Even when his wife has tonsillitis! OR POSSIBLY STREP, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!
I have device envy. I want this ebook reader.
Not that there’s anything wrong with reading ebooks on a PDA, but this thing’s cute.
Plus I’ve randomly decided I’m against multi-function devices (for no good reason other than to be contrary), so why the hell shouldn’t I add an ebook reader to the list of electronic crap I already carry around?
After all, what’s another 18 ounces next to my PPC, cell phone, iPod, and thumb drive?
For dinner last night I made tuna steaks, and new potatoes and mushrooms in the BBQ wok. I love my BBQ wok. If you don’t have one, get one. They’re amazing. You take any combo of chopped veggies, toss ’em in some marinade (olive oil, salt, and pepper is often more than adequate) and throw them in the wok on the grill. They come out tasting amazing.
Since it was so blisteringly hot, I went to lie down in front of the fan after dinner last night and fell asleep before eight.
I woke up at midnight and ate six Frootie Ice pops on the porch in the dark, with two of the dogs lying beside me.
I pay most of my bills online. Today, I was unable to pay three of them – this has never happened before. One site locked me out after an incorrect password entry, another’s database was down, and a third was in restricted status because I haven’t made a payment in three months – oops.
This bothers me terribly, because now these institutions expect me to call them. And speak with them. On the phone.
I hate calling places, which is why I pay all my bills online (except three that don’t accept online payments, and for those I usually drop checks off in drop boxes after the businesses are closed). I’d rather pull my nails out with pliers while holding my hands submerged in a vat of boiling Mercurochrome than call a company and discuss, with some unholy bitch, why I haven’t paid them in three months or why I typed my password in wrong or why their web site won’t take my damn money.
Voice communication with vendors is so last century.
It seems you’ve learned not to use MSN to surf for porn; I hardly get any funny porn search strings any more. In fact, most of my search hits are for the same things. I have to say again, however, that the number of persons searching for “how to build a nuke” is somewhat disturbing.
71.2% of you use Windows XP. I don’t like Windows XP. Not that it’s ever done anything to me personally, I just don’t like it. I’m still thinking of switching to OSX.
Wanna hear me sing?
As you know, I sang backup on a CD recently. You can now download a few tracks from Dancing In The Light right here:
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I should be doing housework, but I’ve learned something: housework always needs to be done. Always.
I have a husband who works construction, a cat, and three dogs. My house is old. I live at the end of a gravel road. In Iowa. There is never a moment when I can say, “My house is clean,” because there’s never any such moment. My house will never be clean.
But I! I can most definitely be tan.
(Yes, it’s difficult to take your own picture.)
If you love Google, which of course you do, and need help figuring out how to waste more time playing with it, here’s your holy grail: Googlewhacking: The Search for The One True Googlewhack.
NLW came over yesterday and we doused ourselves liberally with coconut suntan oil, sunbathed, and talked about sex. (And knitting, and spirituality, and travel, and relationships, and a host of other things. But somehow it seems more appropriate to talk about sex while covered in oil.) We had BLTs and cheesy poofs for lunch, followed by chocolate ice cream for dessert.
It was fun as hell. She’s got a great new hair cut – a cute long bob – and she went and lost at least twenty pounds and looks great (the bitch). Greater, now that she’s got herself some tan lines.
Last night was my Seventh Ray gig at Revelations. I thought it was going to be in the basement, so when I showed up a healthy half-hour late for sound check, I was a little disconcerted to find the basement stage empty. I ended up calling J’s cell phone to ask him where the hell the gig was. Turns out it was upstairs in a room I’d never even seen before.
The crowd was smaller than the last gig, but just as appreciative. Over half of them had already heard the CD at least once and they joined in on the chants. NLW came to see the show again, and C was there toward the end – it was her birthday, so I kissed her about five times after the performance was over while carolling, “Happy birthday!” J embarrassed her by making her come up on stage to have the birthday song sung to her. It was cute… but then, I was only a spectator. She may not have thought it was so damn cute. Tee-hee!
There was cake. Apparently, cake is a staple at J’s performances. I don’t really understand this, but I ate a piece anyway. This time it had frosting instead of whipped cream, and NLW kept her paws off it.
After much talking and chatting and schmoozing and networking and saying, “Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I finally made my way through the milling crowd, out the damn door and down the stairs to my jeep. Where I had a damned cigarette already.
NLW and I ended up sitting on the sidewalk with adorable blue-eyed, braces-wearing Martou (the chef from Petit Paris) and L (one of the R girls) smoking cigarettes. Teenaged girls are so intense! L’s in love with a ninteen-year-old boy who has apparently made out with her but who is also, she says, a total asshole. I’m not entirely clear on the dynamics of their relationship, but they’re VERY complex. And intense. And painful. Or annoying. Or something. I’m not sure. But boys, as we all know, can be total assholes. Especially when they’re still teenagers.
L is Martou’s roommate and they live in J and Lu’s old apartment above the French restaurant. She goes to school and has two jobs. When I first met her, she was ten. She took me on tours around the farm while Bread and I were still thinking about buying it. She was really blonde and pudgy and she didn’t look like she was related to the rest of her brown-haired, willowy family. But now! Now she’s got an amazing, lithe body, a beautiful face, gorgeous long blonde hair, and she’s smart as hell.
World, consider yourself warned: she’s on her way. Look the hell out.
She already lives on her own! At fourteen! I guess this is the right town for it. If you’re gonna let your girls go off on their own at fourteen, it might as well be in Fairfield. Not that any parents could hold on to this child.
(The rest of this post is a long story about getting drunk, featuring people you don’t know. You probably shouldn’t read it.)
NLW and I broke away from the angst and went to find a cocktail. Martou was able to shepherd L back into the restaurant to, I assume, finish closing. We looked in the windows at Deja Vu but I was too afraid of the crowd to go in there. They were having – I shit you not – midget wrestling in there. Midget. Motherfucking. Wrestling, people! We ended up going to Red Rock. Gorgeous was bartending and was gorgeous, as always. AmmZon, who sat next to us, and I kept flirting with her. NLW said that if she still flirted with bartenders she’d flirt with Gorgeous too, but that she’d given up flirting with bartenders years ago. Heh!
AmmZon and NLW and I had great fun talking for a couple of hours. I originally met AmmZon through BoSe; they dated briefly and he brought her out to the farm for a BBQ when RP was in town. She’s tall and has really long, straight blond hair, a sweet face, and the softest skin you’ve ever felt – she informs me it’s a family trait, the incredibly soft skin – most importantly, she’s a massage therapist. And I’m going to hire her to give me a massage! And it will be wonderful!
I got drunk because Gorgeous kept bringing me drinks.
T came in at one point and showed us the ticket he’d just received for urinating in the alley. “This is the first ticket I’ve ever gotten that I’m proud of!” he exclaimed. There was some clamoring for a live re-enactment, but apparently he was more sober than the rest of the bar and tastefully declined. I saw Mary & Jesus; Mary was wearing an outrageously low-cut yellow dress that only a woman as utterly bodacious as herself could possibly pull off. I saw a few more people I recognized, but it’s clear that I’m old and out of the loop because the vast majority of the creatures in there were fresh meat to me. I made the bartender take his shirt off so I could see his ink – he was wearing a black wife beater and the edges of his tatt could be seen on his shoulderblades, and most people like to show off their ink anyway. Plus I’m looking a lot at stylized patterns for my plan for the rest of my lower back. Plus he was young and slender and cute and willing to take his fucking shirt off for drunk women, so what the fuck.
NLW went home eventually, and AmmZon and I closed the bar. After the crowd was gone we helped Gorgeous and the tattooed bartender bus all the tables, while the remaining crowd of about six people had an hysterical, screaming fit over AmmZon’s friend’s revelation that he did not go down on women, ever. AmmZon asked Mary if Jesus “did his duty,” and Mary went off: “Oh fuck YEAH he does! If he wants anything back, you better believe he fuckin’ does!” When word of the topic got to Jesus, he went up to the bewildered boy and said, in his fabulous Latin accent, “What, you having problems? What do you need to know, I’ll tell you all about it! You just open the house and you’ll find the key, it’s right there, man! You got to eat the pussy, man.” It was obnoxious and totally fucking hysterical, all these people running around cleaning the bar and screaming, YOU HAVE GOT TO LEARN TO EAT THE PUSSY! Bewildered Boy definitely took a beating; every man and woman in the place told him that he either needed to learn to go down on women or give up ever deserving a blowjob again, or admit that he was gay (“not that there’s anything wrong with that!”). Watching Jesus pat him on the back with drunken, fatherly reassurance was a fucking RIOT. I blew my voice out with all the screaming and laughing I did, and the bar got cleaned in a hurry.
AmmZon, Bewildered Boy, and I went next door to Torino’s. AmmZon was starving. We ordered a medium pizza and spent a loud, drunken time telling everyone who would listen – namely the boys in the booth next to us, whom AmmZon had gone to preschool with – that Bewildered Boy wouldn’t perform oral sex. I can’t even guesstimate how many times the word “pussy” was screamed from our general direction. The three of us were all solidly drunk and disorderly, and so was the large table across the room. AmmZon ended up having a few hysterical moments of posturing with these two guys; somehow our tables had caught each other’s attention and suddenly AmmZon and this guy were facing off in the middle of the restaurant, threatening to kill each other, hackles up and growling obscenities at each other… and then suddenly they were smiling and saying, “Oh, nice to meet you,” and going back to their tables.
AmmZon’s six feet tall and farm-raised. She could pretty much take most of the men in the world at one-on-one. Seeing her explode out of her booth and head at someone, snarling, is a treasure – I was laughing so hard!
The language in Torino’s at 2:30 in the morning is atrocious – all these drunk twenty-somethings screaming, “I’ll fuck you in the face! I’ll fuck your face off!” across the dining room to gales of drunken laughter is an experience, to say the least. Exausted twenty-five-year-old waitresses stood at the prep area and waited for us to finish our food already and get the fuck out of their stations so they could clean up and go home, and all we did was hork down pizza and scream obscenities. At one point I looked up from my slice of pizza to see that AmmZon had some buff little boy in front of her with his shirt off, posing into the mirror on the wall behind our booth. Blondes, especially Amazon blondes, apparently do have more fun! We were all so drunk and sodisorderly, and I probably needed that pizza more than I knew. Remembering now how crass I was I feel a little bit of that cringe-inducing drunkard’s remorse. As in, Oh my God, did I really scream ‘pussy’ at the top of my lungs repeatedly in a restaurant last night!?!
Eventually I wrote a check for the pizza and we went back to Red Rock. I helped sort the tip jar into $25 piles of singles, and $10 rows of quarters, and eventually Gorgeous and her tattooed, wife beater-wearing co-bartender were done for the night.
AmmZon and I went over to Gorgeous’s. The three of us sat and talked in Gorgeous’s front living room for a couple hours, until Gorgeous started fading hard. Then AmmZon and I took our leave, Gorgeous went to bed, and I didn’t get home until dawn.
Dawn!
I slept damn near all day. I got up to eat, to hydrate, to sunbathe (my priorities, even when hung over, remain unchanged), but I did not go to C’s to install Filemaker for her, nor did I do a single, solitary, useful goddamned thing all day.
Now it’s nearly ten and while I’ve seen Bread, I literally haven’t spoken to him at all. I can hear him downstairs playing video games. I might go check in with him on my way to liberating a Bomb Pop from the freezer. (I’m really into Bomb Pops lately. They have Disney/Pixar characters on the box, and they’re purple, blue, and white. Oh, and they’re frozen, of course, and full of sugar. I love them. Bomb Pops!) On the other hand, why start now?
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4 random books from my Library!
