Fun with Nyquil

Each annoyingly pathetic time I get sick, I know how it's gonna go: misery, misery, misery...

Otherwise known as The 5 Stages of Illness, per me:

1. Sore throat, sniffles.

2. Denial that I'm getting sick, followed by an overdose of Airborne, Emergen-C, echinecea, goldenseal and anything else I can get my hands on to prevent the germs from taking up residence in my mucus membranes

3. Anger when it doesn't work.

4. Inability to breathe because the germs have won and it hurts like a bitch.

5. Irritating hacking cough.

By the time I get the cough, I know I'm on the upswing. After 6 fucking days, I'm finally in the final stages of this awful cold. Even though my head still feels like a balloon, and I swear to god I'm floating, I know I'm getting better.

And I damn well better be.

Shady Figures

I live on a quiet street. It's a tree-lined residential neighborhood made up of apartment buildings nestled between two major avenues. I've been here for 6 years.

At night, it gets a little deserted. And the streetlights are set far enough apart that it's rather dark. Especially on nights like tonight when the moon is hiding behind a blanket of clouds. Did I mention the trees throwing shadows all over the place? It can be a little spooky.

So when I got home at nearly 9 pm, and there was a black-clad man wandering suspiciously down the middle of the street, and I spent all weekend in bed watching tv shows about women killed in their apartments, is it any wonder that I felt a little apprehensive pulling into my garage?

Thank god he just kept walking past my building. Preferring prey a little further down the road, I'm sure.

I gotta stop watching those shows.

Blog Action Day

Today anyone with a blog and an eco-minded conscience is tasked with creating awareness around our planet's plight.

So I give you this:

Cigarettes, children, litter.

Take from it what you will.

***

Blog Action Day.

So Fucking Sick

Since Thursday. That's 4 full days. It's the reason you've gotten nothing of substance from me, including a photo on Friday.

Frankly, I'm tired of losing my equilibrium because my sinuses are all messed up, or feeling like my head is going to explode. But the best part is sounding like someone who's smoked for 90 years. So sexy.

Except not. At all.

Gasping for Air

I haven't been sick since I had to take an entire month off of work in March 2006. It was immediately after that bout that I started training for my first half-marathon and somehow that kicked my immunity up to indestructible levels.

19 whole months free of germs.

Until the sweetest little boy--who just happened to have the sniffles--lay kisses on me all day Saturday. Now I can't breathe.

It's been a good month since I saw the inside of a gym. The combination of work hours and lack of energy don't make it easy to keep up my exercise routine. God knows I'm paying for it now that my pants fit a little snug. I know it's not gigantism either. And I was just thinking earlier this week that I damn well better get back there lest I get sick soon.

I guess the joke's on me.

Monsieur and I had a real date planned for tonight, too. One that didn't involve beer and/or watching football like the last 6 weekends of our lives. Not that I mind that, it's just that a girl deserves a little romance now and then. In a dress. With George Clooney.

I even shaved my legs.

Dammit.

Um...

Yeah, I got nothing.

Scavenging for Prizes

Over the weekend, my baby brother, the Shambot, my mom and Baby Aladdin participated in a scavenger hunt in beautiful downtown Burbank. Well, the baby was more of a silent partner. Like the team mascot.

We figured we had the inside track against the 4 other teams given that 3 of us were raised in the area, and most of the team lives with 5 blocks of it. We took the four page list, divided it among us, and ran off to hunt.

I was done with my list within 45 minutes, buying most of the items on my list. My teammates were much more resourceful, spending a whopping 86 cents between the 3 of them while I forked over a good 40 bucks. I returned everything except $8 worth of toys, which were immediately gifted to the G-brat and C-note.

2 hours later we reconvened and felt pretty confident about our findings. We were only missing 5 items, which were nearly impossible to find without running back to one of our houses. Which would probably have been cheating anyway.

Well we should have cheated, or at least driven a car to the event because we ended up coming in dead last. We could have picked up at least 4 of them at my mom's house: a driedel, license plate frame, magnets, fake monster teeth. That would have given us 20 points and tied us for 2nd place.

There are two morals to this story:
1. Always drive to the mall, and
2. Cheating is the only way to win.

I'm annoyed. This after running around in 3-inch wedges for two hours after attempting to climb a 74-story building the day before.

My feet still hurt, dammit.

But we did have a lot of fun. Next time, I say we do it drunk!

Two More Things

1. Heliocopters hovering in my neighborhood are annoying. Damn juvenile delinquents.

2. Bluetooth ear pieces fuck with your peripheral vision. Especially when driving. Which is just as distracting as fiddling with an actual phone, so what's the benefit?

Photoblogging Friday 10.5.07

I've exhausted the creepy parking lot so starting next week I'll start with something new. But for now, here's the last of the series:

Out the window

Looking down on 9th street in the Historic Core. Just around the corner from the Broadway Bar, which if you're ever in downtown, is an interesting watering hole. Owned by the same genius behind whiskey bar Seven Grand just four blocks away.

Now I'm thirsty.

Dancing Pipe Cleaner Queen

Have you seen this yet?

My favorite is making it dance to E.

It takes so little to amuse me these days.

Random Hypothetical

Say I run into an ex boyfriend while out with my current boyfriend. After the requisite introductions, is it acceptable to tell one that the other's penis is bigger than his?

Even if it's true?

I'm just wondering. You know, in case I suddenly lose all sense of class and graciousness.

September by the Numbers

I usually start these monthly rundowns off by complaining about how fast the time passed, don't I? This one is no different. Because I honestly cannot comprehend how we're in the last quarter of the year. Can you?

The days between Monday and Friday are passing so goddamn quickly that my weekends are now completely consumed with doing as little as absolutely possible. Doing not a fucking thing would be best. We'll see how that works out this month.

And then at the end: Halloween!!!

But for now, September:

25 days being in charge
1 new hire
15 days spent holding her hand
1 new client group
4 of the company's former presidents present at the first meeting
30 minutes making them laugh at my jokes
2 cocktail parties
1 massive ongoing headache that just won't go away
2 birthdays
3 day holiday spent firmly rooted to the couch with Monsieur
1 backache earned for that laziness
6 chiro visits trying to fix that mistake
46 pictures shot in his icky parking structure
45 minutes with a camera down my throat, enjoying the best sleep of my life
20 minutes in recovery, screwing with the oximeter probe to make the machine look like an Etch-a-sketch (the nurses didn't like that)
2 days spent fasting

And yeah, that's about it. All I did was work all month, so I didn't do anything fun. Even those cocktail parties were work. Man, I gotta get out more.

Or just stay home and rest. Yeah, that.