8/23/05
So, I’m finally off to S.E. Asia tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll post any while away. I know I haven’t in the past when on vacation. I’m not one of those crazy mobloggers, you know? Though I know that at least three of the four hotels I will be staying at have wireless broadband (James has a laptop, I don’t). Urgh, I thought I might write something eloquent in parting, but waves of inexplicable nausea are keeping me from getting poignant on you. I’m (almost) sick of talking about being sick, but one last observation. For the past few days the right side of my face has been in pain, I’m still not certain whether this is sinus or wisdom tooth generated, as the issues with either cause similar symptoms. But last night I was finally able to fall asleep some time after 3am. Then this morning I woke up and all the trauma had shifted to the left side of my face. Totally bizarre. Now I’m having sore, itchy dull tingly sensations on the left half of my tongue, tonsil, gums, teeth and cheek. Oh yeah, and the urge to puke every couple minutes kicked in a couple hours ago. Every day for the last week it has been something new. Who knows what goodness tomorrow will bring?

9/21/05
I think I’m starting on a slight upswing, it’s Sunday night and I can now swallow and almost breathe normally (though I still can’t lie down without going into coughing fits [numerous times I’ve choked so hard that pee has come out and I’ve never had children—think what a mess my bladder muscles would be if I had. Or maybe it’s genetic, I remember occasions where my mom laughed so hard she’d literally piss herself. Ah, and my sister has been known to pee in the hall, but I think alcohol might’ve been her culprit], which is irritating because it’s kind of hard to sleep sitting up. My ribs are in serious pain, but hey, no pain no gain. Even though I haven’t gone to the gym all week my abs got an intense work out. I’m totally going to have a six-pack in no time). My eyes still look bright red and demonic. The right one has a white lump smack right next to the iris. A peculiar side effect of being sick is that I think I’ve temporarily become a super taster. I always think people are full of crap when they say something is spicy when it’s clearly not. Like picky baby palates are cultural not genetic, but maybe not. Friday night I made nachos (it sounds like I eat nachos frequently, which really isn’t true—I was just trying to use up leftovers before going on vacation and had Monterey jack, an open can of black beans, sour cream, tortilla chips and an avocado on hand) and put blobs of chile sauce all over like I usually do. I almost shit myself from the heat. It was incendiary, my mouth was totally on fire. Normally, I eat this stuff like ketchup. The next morning James made bacon and he commented how it tasted extra bacon-y. It did, like the fat and porkiness was amplified somehow. They say super tasters don’t crave sweet, spicy, bitter and fatty foods, and accordingly are thinner than nontasters. There could be something to that. As a test, last night we got Thai food and the drunken noodles we always get killed me. That was actually a dumb experiment because I felt like shit anyway, and was already having a sweating, abnormal thirst problem. The food did not help. In fact, within an hour the entire right side of my face was in pain, my jaw was throbbing and I couldn’t open my mouth—somehow my lower right half-grown-in wisdom tooth had been triggered into excruciating action. I don’t know how many bodily issues could go wrong at once. Now I’m just waiting for the antibiotics to cause a nice yeast infection to complete my quest for full body trauma. Because there’s nothing like a 16-hour flight with goopy eyes, sweating, coughing, nearly cracked ribs, breathing difficulty, insomnia, inability to chew and itchy genitals. I have a little over 48 hours to get it all together.

8/19/05
I’m starting to be driven nuts by this cold, respiratory infection, whatever it is. I had to leave work early yesterday because my coughing fits were making me (and I’m sure everyone around me—there’s no worse environment for uncontrollable noise and outbursts than a dead quiet library) insane and I could barely breathe. For the third night in a row I couldn’t sleep no matter how much Nyquil, Sudafed evening, etc. medicines I took. Even though I doubted a dr. would give me anything since it’s likely viral, I called first thing this morning. There was no way I could go to work, and I’m sure they’d like to kill me since it’s a summer Friday and two other people (in an office of five) had the day off. I had to leave a message at the doctor’s because no one answers the phone, they called back at 9:38am saying there was only one appt. left at 10:15am, which was kind of crazy because I wasn’t dressed, ready to go, or even in the same borough. Luckily, James goes to work late and was able to drive me to the 4 train. I actually go to the dr. on the dot, and was reminded once again how much the F train sucks. I got there in like 15 minutes while it took three times that to get back home on my usual train. Anyway, I don’t think the dr. was convinced I had a sinus infection but gave me antibiotics anyway. I know antibiotic overuse is dumb, but I’d rather take potentially useless medicine and hope that it might fight a bacterial infection versus doing nothing and possibly ruining my vacation. I also got a prescription for Cipro eye drops, which creep me out (I hate eye drops) so I didn’t fill it, but now my eyes are burning, bright red and oozing green goop. It drives me insane to have almost three days off and not be able to do anything mildly fun with my time. Reading and writing is irritating, tv is boring, walking around exhausts me and I can’t even sleep. Such a waste. Oh, but piddling around in small chunks over the past week I’ve managed to put up a freaking blog. Yes, a blog. For the time being it’s mostly rehashed food related stuff. I can see how in the future it might be redundant, like how do you decide what to write where when you have a bunch of half-baked webpages floating around. If I start to write about food here will I have to put it there instead? I just got caught up in the whole concept because organization and structure make me happy. While I was too beat up to come up with much of anything fresh or new to write this week, categorizing old content gave my muddled mind some structure to work with. I have a hard time with written words when I’m sick, maybe it’s some twisted connection with my not being able to speak without shooting throat pain. Not being able to talk is like the worst punishment ever.

8/17/05
I know it’s insensitive, but I’ve always been irrationally irritated by the sound of coughing. It’s practically like fingernails on a chalkboard. (There was a year or so, as a freshman in college when my sister and I had to share a room because my mom had left my dad and moved us to a smallish apt. One night she was coughing so much that I lost my shit and my mom made her sleep downstairs on the couch. She was incensed by both my mom’s cruelty, and mine but whatever.) And I’ve been surrounded by it in the past week. I’m not a germ-phobe, it’s not like coughing bugs me because I fear cooties getting all over me, it’s just the noise when a cough seems particularly forced and overly pathetic, almost attention getting like people who yowl and make needless noises while yawning. At work, coworkers on both sides were stifling coughs and I could actually deal. Then James came back from visiting his parents last week and drove me nuts with phlegm hawking and ceaseless hacking. Don’t get me wrong, I was/am sympathetic, he’s still sick. But now I’m sicker than any time I can recall in recent history. Karmic retribution maybe. I really didn’t want to call in sick to work since no one else had and I’ll be off for two and a half weeks starting next Wed., but I’m dying here. Monday my lungs and throat started hurting, then I couldn’t swallow or breathe. Then yesterday every bone in my body started aching (it hurts just to type or turn a magazine page). Despite the humidity and heat, last night I was freezing to death, shivering uncontrollably, and then freaked out when I looked in the mirror and my lips were purple. All night I was bundled up in my winter comforter alternating between shaking and sweating. My temperature is 100.1, which I know is bad since I never ever get fevers. So, I’m trying not to be a complainy baby, but it kind of sucks. And because of my own fault, I put off refilling a blood pressure prescription for a couple days, then freaked out yesterday because there was that study released about women who regularly take over the counter painkillers getting hypertension. I’ve been downing Sudafed, Robitussin and Advil like there’s no tomorrow while not taking my stupid blood pressure meds, and I was convinced yesterday that I was going to have a heart attack. So, after work I went to pick up my prescription and it wasn’t until I got home that I realized they’d given me someone else’s. Karina A. Gaige’s, not Krista A. Garcia’s. And of course being Carroll Gardens, it’s not like I’d accidentally get something good and narcotic like OxyContin or Vicodin. Oh no, it was something called prenatal RX. Freaking fetus vitamins. (And not her first child, I found a birth announcement from Sept 2003 in a synagogue newsletter. I also gleaned that she and her husband moved to Carroll Gardens in 2000 from a cached Jewish mailing list, and is a web producer at History Now Pointless nosiness amuses me to no end.) I just didn’t have the energy to walk the eight blocks back to the pharmacy. So, all night I was feverish, delusional, joints aching, heart racing and fluttering, trying to sleep, and speculating on how I could sue Eckerd if my heart exploded and I lived to litigate. Ok, I’m being a little overly dramatic, but I seriously can feel my heart thumping all crazy, and I’m having trouble trying to get motivated to get dressed and walk to the drug store. The only possible upside is that I have absolutely no appetite. I was half-heartedly trying to lose five pounds before going on vacation so I could be piggish on holiday, but it’s so not working. I know I’m seriously sick when food holds zero appeal. Oh, here is my empanada story in today’s NY Post. Am I literary or what? Total Pulitzer material.

8/12/05
Jesus, I started writing this Friday and couldn’t get my act together until today (Monday) to actually do anything about it because I’ve been tired/hungover/feebly fighting off loved ones and coworkers’ flu germs. Obviously, I’m not a real blogger. Or someone who can handle staying out late three nights in a row. Yes, I’m a senior citizen. A week ago I was bored out of my gourd, sitting home twiddling my thumbs over a wasted three-day weekend. So, this week I had opportunity to reverse the trend. I’ve never been a real weeknight goer-outer because I’m too practical. Even when I used to work Saturdays I eventually came to realize I couldn’t stay out all Friday (though it took quite a few months and a couple pukey moments in the public bathroom). But I figure as long as I’m in by midnight it’s not any different than if I’d sat and watched TV all night. But when I sit and watch TV I don’t usually drink. That’s the problem. Thurs. night I couldn’t pass up seeing a catchy band playing at a bar near my house. Especially since I never frequent the bars in my neighborhood (I just saw that the closest bar to us, formerly Red Room, which has been shut down since winter, is finally being turned into something. Something good? That’s hard to say. I walk by the building every day and wonder when it’s going to get its act together.) Voxtrot was worth seeing, though. Poppy Austin kids with a kind of useless website (I know, I know, it says a new one’s coming. I was hoping to get a look at the peach fuzzy bass player to determine whether he’s actually hot or not like I thought while hazily ogling him. I also wanted to see the singer’s last name because we couldn’t decide if he was Pakistani or Mexican. Ok, it’s Srivastava. So not Spanish). Friday night it was a birthday party at Union Pool. Saturday night it was back to Williamsburg (I now it’s cliché to dog the neighborhood, but the vibe truly is grotesque. I swear to god, I’m moving to Philly with the other nine or ten Brooklyn expats that constitute a trend in the NY Times. Actually, I have entertained this idea over the years. It’s way cheaper and only slightly more than an hour away by train [my current 6.5 mile commute is close to 50 minutes, which I’ve never been able to get my head around]) for a wedding party at Galapagos. I missed My Favorite play, but it was alright since I’ve seen them before. But I did arrive in time to be scared by Haunted Pussy (they might have a website, I tried www.hauntedpussy.com, but it was blocked by the web filter at work). Ok, I wasn’t scared, but the bride’s family, including youngsters and real seniors (not 30-something seniors like myself) who’d taken a van in from New Jersey was a little perturbed by the rock opera tale of a girl raped and impregnated by a ghost. I still swear that if I ever get married and do it in NYC that I will have it at East Buffet (what’s up with all the fucked websites? This used to go to the Queens location, now it’s just Long Island). $25 bucks a head, yo. Actually, this party was “catered” with Key Food food and decorated with 99-cent store accoutrements—no complaints here. Not remotely related, but as I predicted someone would eventually write a story about food bloggers taking photos in restaurants because I had the idea but lacked the motivation to carry it out. Friday’s Chicago Sun-Times had the first article I’m aware of. Blog on, foodies (yes, I just used two of the vilest words ever in a single sentence).

8/10/05
This has been the antsiest summer. That’s what you get for making vacation plans at the very end of the season (I would’ve chosen earlier, but the air pass I’m doing goes down in price considerably after Aug. 17). I’ve been saving up my whopping ten days off and summer Fridays to make one decent chunk of out-of-the-country days. But it sucks when everyone else is taking off and doing fun things. So finally, two weeks from today I get to get the hell out of here. You know, I was supposed to have an article in today’s NY Post, and it didn’t run and no one had mentioned it to me, and now I’m going to have to bust some skulls. Well, not really, I’ll probably just send a passive, polite email asking what the deal is. I’m just distressed because I was counting on the pay as extra vacation money. I could get three nights in a relatively upscale Kuala Lumpur with that money. Now I’m going to have to panhandle and sleep on the streets. Or not, but I’m still miffed. I think I’m just lucky that with the minor writing assignments I’ve had so far that there haven’t been any serious fuck ups because freelance writing can be a pain. I’m just not smart, creative, well-connected or aggressive enough to ever consider attempting it as a career. I can’t pitch to save my life and anything I’d enjoy writing (er, mostly crap involving myself) isn’t terribly marketable. Which reminds me, I’m having all sorts of issues with that My Date With Drew movie. I mean, celebrity stalking/mooning over a grown-up E.T. star was my shtick. You never saw me making a movie and TV appearances. One, because I’m not a filmmaker and two, I’m skeeved out by self-promotion and attention-getting antics. Is this a male/female difference or a me vs. successful people thing? This is the sort of subject that needs to be written about, dammit. Serious, hard hitting journalism. Publications are just clamoring for personal takes on a nichey movie, right? For the record, they just had free ice cream at work again to celebrate all the May-Aug. birthdays (I wasn’t even on the list because technically my dept. isn’t a part of the NY office, we’re global. That’s fine, it also meant that today’s “email free day” push to get colleagues to talk face to face also didn’t apply to me. I totally went email crazy—just because I could) and it was the good Ben & Jerry’s bars just like we normally have for events. The company truly did bring out the shitty plastic cup and wooden paddle pap only for the library’s presentation. Just another personal affront to add to my already over fueled feel-bad fire. Today has been one of those days where you irrationally feel cursed and downtrodden and like every tiny thing you do is prime for ridicule and disappointment. It’s actually been that kind of week, for the last two days I’ve lugged my gym clothes to work, get depressed for no substantial reasons, then head straight home instead of being well-adjusted and health-minded, and lie face-down on my unmade bed until I bore even myself. 5 o’clock is just around the corner, and I seriously fear falling into this trap for a third day in a row. Oh, I just got an email about having my NY Post piece published next Wed. instead and they want more ideas for future issues…ok, I’m perking up a bit. Maybe I won’t end up in a flabby heap on my filthy sheets again, after all. Now if I could just find a place to write about my stalking expertise and why this Drew guy went about it all wrong, life would be temporarily ideal.

8/6/05
Left to my own devices I will do absolutely nothing. Well, I’ll do negligible things, but I won’t leave the house. I had yesterday off and of course today too since it’s Saturday. Lots of people are out of town and I can’t be bothered to seek out people to do things with because I’m not actively social that way. I was invited to two bbqs last weekend and I didn’t even go. I don’t know anyone in my neighborhood, and I’m not one for going out to eat or drink by myself. I wish there was a local bar where I could do that sort of thing, they do it on TV all the time, but usually you know the bartender or run into acquaintances or meet strange guys and get laid. Currently, none of those are likely scenarios though my natural tendency leans towards the latter and judging from the unattached males in this area it would be creepy all around. And I’m not really looking for action. It’s just the principle, that even if I wanted to prowl I’d end up sorely disappointed. I don’t know what single people do around here. I fear becoming a shut-in, xenophobic invalid. I did go to the gym, made fresh squeezed lemonade and low-fat-ish nachos, and added all sorts of useless banter to my new blog which isn’t public yet because the only platform I could find that suits my needs is kind of techy and I can’t figure out basic things like formatting and uploading photos without messing with style sheets, something I never really bothered to ever learn even though it’s not complicated. Thurs. at work we had to do this big presentation, it was very exciting, I got to use all my wonderful Power Point skills. Monthly, the CEO will have an interesting guest come speak, but for some reason the library was invited to give a talk this time, which you know no one wants to hear. So, they had to bribe employees with a Yankees ticket giveaway and free ice cream. Whenever there’s free ice cream at work, it’s those Ben & Jerry’s bars, which are pretty tasty. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to turn one down. I was joking how since we’re just librarians they wouldn’t even bring out the good stuff, but serve those remedial swirled ice creams in little plastic containers with wooden paddles. And guess what? That’s exactly what they did! I couldn’t believe my precognition skills. So lame, but at least I wasn’t tempted to eat one. Ok, I just went outside for the first time today (well, technically I was in the hall earlier for about 15 min. barefooted and wet-haired answering census bureau questions about crime) to get Chinese take out (I’m too cheap to have it delivered. I’ve always had a thrifty streak but I fear it’s getting worse. The other day at work they had all these pastries and fresh fruit set up in a common area as a reward for everyone moving offices [my office wasn’t moving] so of course I had to get some. But the truly miserly librarian-ish behavior came out after the food was all gone. I actually went out and saw all the plastic cutlery that hadn’t been used, grabbed a bunch and stashed it in my drawer. Jesus. And when I visited the swanky bathroom at Yumcha for my birthday dinner I was completely wowed by the almost cotton towel quality of their nicely folded paper towels and crammed a handful in my purse because I figured they’d make better subway sweat mops than the Kleenex I’d been using that sticks to my face and that I’m unaware of until hours later when I look in a mirror) I don’t do the ubiquitous NYC hole-in-the-wall Chinese thing very often, but when I do I’m always shocked at the insane amount of food. Even as a penny-pincher and glutton, I’m a little appalled. No wonder they’re so popular. All I really wanted were crab Rangoon, a mild guilty pleasure that I only seem to eat when I’m alone. But I figured I get one of those combos too to not look like a total freak (that’s the other reason I didn’t do delivery—the 10 for $3.25 rangoons don’t meet the minimum). String beans and pork seemed mildly healthy, at least there would be some vegetables and nothing else breaded and fried. I picked the $7 dinner for one, which ended up also including a shitload of fried rice (the default, I was fine with plain white), fried wontons, wonton soup, sweet and sour spareribs and “chicken fingers.” Easily dinner for three or two hungry people. I don’t know whether I should be impressed with how much food I got for around ten bucks or disturbed. Self-imposed portion control, I guess (for the record, I only ate half the rangoons and all the spareribs). So, I might be a pathetic Sat. night Chinese take out food orderer, but I draw the line at watching Ghost Dad on the PAX Network. Who knew it was directed by Sidney Poitier?

8/3/05
I think I’ve finally been able to pinpoint what it is about blogs that annoy me. It’s not that everyone and their nanny has one (the rebuttal, as is de rigeur in the blogosphere), I’m not elitist. And it’s not that most of the writing isn’t worth wading through—if people have the time and energy to blather about Harry Potter or their pet pug, let them. What I don’t like about blogs is their physical structure. I know my website is a hodgepodge mess, that’s why a couple days ago I got the bright idea that I would take all my disparate goodies food crap that has piled up on different pages since 1998 and organize it into a single blog. It’s not like anybody cares what I wrote about tater tots in 1998, but it’s a personal exercise. If I only wanted to see references to chain restaurants I could, or soup, whatever. As a librarian, I have an innate urge to categorize and organize, and it dose irritate me that webpages are flat, I don’t have database skills (though I’ve suckered James into building me a system for restaurant reviews, which no one will care about except me, but that’s ok), so I’m at the mercy of hyperlinks, which admittedly are so last century. But apparently blog software was created with retards in mind. I signed up for a Typepad trial with the idea that I’d tediously cut and paste (it’s not like you can import/export old fashioned hand coded entries into any of these templates) all the food related stuff I’d written into individual posts based on when they were actually written, and then assign the posts categories. Great, fine. But to post for any time other than the present, you have to scroll a month at a time using a woefully slow calendar interface. It takes a handful of minutes just to get back to 2004, you post one paragraph and then you have to start from scratch again. I didn’t have the patience to even scroll beyond October 2003. I don’t even know if it goes back to the ‘90s. It’s very very lame and totally useless for my purposes. Obviously, the concept of blogging is completely lost on me. I’m not trying to blog, per se, I just want preexisting information to be tidy and am trying to use these half-assed software packages as content management systems. I guess blogs are very much about the here and now, the ephemeral. Blog applications aren’t intended as preservation tools, they’ll automatically archives posts, but it’s nearly impossible to add in anything once the day is done. Maybe they’re trying to prevent revisionist takes on history. I know, blogs are merely publishing tools, with the ability for continuous updates and addenda. But why can’t new discoveries be tucked in the back or filed where they’re relevant? Of course for something chronological, like a diary or online journal, it makes sense to pile new on top of old. But when you’re working with content about things, I think you should be able to arrange them so they make sense to you. I’ve been at this static style of posting and uploading so long that I can’t undo it without trauma. There’s no simple way to convert any of these webpages, even if I wanted to be all modern and relevant. So, my attempt at being an official blogger lasted about 48 hours. Which is longer than my resolve to not any fried or sugary foods until my vacation begins on Aug. 24. This weekend I ate like ten million empanadas because I’m writing this piece for the NY Post on oddball empanada flavors. And James came back from Oklahoma Friday night with a bunch of bbq pork ribs. By Sunday night I was feeling ill and decided that as of Aug. 1 I wasn’t going to eat any junk. (This being a good idea was only further substantiated yesterday when my dr. told me my blood pressure and sugar was high [yet strangely, my cholesterol is A ok—bring on the fried empanadas]. This is kind of disturbing because I already take blood pressure medication and haven’t had any problems in the three years or so I’ve been on it like a middle aged man, so I don’t know why all of a sudden it would stop working. I haven’t been any unhealthier than usual. I go to the gym 2-3 times a week like I always have, I might smoke a cigarette [or two] every day or so, which is way better than the pack a day habit I had for over a decade. I really think something is wrong with my cardiovascular system, not to mention my kidneys. I’d really rather not have a heart attack in my 30s. I would at least hope to make it into my 50s before I have my first, as is typical in my father’s side of the family) I made it through Monday, no problem. I made it up through a fairly healthy dinner at Waterfalls, but then the waitress brought us two of those baklava things that are rolled like cigars and I was forced to eat one. I can’t just leave gratis desserts like that behind on the table. I guess I could’ve stuck it in a napkin and thrown it in the trash, but I can’t toss perfectly good food away. This morning I made it to work, armed with my usual instant oatmeal and black coffee (maybe oats really do lower your cholesterol), and was faced with a big box of See’s Candies brought back from a coworker who’d been in San Francisco. If it were any other sweet I would ignore it, but See’s is nostalgia, a childhood Christmas treat. I can’t not eat See’s sitting on a table twenty feet from me. Er, so I’ve eaten four pieces already. What can you do? But I’ll get back on track, James is out of town again, this time to make his mother happy during her birthday on Sat. (why he had to leave on Wed. is beyond me) so there’ll be no bad home influences. I will eat nothing except broth and salad the rest of the week, which is going to be tough because there’s a box and half of Hostess Wonka Cakes in the fridge downstairs. And more than a case of beer. Um, I wonder if alcohol counts? I didn’t’ say I wouldn’t drink until Aug. 24.

Update: ok, I’m retarded. I was just keen on typepad because I see it used the most (moveable type takes too much tech know how for a spur of the moment experiment). But apparently, blogger has very simple pull down menus where you can pick years and dates all the way back to 1990. Wow, I can pretend that I was blogging as a high school senior: Dear diary, I hate my mom, we missed curfew after The Ramones show and now she says we can’t see Mudhoney, even though we already bought tickets. It’s not fair, we weren’t even drinking or doing anything bad, just playing pool with some guys—one of them had an Elvis tattoo—cool (!) It’s not our fault that Heidi dragged us to some house in NW Portland and she was our ride. Fuck mom. She can’t ground me anyway because I’m going to France in a couple weeks (that was actually ’89 because I can’t remember anything happening in 1990). I don’t know if I can get around the aesthetics of using anything actually called blogger, though. Why does the world have to be so gross?