I swear to you, about all I have accomplished lately with any regularity is being sick. Straight up, pukey, green, gross, sick to my stomach. I feel like I ate algae - even though I'm not entirely sure it would make me feel this sick to eat algae, It's an educated guess.
I'm supposed to go to Arizona this week for another Midlife Road Trip adventure. Because of this general state of putrid pukiness, I'm starting to be concerned. What if I am inclined to want to puke off the side of the hot air balloon or throw up when I am rock climbing or shooting a big ass gun in the desert? I don't care how good the editor is, you can't make vomiting look good.
That's why in the 50's Colonel Tom would yell, "Chew it back, Elvis," and then he would.
I found out today I am not flying this trip but instead am driving all the mother trucking way there with two of the Midlife Road Trip crew - JD (Executive Producer~ left) & the one known only in this country as The Dude (camera god ~ right).Why I'm driving and not in an airplane this time is a long story that's not interesting in the least. All you need to know is that it's entirely OK to feel sorry for me.
In fact, I wish you would start right this minute.
I'm an excellent car-tripper. Love it. That's not really the issue. What is getting all up in my business is that me and my algae stomach are going to be trapped on four wheels with two men who will probably spend the whole trip talking about three things that will make me want to spew even more:
Women (tall ones, short ones, young ones, young ones, young ones, young ones.)
Gross things they have at one time or another thrown up after drinking too much. (Roasted lamb intestines, Doritos they found in their foot locker from college, and for reasons I'm sure I never want to know, an entire package of pink erasers.)
Dammit. I just made myself feel even worse. I think I am about to burp a green bubble.
I have been so sick for the past couple days, I can't imagine I could have felt worse if someone had lit me on fire. In fact, I almost think soaking my head in kerosene and striking a match to it would have been a step up.
I finally stopped throwing up, which is absolutely grand, but now I feel like my eyeballs are too big for my face and at some point, I must have eaten a bowl of Kellogg's Jagged Glassios. I did venture forth to take a shower, but I didn't feel I could commit to going the distance with a hair dryer so my hair looks very much like I imagine it would look if I had dipped it in swan placenta and brushed it with a pot holder.
Yes. Swan placenta.
All I'm saying is I was sick and now I'm technically post-sick, but still feeling like I should be in intensive care somewhere. I'm not the only one. Mr. Man would fall on his face and thank the Lord above if I were to be in intensive care somewhere because that means I would not be here. I reminded him that he promised to love me in sickness and in health, but frankly he's especially focused on the "til death" part at the moment.
In all honesty, I actually wrote our wedding vows because I was so upset at getting married again that I didn't want one single thing to be traditional about the promises we made. I felt it was best to be realistic at that point. Now I can't remember if I even made him promise to love me in sickness and in health OR til death. In fact, I think I wrote something like "I promise to love you until they stop showing reruns of Friends in syndication." I'm also fairly certain there was something about me always having control over the remote, and about making sure we only bought the good paper plates, forever and ever. Amen.
I can't say enough about paper plate quality as it pertains to a long lasting and happy marriage.
Anyway, he's getting up at 0500 hours in the morning and heading out to a ball game to watch his offspring play. Did this game suddenly come up when he couldn't take any more of my being sick? I almost think it did. Have I ever in the history of my 100 years on this planet heard of a ball game at the butt crack of dawn? I have not. Is he making up a lame excuse to get away from my bug-eyed self for some sweet relief? I'm gonna say yes.
Next time I write my own damn vows, I'm putting something in there about being forced to love me when I am sick and mean and smell like swan placenta.
This is the picture I would like Nancy Grace to use when she's talking about me next week. Yes - I am keenly aware that I look like a stripper librarian who is impersonating Sarah Palin.
I'm also keenly aware that the picture on my driver's license makes me look like a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade float. It's just a giant head. A giant head with no make-up on and flat hair.
Tomorrow Mr. Man is scheduled for spinal fusion surgery in the Big City. At 3 AM tonight, we will get up to drive him there. We have about 4 or 5 days in the hospital and then a six month recovery period stretched out before us.
Yesterday my son was diagnosed with H1N1. He is young & healthy so there are no worries, but he is very sick. He says everything in his body hurts and last night he was shaking so hard, his teeth were rattling. I actually had to crawl in bed with him and wrap my arms around him to hold him long enough for it stop.
Because of Mr. Man's surgery, I am going to have to send my son to his Dad's to convalesce and that is upsetting to me. It's not that he doesn't have a wonderful Dad. He does. But when the Big Dog is sick - Momma is the hero. At fifteen now, and every bit of 6 feet tall, he still wants me when he doesn't feel good. It's killing me that I won't be home to take care of him. I can't quit crying this morning and even though I know that's completely ridiculous, the tears come anyway.
Then there is the Mister. This is not an easy surgery and we have been fully prepared for what comes next. He's going to need me to care for him and I'm terrified I'll get sick and won't be able to do that like I should. We don't have relatives in our city who can (or will) swoop in and help. He has a sister in a nearby town who is going to dog sit, but as unbelievably scared of H1N1 as everyone seems to be, (thanks for that, Media) I wouldn't ask her to show up here and take care of us.
So I'm overwhelmed. I'm feeling completely human and not at all like Super Woman. I figure when I finally do snap and take part in a spectacular crime spree on my way to Venezuela, Nancy Grace will have something to say about it - especially when she finds out I kidnapped a twenty-five year old cabana boy at gun point. Just so long as she pronounces my name correctly and uses the above picture, she can talk all she wants.
My life is a whirlwind right now. The good, the bad and the ugly has got me by the genitals and is slinging me around.
Not really by the genitals, but I really wanted to use that word tonight so I had to work it in somehow.
The good: all the footage we shot on my trip to Tampa for our TV show is in the hands of the world's most brilliant editor. I saw about 5 minutes of it yesterday and I LOL'd. It wasn't even that fake LOL that I sometimes do when really I'm just sort of smiling, or at best softly chortling.
The bad: my son is sick and also injured his ankle at football tonight. He's not going to be wheelchair bound or sitting on the sidewalk playing a harmonica and asking for food or anything, so don't openly cry for us quite yet. The bitch of the news here though is that he was exposed to Swine Flu and so now we are all sort of standing around waiting to be swiney.
"Did you just cough? Cause I couldn't tell if it was a real cough or if you sounded like Miss Piggy coughing."
The ugly: my enormous ass in the footage mentioned in "The good". Seriously, I am distraught at my completely gargantuan ass. Like I wake up thinking about my ass and apparently I'm getting ready to go to bed to think about my ass some more. Yes, I knew I'd put on some weight as a result of a lovely little pill I'm taking that does wonderful things for your brain, but sometimes makes the rest of you look like you live in a trailer park. It just didn't hit me between the eyes until I saw myself waddling around no film.
On one hand: never been happier.
On the other hand: my ass. Which is too big for just one hand.
Late to the game? Here's Vlog One and Vlog Two to catch you up. (Sounds like characters in a Dr. Seuss book.) Don't know who my arch enemy Dooce is? Definitely do not go to Dooce.com to find out.
Play the SHER DRINKING GAME with all your homies. Every time I scratch my nose or look like I may in fact stick my finger right in it; every time I say "situation", or "going on", or "sumpin' like that", EVERYBODY DRINKS. Wake the kids 'cause it's fun for the whole family!
My having been MIA for a bit has alarmed some readers. Specifically the official stalker of Wiping the Crazy off My Face. Rest assured I have not been napped nor have I sustained a head injury that rendered me unable to type. I'm back now after my court-ordered, I mean completely voluntary, period of writing rest.
Today was dog grooming day in the House of Sher. The two Yorkie brothers smelled like monkey ass and their appearance was such that looking like a monkey's ass would have been a step up.
Yes, there are places one can go to take Yorkies to be foofed and primped. What you need to know about that is I am both too soft-hearted and too cheap to toss my boys in a box and take them there. Mr. Man has filled my head full of dog groomer horror stories so dramatic and Steven King-ish, I can't bring myself to do it. Plus it costs as much as roughly 50 pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and nothing is worth that sacrifice.
Tanner is the smallest and weighs in right at 3.5 pounds. Buddy is the youngest but the bigger of the two. He weighs about what a small Volkswagen does. They are very different dogs. Tanner loves getting a bath. He runs to the tub and tries to stand tall enough on his hind legs to see the water running. I believe it's because he likes to have his penis washed.
Which would explain why Mr. Man does the exact same thing.
Buddy on the other hand cowers when anyone says anything that even remotely rhymes with "bath". He climbs to the back of the sofa and sinks down as low as he can in the mistaken belief he is somehow wearing sofa camo. I always know where he is simply because it's hard to miss a Volkswagen sized thing shaking so violently the pictures on your wall are rattling.
The bath part is bad enough, but when you factor in having to also bust out the dog hair-cutter thingie, the scissors, and the dog brush, Buddy just damn near has an infarction.
Today was such a day. I put down pads on the bathroom floor so that I might cut his hair because it's only rained enough in my city to justify Googling "how to build an arc in 800 easy steps out of things you already have around the house". No way I could do it outside.
I plopped him down and fired up my high quality trimmers and began mowing away. He was OK so long as I only planned to work on the center strip of his back. He even licked me on the nose. But as it began to dawn on him that I was maneuvering him in such a way so that I might get near the only thing he has left of his doghood, he did what I suspect the smallest guy in an Arkansas prison cell does after his cellmate tells him he reminds him of his sister.
He sat down and clinched the ground with his butt cheeks like a tornado was about to blow through the bathroom.
I tried talking to him. "Buddy listen. If you think this is my ideal way to spend a Saturday you are sorely mistaken. I would much rather do just about anything other than shave your behind but I do it because I love you. Now release your death grip and allow me to shove this sharp electric razor between your legs."
He did not comply.
I resorted to shaming him. "Look at your brother Buddy! Tanner thinks you're a big baby. He's laughing at you because he knows a dog with no anal hair is a happy dog. See his ass? See how nice it looks?"
He was not persuaded.
I tried bribing him. "Would you like a cookie? 'Cause I only give cookies to dogs whose behinds look like Brazilian dog butts."
Nada.
At this point I began to accept that Buddy was never, ever giving up his rear end without a fight. "Fine," I said to him. "I'll finish up with your face and ears and then we'll get back to your no-no place when Paw-Paw gets home."
He was greatly relieved. That is until I ran the trimmers over his giant Dumbo ears and nicked one of them. He did not cry. He did not even flinch. What he chose to do instead was bleed as though I had attempted a kidney transplant in a war zone. There was blood all over his ear, blood all over my WHITE T-shirt and blood all over the towel.
Because I am excellent in a crisis situation I sprang into action. I grabbed my cell phone just before I hit the ground and managed to say to Mr. Man, "Get home right now."
That's right kids. The OCD Chick had to lie down on the disgusting dog hair covered bathroom floor in short order before I involuntarily laid down. My upper lip was sweating and tingly, my face was clammy and the bathroom was spinning.
Mr. Man came home to find me sprawled out, covered in so much hair and blood I looked like I had fought off a werewolf attack. Even in the face of my own demise I was ever the loving, caring, nurturer. I whimpered, "Check Buddy! I think I chopped off his ear."
Buddy strolled over to him like it was no big thang and as he stepped right over my head, his unshaved Yorkie ass passing right above my nose, I swear on Rock Hudson he whispered, "That's how I roll, bitch."
Stupid ghetto dog. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ This is what Buddy has been playing on his iPod all afternoon now:
I am sick. Not sick as in “oh gross…that’s sick”, but sick as in my skin hurts and multi-colored fluids are leaking from my face at an alarming rate.
Actually I guess “oh gross…that’s sick” was pretty much spot on.
I was in bed the entire day yesterday and although I am better enough today to turn my computer on, I am still in bed and in a general state of ill health. Mr. Man has taken my phone away and is guarding the door to my sick sanctuary like a gargoyle. The Vicks Vaporub humidifier is humming, a half used box of Kleenex is within arm’s reach and I’m popping Theraflu pills like Pez. It’s like a camphor, snot-covered rain forest in here.
While I’ve been bed bound, I’ve been having sick dreams. Not sick as in “oh gross…that’s sick”, but sick as in the kinds of dreams you have while cat-napping between coughing up phlegm.
I love having dreams. They’re like little guilt free movies in my head that I’m in no way responsible for. While my dreams usually manage to include monkeys in red hats or men in no hats, my sick dreams seem to be incorporating things I’m seeing briefly on TV while drifting off.
Yesterday Chuck Norris and I were carving an ice sculpture with chain saws when Paula Dean burst in to tell us Uncle Jed just saved a bunch of money on his car insurance. Just as Chuck was about to celebrate the news by giving me a diamond journey necklace, Mitt Romney showed up and ruined everything by forcing us to watch his campaign ads.
I woke up just as Anderson Cooper was about to make sweet love to Marge Simpson at Macy’s.
By far, the great majority of my dreams often involve sex. I don’t think I’m any different than anyone else other than I actually admit to being human. I think people are afraid to let on that they are romping around in their heads at night doing things they can’t do in their awake life. Not me. In fact, if you’re a friend of mine and I’ve had a dream about you during which you were in any stage of undress, you are definitely getting a very detailed phone call.
The weirdest dreams are those in which someone I have never really noticed before shows up and sweeps me off my feet in a very Harlequin kind of way. They can be completely dull and balding in the real world, but once they’ve carried me to the top of a dreamy snow-covered mountain, I never look at them the same way again.
One day I’m at a mind-numbing parent-teacher conference telling them I’m happy to hear my son is doing well in History class and then post dream affair, I’m baking them Civil War shaped cookies and asking them if they want to touch my hardtack.
They never know why.
Sometimes I out my friends while I’m asleep. They may be skirt chasing, suave, women-loving, hunks while I’m conscious, but at night they often confess to me they are gayer than Tim Gunn. We cry together, I give them reassuring hugs and then I buy them a beret.
I never tell those guys I’m having out of the closet dreams about them for fear they will need to do something grand to prove their straightness…like shooting me. Instead I immediately call the Evil Red-Headed Berta Lou and we laugh at their expense because laughter at someone else’s expense really is the best medicine.
Speaking of the Evil One, I have dreams about her too but they are never any fun. When she shows up in my subconscious it’s usually to tell me I am doing something I’m not supposed to.
She buzzes in like a moral red-headed mosquito and says things like, “You really shouldn’t put Vodka on your Cocoa Pebbles”, or “I don’t think a married woman should be getting her inseam measured by a firefighter/cop/superhero”. I always try to shoo her away before she ruins it for everyone and reduces me to dreaming about scrubbing the bath tub.
I’d love to stick around right now and produce more Theraflu induced writings, but I’m sleepy again and Chuck and his ice sculpting chain saw await.
