A true story about a very small world, part III.

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

It is a truth universally acknowledged generally recognized known to the few stalwarts who have put up with my presence for any length of time that Mrs. E has only two strategies when confronted with potential personal crisis: a) unplug the phone, curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor and lock the door or b) dive headfirst into the deeps and attempt to surf the roiling waves of human strife with honesty (rudeness), integrity (bullheadedness) and wit (sarcasm). Both involve nausea, cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, chills and a constant heartrate only slightly lower than a hummingbird’s. Neither is fun to watch. Neither works very well.

B never, ever happens until she has been forced out of the bathroom.

Thanks to The Kid, I didn’t even have time for the puking to begin.

A true story about a very small world, part II.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me. Part 1 is below.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

Because of course, I was lying through my lovely veneered teeth.

We had dated, if the definition of “dating” can be understood to include “screwing around during a season of summer rep before Ms. Euphrosyne had matured enough to end an existing relationship honestly, thereby employing the classic technique of using the fling as a catalyst with no intention of ever taking it, or him, seriously.” It had seemed so perfect, in a sleazy way. He was almost ten years older, living and going to graduate school across the country in the fairytale world of C___________, and most importantly, he had played the end of the summer beautifully in harmony with my narcissistic needs.

Yes, it was fine that we date other people. Yes, we should stay in touch. Yes, maybe we could arrange a meeting at some unspecified future time, but there was to be no pressure, no obligation. I was nineteen, a late bloomer in full and raging efflorescence, and the last thing I wanted was a commitment of any kind. He was almost insultingly fine with that. I cried when I left my new friends that August; I could barely speak to the man I truly had a terrible crush on; I said good-bye to the fling with not a flutter of regret, and he was just as calm.

A true story about a very small world.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake

There is no doubt that I showed spectacularly poor judgment; not head-through-a-windshield or hey-I’m-in-jail poor judgment, but poor nonetheless. In retrospect, however, I feel a substantial portion of blame (and isn’t that what it’s all about, really?) should rest squarely on the skinny shoulders of The Kid Who Should Have Been in Honors English. You always get at least one in the chaos of wildly varied adolescent humanity that is “regular” freshman English: the transfer whose records haven’t made it yet, the eighth-grade binge drinker who is now sober with a 1.3 grade average, the emotionally disturbed introvert disguising rage as apathy, or the most depressing type, the hard-drugging 17-year-old total waste of potential.

The Kid in this instance was a classic transfer delay. He was polite, he was smart, he knew all the answers, he was a typical late-maturing male – he was exactly like most of the guys in all my own high school classes. Fortunately for The Kid’s health and well-being, he was also funny and rather pretty, a favorite with the regular English pep squad girls, although their approval did not extend to thinking of him as a potential sexual partner. The popular girls adopted him, petted him, laughed at his jokes – and you can bet your sweet ass that meant most of the boys did not give in to their natural instinct to kill off the weakest pack member. Even the most hormone-addled teenage boy knows you don’t kick the hot chick’s dog. So The Kid, unlike most of his misplaced kind, enjoyed a relatively peaceful scholastic existence.

I’m alive with a hellacold

but I wrote this:

Shut Up and Teach, Amen

Not about gratitude

Sheer unadulterated pissantery? No. I am simply too hopped up on chlorpheniramine maleate, phenylephrine, and incipient hypoglycemia to think clearly. Actifed completely kills my appetite (it will return sometime later tonight and drive me to the refrigerator in search of leftovers; mmm, leftovers).

(later) The husband and the kid stayed later than I did at the scene of the gustatory orgy; they got home half an hour ago with the spoils and the dressing had its way with me.

Getting well

I hope.

Nora and I seem to be kicking whatever it was we got last week; I’m pretty sure it was a virus of some kind, since it was accompanied by vomiting (hooray) and fever (double hooray). Here in Allergy Hell, also known as Central Texas, the distinction between viral and allergic snottiness is important – and frankly, I’d prefer for her to catch a cold anytime, rather than develop the allergies she almost certainly will. It’s not only the cedar (and for anyone who’s never suffered the infamous Central Texas Cedar Fever, you don’t know from phlegm); there’s also the mold running rampant through the clay soil. And oak. And ragweed. Eventually, the little allergen bastards are going to get your immune system, and you’re going to jump on the pollen merry-go-round.

I never had much of a problem as a teenager; moving slightly farther north for college probably helped. At 26, though, I got a big “welcome home” dose of every wretched symptom and a lingering bronchial infection to top it all off. This was in addition to the aftereffects of a car wreck (herniated disk) which made sneezing and coughing painful… Eventually I gave in and went to an allergist (Texas must be a Mecca for aspiring ENT’s; the land of golden stethoscopes, the realm of constant sputum) who cleared me up and then decided I had asthma, based on a consistently low lung capacity. Crap. Runs in the family, so I believed him, even though he appeared to be about twelve years old.

Cut to a year later, when the magic asthma dust had made no appreciable difference in my ability to douse those damn fires on the computer screen. Baby Doc has obviously been puzzling over this, as a conscientious infant should, and has reached a startling conclusion: the curvature of my upper spine, very visible on chest x-rays, has likely compressed one of my lungs and therefore permanently reduced its capacity. Harmlessly, he adds. So no more magic dust.

Chalk up one more for Quasimodo.

I have a cold.

Nora had a marvelous day Friday, and brought home her very first official dayschool virus. Since the only surface on which she will voluntarily wipe her nose is my shirt directly between my breasts, I suppose it was inevitable that I would become sick, too.

Damn it.

Seriously, this phlegm thing approaches the level of phobia. I want general anesthetic until the cold runs its course.