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About six years ago, I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. I’ve already written about how awful my apartment was in that town. But I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this guy that I dated while I lived there. “Dated” is actually kind of a loose term. It was during a time when I was very lonely and depressed, so I was drinking a lot more than normal. He was just the guy who happened to be around for a few drunk make-out sessions. For the record, I never slept with him, because apparently even when I’m sh*t-faced, I still have some shred of good judgment.

His name was Michael, although he told me that everyone called him Leroy. I don’t know why. I refused to call him that, and it pissed him off that I insisted on calling him Michael. Of course, now he has the nickname PsychoMike. I honestly don’t remember what PsychoMike did for a living, I think it had something to do with stereo equipment. We hung out/dated for a couple of months. When one of my co-workers had a Christmas party at her house, I brought him as my date, which turned out to be a huge mistake. He followed me into the bathroom when I went to go re-apply my lipstick and tried to have sex with me in there. My boss and my boss’s boss were less than 20 feet away from the bathroom door, so I was having none of that. We got into an argument about it later, and I’m pretty sure that’s the night we kinda-sorta “broke up” (since technically he was never a boyfriend in the first place, there was nothing to officially break up, but whatever).

For the next few weeks, everytime I saw him out around town, I would ignore him, and then he would call me at 3 a.m. and scream into my answering machine, calling me a bitch and the c-word and all kinds of other lovely language. Yeah, he was a winner. Oh, also, one of my friend’s boyfriends pointed out that he sort of looked like the mad scientist’s little sidekick on South Park, and honestly? Even when I was dating him, I could sort of see the resemblance. Short, bald, bug-eyed, bad clothes, the whole thing. I have no excuses, just that all of this happened during a particularly low point in my life.

Over the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve gotten the occasional email from him. The last one was well over two years ago, and it honestly scared the bejeezus out of me, so I never answered him. I thought that was the end of it. Then last week, I got this in my inbox:

hey there cindy…… long long time no speak…… anyway, was searching through my VERY old address book and spotted your e-mail and thought i’d say what’s up!!!…. just to refresh your memory it’s mike from lovely worcester….. refresh your memory a little more…… remember you/ myself went to holiday party few years back …… like i said found your e-mail and thought i would say hello…..

Um, ok. Like the only thing I’d remember about him was that Christmas party, not the fact that we dated for two months prior to that. Right. I started to write him back with a very pleasant chit-chatty email about what I’ve been up to lately, and it included things like, “oh hey, remember my friend Melissa? She got married and had a baby boy last year.” (Which is true, yay for Melissa.)

Then I remembered the last email he sent to me (back in 2003-2004 timeframe), and I decided that the best way to deal with The Crazy is to confront The Crazy head-on. So I scrapped the email I had originally written and went with this instead:

Hi Mike,

Yes, of course I remember you. I think the last time you emailed me, you told me you were in love with me and you wanted me to send you some of my panties or something like that. Honestly, you kinda freaked me out. Hope there isn’t any of that business going on anymore.

By the way, I got married about a year ago. His name is Dave, he’s British, he’s a computer geek like I am, and he makes me laugh like no one I’ve ever met in my life. So I’m very happy these days.

Hope you’re doing well.

Cindy

I know it was sort of bitchy and snide, but I really hoped that would be the end of it. Of course, The Crazy always has to respond:

HEY THERE CINDY… FIRST AND FOREMOST CONGRATS! LASTLY…. VERY SORRY I “FREAKED YOU OUT” CRETAINLY, WAS NOT MY INTENTION… ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE NICE… IT’S ALL ABOUT SPENDING TIME W/ SOMEONE WHO MAKES YA LAUGH…. I’M DOING WELL THANKS

And that was that. (Btw, all of the above emails are completely copied and pasted. I don’t know why he writes in all caps sometimes and not others. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.) I didn’t reply because I honestly don’t want to keep the communication lines open with this guy. Oh, and that bit about him being in love with me and wanting me to mail him my panties? That actually happened. Swear to God.

The whole thing just reminded me of why I’m so grateful to have Dave, because dude, I seriously traded up. (Aside to Dave: Love you, babe.)

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My dad turned 70 yesterday. He seemed pretty chipper about it when I talked to him, but my mom told me later that it’s been bothering him a lot. It probably doesn’t help that over the past few years, two of his five golf buddies have died (in all fairness, they were both about ten years older than my dad), and another one was just recently diagnosed with inoperable cancer. So this birthday has bummed him out considerably more than, say, turning 60 did.

But honestly, it’s kind of got me freaked out too. I’m used to my dad being older - when I was a kid, he was the oldest of all of my friends’ dads. (Except one of my friends, whose dad had been married and had a few adult children before remarrying and having one of my classmates. He was kind of a gross dad, though - alcoholic redneck guy - so I never counted him.) But the word “seventy” just sounds so old. I’m used to thinking of my dad as this big, imposing, scary guy. It’s kind of strange to try to transition that mental image to one of “little old man.” That label just doesn’t fit him. Of course, he’s not exactly big or imposing either; he was 5′11″ at his tallest, and his posture is so bad that he’s lost a few of those inches over the past couple of decades. I guess that’s just the image of him that I have from my childhood. When you’re three feet tall, 5′11″ seems pretty enormous.

It got me thinking that one of the reasons why I’m so motivated to get pregnant right now is because I have a fear that my kids won’t remember their grandfather. It’s not exactly one of the top items on my list of priorities; after all, there’s no reason to think my dad won’t be around for a long time, he’s totally healthy. But it’s there, lingering in the back of my head.

My grandfather (my father’s father) died when I was five years old. I don’t recall much about him. I remember what he looked like, although that might be more from family photos than my own memory. I have a vague memory of sitting on his lap and him laughing. (When I told this to my mom, she said, “Yeah, he thought you were hilarious.” It’s nice to know that I was putting on my little comedy routines for people before I was even out of diapers.) And I have this feeling, not really a memory, but just a sense of being loved, if that makes sense. That makes me the saddest of all, because I wish that he had been around for a few more years so that maybe I could remember more about him. I don’t want my kids to miss out on getting to know their grandfather or feel deprived like that, which is (one of many reasons) why I’d like to hurry up and get on the damn baby bandwagon. (You hear that, ovaries?)

Of course, anytime the subject of an impending-grandparent status comes up in conversation, my dad lectures me about how Dave and I should wait, how we should be more financially stable first, and that he doesn’t want to be a granddad yet because that’ll make him “old.” My mom is pretty sure that he’s going to change his tune the minute he sees (and falls in love with) his grandchild.

So there’s that.

Oh, and right now there are two guys outside of my office talking about childbirth. One guy asked another guy about a local hospital and he said, “yeah, that’s where I had my daughter.” Um, excuse me? I’m just guessing that your wife might’ve had something to do with that particular hospital visit, buddy. Call it a hunch.

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I’m starting to feel somewhat normal again. Meaning, my sinuses are still whacked out, but I’m not feeling quite so verge-of-death and I’m sleeping through the night, so things have improved about a thousand percent. Oh, and speaking of sleeping? That cough syrup with codeine gives me the weirdest dreams. I only occasionally remember my dreams, but the last few nights have all been very vivid, and I’ve been waking up confused, thinking that whatever was happening in the dream is still happening in real life. I’m honestly not a huge fan of being all disoriented first thing in the morning, but if this is what it takes to get a good night’s sleep, so be it.

Switching abruptly to the topic of trying-to-get-pregnant: I recently ordered this book. (Thanks, Sarcomical!) For whatever reason, our stupid postman was too lazy to bring the box to our doorstep and leave it there (hate him), so instead I got one of those notices in our mailbox that said I had to go to the post office to pick it up. Our post office sucks, every time I’ve had to go there to pick up a package, they’ve never been able to find it. We live in a very small town, so the post office is also small, and you’d think that it would be difficult to lose someone’s mail there. Ha! Last year, one of my friends sent us a wedding present a couple of days before the wedding itself, and it was a few days after the wedding when I was able to go pick it up. By the time I got there, they had actually mailed the package back. So yeah. Hate.

On this particular occasion, the line was out the door of the post office (whose idea is it to have one employee working at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon?), but when I finally got to the front of the line, it only took them a couple of minutes to find my package. Hooray. On my way out, carrying my new book about “taking charge of my fertility” under my arm, I passed a pregnant woman. I hope it was a good omen, because it honestly just kind of pissed me off at the time. But I think I already had a chip on my shoulder about having to go to the stupid post office in the first place.

But this book? Is pretty darn cool. (Although I do need to stop reading it before bed, because again, the dreams, they are a-freaky.) There are all kinds of things about my body that I never knew, and all kinds of very scary diagrams. The thing is, I’m totally fascinated by it, but I’m not allowed to talk about most of it with Dave. Anytime the subject of my cervix comes up, he tends to plug his ears and yell “la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you-la-la-la!!” And I suppose that’s ok, he doesn’t really need to know the graphic details of how things work “down there”. But it’s made me glad that Kris is around, because at least I have someone with whom I can be all, “hey, did you know such-and-such, etc.?” She seems totally unphased by pretty much anything I tell her, so that’s cool.

Other than that, our weekend wasn’t too terribly eventful. We went to our local sports bar for dinner on Saturday night, and saw the worst band in the history of the world. (And guess what? They have a website! Thanks, Google!) Seriously, they were awful. Classic rock cover band, led by a guy with a horrible voice, who didn’t even seem to know most of the lyrics of the songs they were covering. Case in point: during “Drive” by the Cars, there’s a line that goes: “who’s going to plug their ears when you scream?” This dude said, “who’s going to hold your hands when you scream?” Um, what? I know it shouldn’t matter - their cover would’ve sucked regardless if he knew the words or not, just because they were that bad. But I’m sort of OCD about song lyrics, and it just grated on my nerves when he got them wrong.

Last night, we watched “The Squid and the Whale”. Wow. I don’t know that I have ever disliked Jeff Daniels that much, I just wanted to hit him. That movie is intense, I kept sort of curling into a ball and willing them to just please STOP already. I suppose it was well done and all that, but man, it was depressing. Not sure if I’d recommend it or not.

And now, it’s Monday morning. Back to the grind and all that. Yadda yadda. Whee.

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Last night was pretty much the same as the past week and a half: I woke myself up coughing approximately every hour or two. I’m starting to feel like I’m losing my mind from sleep deprivation. I called my doctor’s office this morning, and told them that they either had to fit me in or I was going to the ER. They fit me in. Not my usual doctor, but I really wasn’t in the mood to nitpick.

The verdict: first, I don’t have pink eye. (For you Brits who don’t know what it is, here you go.) I think I overreacted when I woke up one morning and my eyes were excessively goopy, but they’ve been clear and non-itchy ever since then, so it appears that I’m fine. At least in that department.

As for the cough, the doctor said, “it’s just bronchitis.” Yeah, no sh*t, Einstein. I told him that I haven’t had it this bad since I was a kid, but back then (according to my mom, who of course, knows everything), the doctor would usually give me a shot of some kind of steroid (decadron, I think), and it would at least make the coughing spasm part better. He seemed appalled that anyone would give me a shot of steroids, because it has so many dangerous side effects. I guess doctors are a bit more free-dispensing with the drugs in Mississippi. Who’d have thunk it? Damn lawsuit-happy west coast.

So instead, he gave me a prescription for nine days’ worth of prednisone. It’s basically the same thing as the shot, just spread out rather than a one-off. If I remember the side effects correctly (and I’m quite sure I do), that means nine days of retaining water, eating everything in sight and puffing up like a balloon. Fun! It’s a good thing Dave took that whole “in sickness and in health” vow, because I have a feeling this (read: me) isn’t going to be pretty. Although honestly, if it helps, I’m so past any sense of vanity at this point, I just don’t even care.

And for the record, when I called my mom after the appointment and told her that the doctor wouldn’t give me the steroid shot? She was pissed. You don’t question my mom’s medical diagnoses. Because, as I’ve already mentioned, she knows everything. She wanted to call my doctor up herself and pull a Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment” on him. (“Give my daughter the SHOOOOOOOOOT!!!!”) She calmed down slightly when I told her that I got the pills instead. Crisis averted.

Oh, he also gave me some hardcore cough syrup (with codeine! yay!) which should knock me right the hell out at night. Here’s hoping.

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I made it through a little half-day at work on Monday, but I’ve been home for the past two days. This bronchitis is killing me. Maybe it’s because of the exhaustion (since I can’t seem to sleep for more than two hours continuously), but I honestly cannot remember the last time I was this sick.

The worst is at night, I have coughing spasms where I can’t catch my breath and I don’t know how to stop them. Dave has somehow slept through all of it the last several nights, but last night he woke up during one of my coughing-in-my-sleep fits. He started patting me on the back, which was sweet, but it woke me up, so that was no help (exhaustion-wise, anyway). He said this morning that he was worried because I sounded like I was dying. Out of desperation, a couples of times in the middle of the night, I have actually used Dave’s asthma inhaler, which does help a little bit. Go me for disregarding my doctor’s instructions.

Oh, and also? I think I might have pink eye. Somebody just kill me.

I don’t have anything else to write about. I apparently picked the perfect week to get sick because everyone is at a big conference in downtown Seattle all week, so I don’t think anyone has even noticed that I haven’t been in the office.

I’d whine some more, but I need to go lie down with a cup of tea and some hot compresses on my eyes. Pray for me.

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This sinus infection/bronchitis/virus/whatever that’s been kicking my ass for the past few days? Has not yet left me. I’ve tried everything: I’m drinking tons of fluids (mostly water and tea), shooting saline up my nose to irrigate my sinuses (it’s really gross, but it helps; if any of you are curious, this explains how to do it), taking all the appropriate vitamins and other assorted drugs, etc. And I still feel horrible. I cannot go five minutes without a coughing fit. The worst is at night, I can’t seem to get more than an hour or two of sleep before I wake myself up coughing. Miserable, I tell you. And NyQuil gives me some weeeeird dreams. So even when I do sleep, I wake up all confused and groggy.

Oh, and it now seems like Dave is coming down with the same thing. Poor guy.

But, I am at work today. Because I am a trooper. And apparently kind of stupid. Damn this Protestant work ethic of mine. I’ve already apologized profusely to my officemate for all of the hacking and wheezing he’ll have to hear today.

I did get a couple of movies in this weekend, though: we watched “Walk the Line” (very very good) and “Broken Flowers” (good, but a weird ending). We also rented “Good Night, and Good Luck”, but haven’t had time to watch it yet. You know, what with my busy schedule of coughing and whining about how miserable I feel.

And now, it’s back to my regularly scheduled whimpering and pretending to work, while actually being stoned out of my mind on over-the-counter cold remedies. Whee.

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I am sick. Sick, sick, sickety-sick. I don’t know what brought it on, I guess it’s the change of season. I started feeling bad on Tuesday, my nose was stuffy and I felt like I constantly needed to clear my throat. When I woke up on Wednesday, I could barely swallow. I went to work anyway, but managed to clear my schedule so I could stay home on Thursday.

By the time Thursday rolled around, I felt like death warmed over, and I had obviously crossed the line from “common cold” to “full-on bronchitis”. I managed to get an appointment with my doctor that afternoon, who looked in all of my sinus cavities (ears, nose, throat) and actually said, “Wow”. That can’t be good, can it? She gave me a couple of prescriptions. And it only took the pharmacy an hour to figure out how to fill them. That was fun. It wasn’t like they were all that busy, they just couldn’t seem to figure out something as basic as capsules versus tablets. I almost coughed on the stupid pharmacist without covering my mouth, you know, just as payback. But I didn’t. What can I say, I’m just not that cruel.

I was going to stay home from work again today, but I checked my email this morning and saw a note from my boss that there was some emergency stuff going down and I really needed to be here for it. I doubt I’ll survive the whole day, but I’m hanging in there so far. Thank god for Sudafed. And Angie, that magic potion tea that you told me about? Has saved my life today. It’s not even noon and I’m already on my fourth mug of it.

Not much else going on. I’m just feeling like hell and hoping that time goes by quickly so I can get out of here and go crawl back in bed. No green beer for me tonight. But I will be lining up shots of festively green NyQuil. Close enough.

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