disease and detriment

3 weeks ago I got a headache that got worse, and worse, and worse.  It went on for days and by the time I dragged my sloppy ass to the urgent care I couldn't sleep anymore because it hurt so much.  I thought it was a sinus infection (fantasies of stabbing forks through my skull usually lead me to this conclusion) but the doc looked in my throat and proclaimed that he could "smell the strep."  Right.  I've never had strep.  My throat didn't even hurt that bad.  I failed the strep test, too.  He sent me away with prescriptions for antibiotics, steroids, and vicodin, just to make sure to kill off everything in my body.  I was excited to start feeling better but underestimated how hard going to Wal-Mart to get the prescriptions filled would be.


It occurred to me while I was sweating with a fever in the dairy section listening to Christmas carols and endlessly looping commercials about Thanksgiving feasts that I hadn't eaten in several days and I really might pass out right there in front of the chocolate pudding I was staring at.  Hallucinating in Wal-Mart is terrifying.  I grabbed a cliff bar and sat on the bench near the pharmacy and ate a bite and prayed that I wouldn't pass out and fall on the linoleum floor.  (I have an irrational fear of linoleum floors).


I made it and came home and looked at my throat and saw was the doc saw.  ZOMBIE DEATH THROAT.


A week later, antibiotics almost all gone, my throat was looking just as bad as had when I first went in.  I hadn't really gotten out of bed for the entire week, either.  You know when you're sick and you hit that wall where you're like, "Screw this!  I'm bored.  I'm tired of being in bed.  Time for other things!" and you move to small activities and then to bigger ones and then you're all functioning again?  It had been 7 days and I still was content to sleep almost all day and night and watch episodes of Bored to Death and take vicodin.  I went back to the urgent care.  They did a mono-spot test and I HAVE MONO.


DO YOU UNDERSTAND WORLD?  I HAVE MONONUCLEOSIS.


I spent Thanksgiving alone and in bed.  It was pathetic but I was not having any of "driving for 3 hours to eat lots of food and potentially getting mom sick" or my mom driving here just to eat food with me.  You see, mono has this way of making you forget about food.  Even on Thanksgiving.


Since then I have been laying in bed.  I'm on a new course of steroids that is pretty sweet except for the side effects, which I haven't noticed (other than the insomnia which is listed as a long-term side effect, HA) but are worth a read:

• Elevated pressure in the eyes (glaucoma)
• Fluid retention, causing swelling in your lower legs
• Increased blood pressure
• Mood swings
• Weight gain, with fat deposits in your abdomen, face and the back of your neck

OH RIGHT, FAT DEPOSITS ON THE BACK OF MY NECK AND ALSO ON MY FACE.  As if the attractive golfball sized swollen lymph node on my left jaw isn't enough.  Anyway, I'll be done taking those tomorrow- they have helped a lot with that whole zombie death throat thing.  Hopefully zombie death throat will not return.

Here are things I've learned from having mono:

• pets are amazing at making you NOT feel like you are a worthless sack of shit.  If you have to take care of one, you have a purpose and you don't question God constantly on why you exist in the first place if you are feeling like this.  Pippa is a hilarious companion and she is my best friend.
• orange juice: seems like a great idea.  IT'S NOT.  The zombie throat of death prohibits the citrus. 
• ice cream: FANTASTIC IDEA.
• having mono over a major holiday was kind of cool for being so sucky.  The handouts were great: I sampled 3 different Thanksgivings and realized I love sweet potatoes, pumpkin related items, brussel sprouts, TURKEY, and other things a lot more than I thought.  I should eat these things more.
• antiseptic throat spray rules
• my sick uniform here at chez eliz: black leggings, deep v tee shirt (helps with fevers, you can cool down way faster), long sleeve over that, and uggs and a vest to take Pippa out.  It goes from day, to night, to day, to night, to day, to night, to day, to night..... here at the hipster hospital ward
• emotional breakdowns, whether because of hormone induced craziness from steroids or from sufjan stevens or from the fact that you haven't talked to a human face to face in 4 days, can almost always be cured by a dumb movie, eating something, or having a conversation with your dog.

I've had the mild urge to spread mono to other people who live in my building using biowarfare tactics (licking door knobs, etc) to get even with their noisy obnoxious behavior.  I also like thinking of myself as a phoenix that is dying slowly only to reemerge out of my memory foam mattress as Elizabeth 2.0 who will conquer the planet in the following ways:

1. wearing bright lip stick
2. making new friends
3. styling my hair
4. trying harder to look like Zooey Deschanel
5. cooking things other than stir fry
6. drinking heavily and reveling in my 20's before I get washed up 
7. moving somewhere temporarily with my mobile job and seeing what happens.

I can't stop sneezing; I am so depressed.

So, an update that is not me whining from my blackberry. Christmas and New Years were GREAT because I didn't have to work and there were great people to hang out with at home. My mom and I had our annual Christmas party (even though it was after Christmas this year) and it was surprisingly not as awkward as usual. I think because everyone is growing up it's just ok to be who we are and catch up, high school grudges and hangups aside.

I visited some family for Christmas. My grandmother gave me the world's smallest food processor and world's smallest rice cooker (!!!!) so maybe after I read how to use the things I will be eating something other than PB&J and stir-fry. It came to my attention while I was at home that many of my comrades who are now in the working world don't cook or bring their lunch. This idea has never crossed my mind, probably because I hate eating out a lot and I'm also too cheap. It made me realize how much I hate eating out. My mom reminded me that I even hated it when I was little. I like going out with friends and on weekends and stuff.

Anyways. After lots of fights with my mom (and her sudden flight to Birmingham, AL with her boyfriend?!), quality time at my boyfriend's house playing Wii, and perusing the after Christmas sales (see, Dolla Saver), I went to Asheville with my boyfriend. We went to the J Crew CLEARANCE CENTER which is part of the J CREW DISTRIBUTION CENTER FOR THE SOUTH EAST. When I was done throwing up all over myself out of excitement I picked out a pair of earmuffs that I'd been eyeing at the regular J Crew store that were $50 but at the special clearance store they were $10!!! I also got a wool dress for $35 for those cold ass days when I am tired of wearing pants. That place is seriously awesome. Even my bf got a sweater! Probably because I made him stay in there for 2 hours.

On New Years Eve I drank gin and tonics with friends and we rang in the new year on the top of an apartment building overlooking the city. It was really nice celebrating new years without a tv.














We saw a weird new years caterpillar thing (oh Asheville).

Afterwards we went to a bar (The Z Lounge) and danced and watched the hilarious people in there.

On New Years Day we cooked collards and pork chops and hoppin' john and we slothed around all day. It was glorious. The next day me and the boyfriend and I drove down Warren Wilson Road and I stocked up on almond butter from Amazing Savings (discount gourmet grocery store that is my life-force). We ate at Burgermeisters (awesome) and drove home. I really didn't want to leave.

After that I made a trip to the Clearance Goodwill, where you can buy Goodwill items by the pound ($1.00/pound). There, sparkling and new was a Bernina Bernette 50 sewing machine in perfect working condition for $25. I packed that sucker up and hauled it to DC in my carry-on bag. The machine I was planning on bringing back was one of those old Singers that is made of solid metal. They are awesome machines because they can sew through anything (concrete, leather, moonbeams) but they weight approx. 150 lbs. So finding a nice nice lighter machine was extremely good luck. It was my Christmas present from Goodwill. I'm planning on sewing ugly/cute stuffed animals, bags, wallets, ipod holders, etc. very soon. Ideas/things to copy are welcome.

New years in Asheville was great and terrible at the same time. I realized that I really really need to move back there. ASAP. Which is still at least 2 years down the line. I am honestly sick and miserable right now to be back in DC. I feel so dumb for thinking that I would be ok living without the Western NC mountains. I am concentrating on enjoying myself while I am in DC and making a career for myself so that when I move back I can do something other than being a waitress. I also have a cold right now (round II, cool) that is making me even more miserable. It's hard to return to work- no one tells you when you're in school that you are being trained to be a cog in a giant machine that there is no way out of. Well, there are many ways out, but not if you have college loans. I guess there are my two goals: 1. build my career 2. pay off college loans. New Years Resolution 2009: pave the road back to Asheville.

visitors, thanksgiving, ringtones

I've finally really started to calm down after the move, the new job, etc. I know this because I've started making themed playlists again. In college I made playlists of songs about mountains, songs with clapping in them, stuff like that. Now I'm working on a playlist related to public transportation (or travel in general) and a playlist with songs that include something about Washington in them. When they fill themselves out I'll be sure to report my findings.

So since my last post I've had several visitors. I hope that my life in Washington always has this many visitors, every weekend someone new comes up for one reason or another! RW came up a while ago for a little and we combed Georgetown for things that were remotely affordable (ha!)

My boyfriend was up to visit for the past week- I had to work for a lot of it though which was disappointing and also disturbing. I've never had to ditch someone for entire days like that. I've always been able to move my schedule around. It was nice anyway, we ate lots of good food and explored some great stuff. Unbeknownst to us, there was a Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that we happened to stumble upon. That worked out really nicely since my boyfriend is a big fan of Ansel Adams (consequently I am becoming more appreciative, too). There is also a nice folk art section in the American Art Museum, I'm just waiting for the day when our beloved South Carolina Chicken Man (Ernest Lee) gets some of his chickens in there. When I bought a couple chickens from him in October he (Ernest) talked to me for a long time about when he lived in DC and how bad the crime is. Apparently he used to work not far from my apartment!

I was introduced to Tryst (near Dupont Circle/Adams Morgan) by some college friends and I am a fan. Although the place was PACKED when we went, once you do find a seat you understand why no one wants to leave. It's a coffee shop / bar that is super mellow with cozy couches and free internet.

I also decided that I officially have a new favorite food. Panang Curry. You can get it in most Thai restaurants. It is AWESOME if you like the sweet/hot combination, kind of nutty, creamy, mmm so good.

So I flew home for Thanksgiving and I've been hanging out with my mom. It's nice spending time with her. Sometimes when I come home though, I get really really stressed out about nothing at all. Stress just pulses through me and I don't want to hang out with anyone and I don't want to listen to my mom talk and I am mean. It feels like I just need to get out or I want to get out of Columbia, even though I don't because I just got here. I have problems. A lot of my Thanksgiving felt like that. Some breaks aren't like that at all.

So I've been busy making my own ringtones- I usually just sample songs (usually the beginning of songs) on Wavepad and then transfer them to the phone. so far the best songs for ringtones are:

Crayons - Caribou (this has been G's ringtone for a long time, it is seriously the best)
Cemetery - Architecture in Helsinki
Spring 2008 - Architecture in Helsinki
Ready to Die - Andrew WK (only the very beginning of this one)

If you have any ideas for a good ringtone please comment!!!!!

interviews, peaches, parades and Jesus

The job hunt is kind of like babysitting. You have to constantly check the kids and make sure they heard you over and over until eventually they are the ones calling YOU. Finally, I'm getting calls instead of emails. I had another interview last week that (I thought) went well. I'm supposed to hear back from them next week. I also got called for an interview with another position next week(!!!) Things are happening! Of course, just like the last time things got "rolling" with this process, I'm starting to FREAK OUT about how big this first job is/could be.

In other news: my mom decided this year we really had to go to the Lexington County Peach Festival in Gilbert, SC for the 4th of July. I'm always up for a parade (I am my mother's daughter, after all) so we trekked out to the 'pit' of South Carolina for this classy celebration. The parade piqued my "anthropology goggles" in that all parades, especially small town home grown county-sponsored ones, are representations of a culture as the "officials" would want the culture to be portrayed as. It's a socialization mechanism to reinforce certain cultural values- putting the values on display as "correct" and "celebrated." For the Peach Parade I saw today, I noticed a few things.

In addition to the overwhelming Christian / Baptist presence (a camel with a banner tied to it that read "Come see me at the Christmas Pageant at ___ Baptist Church!" While the girl leading it fed it Mountain Dew. She'd open a bottle, hold it up to the camel's mouth and the camel would take it and tilt it's head back and drink the whole thing. I think that camel probably drank 15 Mountain Dew's today. It's probably dead.) The main representation of women were as beauty pageant winners. All of these women were young, beautiful, many of them teenagers and children, adorned with crowns, gowns, and titles like "Little Miss Peach Queen," "Miss SC Poultry" and some kind of title about "Miss Tiny-Tot." Of course, there were girls in the marching band, some women in the senior center float, the red-had ladies, etc, but by far the most women were in the parade as beauty queens. The one young woman who was not the standard southern blonde skinny type was instantly ridiculed by the audience near where I was standing- they obviously already knew what an ideal young woman should look like- and she didn't cut it: (by rejecting what they saw in offhand comments, they affirm their cultural capital in the community).

The men in the parade, however, were present driving all the vehicles for the parade (all of them), all the tractors (at least 10), all of the politicians campaigning were men (with the exception of one), all of the veterans present were men, etc. Occasionally, a wife would stand behind her husband as he drove the tractor, and with the politicians the families of the politicians would be in the vehicle with them. There were some girls on the FFA float, which I was glad to see, but for the most part the parade had very clear gender boundaries- the most clear of which was that women do not drive tractors, they are queens! My mom grumbled that this was a "masculine parade!" and that she wanted to go to a gay parade next instead. I'll go with you, mom. Parades really are a cultural anthropology pool party. Seriously.

Getting up close and personal with deep southern culture makes me just laugh and laugh. If I don't laugh at it and label it I just get mad. I get mad anyway. One float for the Woodmen of the World had a large banner that proclaimed: "The Woodmen of the World support our Arm Forces." Sweet Jesus. But Jesus really was there with us today. As we were walking back to the car in the 95 degree heat we were becoming very thirsty. Right as one of us mentioned that we wanted something to drink this woman appeared and asked us, "would you like some ice cold bottled water? It's free" of course we accepted and thanked her a lot. We looked across the street and saw Jesus himself smiling at us from the Gilbert Baptist Church. What a day!