a post, in 4 acts

dependency

hasn't been much to report lately because i figured nobody wanted a daily update that read "i'm wicked stressed out, i hate school, and i couldn't sleep last night" for like, 21 days in a row. but that about sums it up.
having recently entered into a mutually beneficial, though temporary, partnership with doxylamine succinate (you know him as 'unisom'), i've managed to get a couple of decent nights' sleep that feel a lot like the first few sips of water when you're dehydrated. oh so good, and oh so insufficient. i must have looked convincingly haggard and anxious, because the doctor and my insurance approved up to 21 sessions at the sleep center to help me "re-learn" how to fall back asleep when stress has awakened me. unfortunately, my first session isn't for 3 weeks.

in the meantime, the lack of sleep has taken its toll and the cold that's going around hit me as bronchitis with a sweet fever and intermittent voice loss. i've been in bed since friday, except for that whole e$ getting married thing. let me comment on that.

matrimony

erin and jp's wedding was pretty much the best time i've ever had. it was so beautiful, and so poignant, and so fun, that i can't help but be depressed that it's over. i swear, i made it through that 15-hour day on enthusiasm and sudafed alone (and with the help of a few double glenlivets and gin and tonics). nothing phased me that day - not the fagle hairdresser's yanking on my poor heat-set curls; not falling on my ass twice (once on the dance floor, i think on video; and once getting out of the car on the way home); not mysteriously pulling out every pick-up in the skirt of my beautiful gown, probably through some energetic but ridiculous white-boy dance moves; not having people strain to hear my mucous-ridden croaking voice; nothing. it was a perfect day.

adversity

and now i'm still paying for it. i had to drag my ass into school at 2 pm to take an advanced chemical bio midterm. on the way, i nearly drove away from the pump with the gas line still in the car (has never happened to me in my life before). also almost paid for my coffee and then left it at the register in dunkies (also never happened); almost got into an accident by being cut off so bad because i didn't anticipate the other motorist (i've been cut off before, but never been surprised by it - you always feel it coming). then suddenly, my enjoyment of kz's recommended music choice, the shiny toy guns album, was cut short by a deafening fighter-pilot cockpit roar and the sense of serious instability and mechanical failure overhead. that's right folks; it was a windy day and my sun roof got peeled up like the lid of a tuna can. mere months ago i would have cried at this misfortune. lately, i've been so good at turning stressful situations into eye twitches and facial muscle spasms. but since my body was already spent by illness, i just decided to shrug and figured it would either come off on the highway or it wouldn't. and either way, i would fix it when i could. a quick call to kz minutes before my exam left me with post-exam plans involving finding an auto zone and a ratcheting tie-down. 2 hours later i emerged from the 20-page nightmare from hell with an additional orifice through which to excrete waste. imagine the worst organic chem questions. imagine the worst optical physics questions. that's probably what i did best on. now imagine the other half of the test.

anyway, it's done; i would say i could relax but i have another and even more important and perceptively more difficult midterm on friday. and i'm sure everybody in my lab thinks i'm not possibly as ill as i am, and must be chilling at home with a post-wedding hangover and a slothful agenda. but i did make it home today in one piece, with the ratcheting tie-down adoring my car like a flashy yellow advertisement for the downsides of rust and hick life in new hampshire, and like most things in life, i'm sure it's nothing some JB weld won't fix.

pharmacy

now i have my robitussin, sudafed, vitamin c, airborne, chloraseptic, ricola, and unisom lined up like shots in a seedy geriatric watering hole, and i bid you goodnight.