Conversation From Lunch

Lauren: You're insane about that hand sanitizer.

Me: I know.

Lauren: Do you use that every time you touch money?

Me: Yup. Or ride the subway. Or touch a doorknob.

Lauren: That I get. But ... money? Really?

Me: Lauren, money is covered with poop and cocaine.

Sue: That's true, you know. I read that somewhere.

Reader Participation

What should the word "lurp" mean? This question has a purpose. I can't promise that my limited attention span will enable me to reveal that purpose, however.

I am recovering from my 47th cold of the winter, by the way. The first year I lived in New York, I was sick all the time just like this. That was because I wasn't used to riding in the mobile petri dish that is the subway, and because my office was a big open area where everyone sneezed on each other all day. (For fun.)

Now, however, I suspect I'm sick because I've been traveling, so I can't really complain. Traveling is fun! Honestly, having a cold isn't so bad either. I secretly (OK, openly) enjoy having a slight cold, because it gives me an excuse to lie around my house and relax. The rest of the time, I have to wait until I have a hangover.

Update

I have returned. In my absence, New York was snowed upon. Can it be a coincidence? I think not.

Because I love you, citizens of the New York area, I will agree to stay put. For now. However, if it snows again, I might begin to doubt my magical weather-related powers (if not, of course, my many other, well-documented, non-meteorological powers) and go on a weekend trip to Boston or similar. You've been warned.

Anyway, I'm back from a week in San Fran. I was there visiting my sister, who is, as I've previously stated on this here blog, right up the pole and now everyone knows what she's been up to. We find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl on Tuesday. I say it's a girl. She says it's a boy. She seems to think that being the child's mother gives her some sort of insight into all of this, to which I say, phooey. I say phooey while having a beer, BTW, because aunties are allowed.

I am glad she wasn't with me on the trip home, however. There was a monstrous child on the plane from SFO to JFK. He kept pounding on the door while I was trying to pee. I don't know if I'm told you about this before, but I have pee issues in public bathrooms. It takes a minute of humming and counting and sticking out my tongue to make my lady flower relax enough to free the pee. Pounding on the door? Not conducive to this process.

I nearly gave up. Then I thought, no way am I going to let some airplane-bathroom-door-pounder make me give myself a UTI. Also, my seatmate, who was on the aisle, seemed to have cancer. She wore a kerchief around her (apparently bald) head and kept nodding off with her mouth open in a really distressing fashion. I spent half the flight willing her chest to inflate. It was exhausting. I certainly wasn't going to ask the poor woman to get up so I could pee again, all because of a door pounder who hates cancer victims.

You see the issue.

Anyway, I was finally able to go. Afterward, I wiped the sweat from my brow, rearranged my air travel headband (easier than a pony-tail, less homeless looking than leaving my hair to frizz in reconditioned air) and flung the door open.

In front of me was a little boy, about three feet tall. He had big brown eyes and one of those haircuts that looks like it was accomplished by putting a soup bowl on the kid's head and cutting around it. He was adorable. I wanted to strangle him.

"Was that you?" I demanded.

"Yeth," he said, in a charming little lisp.

I squinted at him a moment, trying to determine his age. He looked to be about six. If he'd been seven or older, I would have gently suggested to him that he be euthanized. But it's important, after all, to have standards of behavior, and in the end, I'm just not the sort of person who goes around suggesting things like that to six-year-olds. I snorted and pushed past to my seat.

(But next year. Next year. He better stay off my flight.)

Lame, Lame, Know Your Name

Fashion Week is over and I had all kinds of fabulous plans this weekend, none of which came to fruition, because I am lazy. I have not budged from my apartment all weekend, unless you count a toilet paper run and a trip to 'bucks for overpriced coffee treats. Which I don't, cuz, come on. What kind of a weekend is that?

Oh, I also bought some books. I'm reading one about premature burial right now. It's called, as you might guess, Buried Alive and it is scaring the crap out of me. I never really thought to worry about being buried alive, but now I'm pretty sure the only sound burial plan is to be left atop a tower of silence to be picked clean by carrion birds. Either that, or decapitated. So that's mostly what I've been thinking of this weekend.

I've also been thinking about how I've inadvertently become bulimic. Some weeks ago, I got the Norovirus, and ever since, I do my sea cucumber imitation every time I have spicy food, more than one cup of coffee, or any alcohol at all. It sucks and is a little scary, so I emailed my doctor to ask for DRUGS.

"SEND ME DRUGS," I emailed her. I should just make a macro at this point. How long til she scrawls "drug-seeking behavior" at the top of my chart and tells me to fuck off? Are there other folks out there who spend this much time and energy trying to scoring Nexium?

Fashion Week Is Here Again

Hello, my pals. It's time once again for me to view the clothes you will be wearing months and months from now, and write about them on Ye Olde About.com: http://www.about.com/fashionweek.htm.

There should be a new picture going up soon that makes me look less like the Joker. That's the rumor, anyway.

Please enjoy. (The blog and the non-Joker photo.)