Aorta lern my lines

When you got up at 4:30 and had to pack for a day of sitting in the waiting room at the hospital surgery center and you remembered to bring all the important stuff. So that’s good.

Dad is having what’s literally called a “re-do” on a five-year-old abdominal aortic aneurism surgery that had recently started leaking. Two weeks ago he had an exploratory aortogram—which it turns out does not, unfortunately, involve someone showing up at your door in tap shoes and an aorta outfit to sing Happy Birthday or a Valentine’s Day song—and he’s having the surgery today as the final gala event in his five-day 80th birthday celebration.

To complete the circle, I’m sitting in the waiting room memorizing my lines to Aortahoma!

Stable Genius is in Iowa today

In totally unrelated news, I just had a huge basket of high-fiber bran muffins for breakfast.

First-in-the-morning doctor appointment >

mole scraping > car appointment > three doughnuts while I waited to hear that the car guy couldn’t help me > referral to a different car specialist > estimate and new car appointment set for tomorrow > failed attempt at tying a bow tie in my car > fancy luncheon with lovely people > but first I had to stop in the bathroom and tie my bow tie like a civilized person > nagging headache > more desserts > work > teleconference presentation > untied bow tie because my fat neck was choking in it > still with the nagging headache > return stuff at Target > drop stuff off at Goodwill > drop of bag of expired medications at the police station > yes, that’s a thing > still have a fucking headache > cued lines for an off-book rehearsal > finally home > rakish untied-bow-tie selfie > GODDAMN FUCKING HEADACHE > bed.

My co-workers might be starting to suspect I’m gay

Also: My birthday doughnuts had rainbow sprinkles. But the doughnuts from my plate are all gone. I might need to go to the kitchen to get more.

CID > exit row > breakfast in my lap > new book > ORD > probably another breakfast > totally another exit row > BECAUSE I’M ROYALTY > LGA > Manhattan > Big Birthday Broadway Bash Blowout! > crippling debt

Let’s hope we get there faster than last year’s 19-hour PR ...

krumkake (say it with me: CRUMB caca):

a thin, crispy, bigger-than-your-hand Norwegian waffle cookie rolled into an unwieldy cone shape for two purposes: 1) to fool you into thinking it can hold ice cream or any other delicious treat without crumbling all over everything the second you try to eat or even hold it; 2) to crumble all over everything the second you try to eat or even hold it anyway

Are you sitting down?

Because I was WHEN BITCHY KITTY OF HER OWN VOLITION AND YET-TO-BE-ARTICULATED-BECAUSE-SHE-ONLY-KNOWS-HOW-TO-MEOW-AND-WE-HUMANS-DON'T-SPEAK-MEOW-YET AGENDA JUMPED INTO MY CHAIR AND SAT NEXT TO ME PRESSED UP AGAINST MY INCREDULOUS LEG ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT:

It took me 60 hours to post this photo because I'm still processing this lurching plot twist in the soap-opera-frenemies Bitch Kitty Life storyline. Also because Mom didn't send it to me until late yesterday. But still.

Granted, once Bitch Kitty jumped into my chair she sat in an extremely weird position with her face buried in the back cushion and her self-righteous butthole gazing out into the room ... and she growled like an over-torqued automatic-pencil-sharpener motor as I tried to pet her ... and her over-torqued-automatic-pencil-sharpener-motor growling only intensified if my attempts at petting left her ears-and-head area and ventured down toward her tail-and-butt area but then again we did teach her to be a lady who doesn't put out on the first date so I guess we should be proud of her for that ... and I had just emptied her litter box so I was probably dusted in minuscule-but-still-possibly-scented particles of litter-box floaties so perhaps she was just following her nose and her baser instincts when she jumped into the chair with the intention to poop on me and quickly realized her error but was staying there only under a pathetically inept veneer of politeness ... but the fact remains that I now feel obligated to beg for her love every moment of every day until she deigns to jump butthole-out into my chair again one day next year ... and then one day the next year ... and then one day the next year ... until she up and dies on me and breaks my heart because I thought we had a thing going but her yet-to-be-articulated-because-she-only-knows-how-to-meow-and-we-humans-don't-speak-meow-yet agenda all along was to make me think I had a chance with her and she gave me the ultimate dis from beyond her over-torqued-automatic-pencil-sharpener-motor-growling grave. Sigh.

Also: I look like a short, wide squished marshmallow in this photo but I swear it's just the evils of foreshortening and shadows and I'm actually totally swole and ripped for my big stripper reveal in The Full Monty and you should come see it but you should also squint just in case I actually do become a short, wide squished marshmallow before then please pass the doughnuts oops did I say doughnuts I meant celery but I'll totally eat that box of doughnuts if you don't want them because it's a shame to waste perfectly good food.

Also: Mom and Dad hate those plaid chairs (we have two of them because civilized people have sets of matching chairs and we as a family no longer live in a cave) but while I'm not in love-love with the plaid I still love the chairs' clean Mid-century lines and confident geometries so tell Mom and Dad that we should keep their clean Mid-century lines and confident geometries incorporated in our gracious home décor and just re-cover them in something that doesn't look like it came from the textile tumble table at an Eddie Bauer Home Store going-out-of-business liquidation event.

Also: Textile Tumbletable would make a great drag name.

Also: Or not.

Also: I just purged a ton of shoes I haven't been wearing and I rediscovered these blue Chucks and aren't they awesome?

Also: I think that's enough alsos so I'll stop now. Also.

We’re all stocked up for our last weekend of Elf!

This haul should at least get us through tonight’s intermission:

LITTLE. SANTA. HATS.

As is the case with many people on psychotropic medications, my bipolar meds have given me a robust case of tardive dyskinesia, a permanent neurological disorder that causes a range of involuntary movements including twitches and wiggles and shakes and grimaces and blinks and OCD things like repetitive face touching.

And I've won the tardive dyskinesia lottery and gotten the full spectrum of these behaviors, with varying degrees of intensity. Some days my knees just shiver. Some days I have epic squinting, face rubbing, rocking and anything else my body can think of to make me super-paranoid I'm irritating the hell out of everyone around me. People often ask me if I'm nervous (which happened once at a job interview I was otherwise rocking, to my eternal mortification) or cold (my veins actually course with reptile blood and I am NEVER cold) when they see me shaking. People have asked me why I'm always on my tiptoes when I sit down (the obvious answer: to help my body shake the living hell out of my legs more annoyingly). People have politely asked me to sit still.

And while these awake behaviors are bad enough, it's the nighttime manifestations of tardive dyskinesia that are killing me. Many, MANY times every EVERY night, I end up on my back with my legs bent and my feet flat and my knees slamming against each other so violently that they wake me up--usually somehow mummified in a tangle of sheets. Or I wake myself by repeatedly running my hands through my hair like I'm a supermodel being all sexy for a shampoo commercial as I ride with the top down along the 101. Or I just rub my face like I'm Lady Macbeth but the damn spots got all over everything and I need to URGENT URGENT WAKE UP AND TELL MACBETH TO ORDER DUNKIN' AND NOT MURDER DUNCAN.

Last night it was the face. Hoo boy, was it the face. And it was so borderline violent that it hurt ... and then it stung like an advanced-degree sunburn when the water hit it in the shower this morning. Which--if you see me today--is why I look like Hobo Santa because my cheeks are ultra-rosy and I'm now on my third day of not shaving and I don't care THAT much about how I'm going to look in the family Thanksgiving photos.

I take Gabatentin three times a day to help control the reason I'm extremely bad at stealing tambourines, but that is a six-paragraph discussion for another day. Key words: opiod epidemic.

Anyway, this post started out as a few sentences about how my face hurt in the shower this morning and then I was going to show you all a photo of the Hershey's Kisses I bought last night THAT LOOK LIKE LITTLE SANTA HATS. Sorry for rambling on like this, but look at the Hershey's Kisses I bought last night THAT LOOK LIKE LITTLE SANTA HATS:

Make up your mind, Disney: WHICH HOLIDAY ARE WE CELEBRATING?

Also: super-uncomfortable butterfly chair!

I'm back from my three-month checkup with my psychiatrist

And she still wants to keep seeing me every three months instead of the every-4-6-week schedule I was on a year ago. This might sound good to you, but it's HUGE to me and my family. The bipolar med cocktail that she's methodically calibrated for me over the last three years seems to be keeping me stable (though the 12+ miles I've been running every week since March might also have something to do with it), and of course the tireless, diligent support of my family and friends has been an enormous part of that success.

I'm so thankful for all of this--and all of you--that I splurged on a massive bucket of Diet Coke and two super-sticky apple fritters on the way to work. Even though caffeine and sugar probably undermine the efficacy of my meds and exacerbate their weight-gain side effects. But I'm pretty sure I can manage these setbacks. :-)

VACCINES KILL

It’s true because it’s on a T-shirt worn by a completely-trustworthy-looking dude wandering Terminal E of Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The shirt is scarlet. As in fever.

Also: Charlotte Douglas International Airport is the size and shape of a charming-Belgian-hamlet-size spider squashed by Bob Fosse.

Also: I’m in the mood for a totally-not-abs-friendly snack, but I’ve trekked the full extent of Charlotte Douglas International Airport’s splayed-and-Fosse-angled spider legs and I haven’t seen a single damn gooeyfrostedcinnamonrollerie.

Also: I just followed a distractingly-latted-and-boyfriend-age-appropriate man in a contour-hugging gray T-shirt all the way from Terminal E to Terminal C on the far end of the Fosse-squashed charming-Belgian-hamlet-size Charlotte Douglas International Airport, but he stopped at Terminal C2 and I depart from Terminal C8.

Also: Stupid Terminal C8.

Also: My supposedly-auto-time-zone-synching running watch is refusing to auto-time-zone synch.

Also: Stupid supposedly-auto-time-zone-synching running watch.

Also: The cashier at Sbarro keeps aggressively demanding that every customer have a great day.

Also: DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO MY WATCH WON’T AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE TIME ZONES AND I ACTUALLY WANTED A GOOEY FROSTED CINNAMON ROLL INSTEAD OF YOUR SUSPICIOUSLY SUSPICIOUS PIZZA AND I JUST HAD TO SIT POINTLESSLY ON A TARMAC FOR 15 MINUTES AND GRAY SHIRT GUY IS FLYING TO DALLAS FORT WORTH YES I LOOKED IT’S TOTALLY NOT CREEPY SHUT UP AND MY PARENTS ARE TRYING TO VACCINATE ME TO DEATH SO IT’S WAAAAY BEYOND POSSIBLE FOR MEET YOUR AGGRESSIVE AND FRANKLY CRUEL GREAT-DAY DEMANDS.

Sconys, bronys, holes of donys

Sparkle-glittered for the Tonys!

How to repair a flat tire:

1. Cancel all your plans for the night.

2. Get up early the next morning and run 2.25 miles with a buddy who totally kicks your butt at a 10:09 pace even though he’d told you he was a slow and unsure runner.
3. Liar.
4. Be one of the first people in line at the Walmart auto center.
5. Find out that your tires are really old (which you kind of already knew) and that your flat tire was beyond repair (which you kind of assumed).
6. Get four all-new tires for way less than you’d mentally budgeted for.
7. Eat heaping piles of sugar and regret at the nearby Hardee’s while you wait for your less-expensive-than-you'd-assumed tires to be installed.
8. Facebook!
9. Pad your list because you want an even 10 and you have plenty of time to get there.
10. Done!
11. Oops.

NIR! VA! NA!

And a new favorite word.

#HowToTurn50 #AndCarbOutLikeASelfControllessPig

Urp

When you skip the gym to meet with your tax accountant whose office happens to be right next to a Dunkin’ Donuts, you might as well go full not-workout and buy three dozen delicious piles of carbs, fat and sugar for yourself. I mean for your office.

#WeirdStuffICollectOnMyPhone

Motif!

Rainbow sprinkle beignets

Yeah. My morning is already WAY better than yours.

Important things to note about One Man Two Guvnors tech Sunday, from left to right:

1. My sad attempt at a 1963 mop top. Which is not long for this world because I'm being upgraded to 1963 Mad Men hair.
2. My Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Because JAKE!
3. "A million donuts" (which might be an exaggeration but I'm a writer and not a mathematician so what do I know) courtesy of the theater.
4. My fountain Diet Coke that's so freakishly huge it might as well be a two-liter bottle but it still won't survive the day because YUM!
5. A bullet bra hanging on the wall. Of the box office. Because THEATER!