So... one of my eleventy jobs I have is teaching kids how to act and model and write and all that stuff that I am somehow qualified to do. It's a job I absolutely love because I always catch the kids surprising themselves when they let go of their fears and really show something about themselves that they have been taught to cover up for fear of being embarrassed.
Usually the first thing I do is have the kids go around in a circle and say their name, their age, what they like to do and then I have them name one thing they can do that they think no one else can do. Like a super special talent. This freaks them out at first because they all have that "I have no idea what to say- there's nothing special about me" look on their face, but after a couple minutes the talents that are revealed are usually hilarious and amazing. This always gets the kids talking and laughing and helps to break the ice.
And then today I started thinking about what special talents I might have. I have been particularly hard on myself the past few weeks because I feel like I have bad luck. And nothing is going right. And everyone else is more successful and deserving than I am. And that my life will always be hard even though I work my ass off. And that every good thing that happens to me is going to somehow not work out in the end and that no matter how hard I try I am just cursed. You know. It's that thing called "anxiety" and I get it from time to time.
So right now, as a way of battling that nasty "A" word, I would like to list my super special talents that I don't think many other people in the world have and that make me...well, ME...
1: I have double jointed shoulders. It's true. I can put the backs of my hands flush against my belly and bring my elbows together at 90 degree angles. This freaks people out. Especially when my elbows clap together. And the fact that my arms are freakishly long makes this even more entertaining. I've only met two other people who can do this. One is male and one is Canadian, so really, I might be the only female American who can do this. In fact, I am certain I am.
2: I can roll my stomach muscles vertically with absolute perfect precision. I can start from the bottom and go up and I can start from the top and go down. It might be a little perverse and a little weird, but I can do it and I have been able to since I was little. The really cool thing is that my daughter inherited this talent from me. Perhaps we will join the circus.
3: I can inhale and have my nostrils stick to the middle portion (septum? what the hell is that called?) of my nose. No need to hold my nose. I can do it with no hands! I call this my Cabbage Patch Kid impersonation.
4: I can stick spoons to my face like nobody's business. I have a very "strong" (eh hem) chin and high cheekbones and a little nose. These points of my face make for some excellent spoon hanging. My record is six spoons at once. It may have been even higher but my mom made me take them off before the bride and groom noticed.
5: I can drive with my knees. In fact, I probably drive with my knees more than I should. It's something I've always done and it's hard for me to imagine not being able to drive without this talent. I feel bad for those who can't. Makes driving while putting on mascara, eating a taco and texting so much easier!
There are other things I can do, like Ethel Merman and Katharine Hepburn impressions, or laughing like Krusty the Clown or getting any baby at any age to smile (I have not failed yet!), but the talents listed above are my personal favorites and the ones that I kind of hope end up in my obituary:
"Glamazon died in a fiery car accident Wednesday because she was driving with her knees, leaving behind two Glamazonian children, one of whom can roll their stomach muscles in an inherited sort of way and one who was always grossed out by his mother's lanky arms, unless they were wrapped around him. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the National Society for Pointless Facial Utensil Hangings."
There we go. At least I feel a little bit more meaningful than I did an hour ago...
Glamazon: one
Depression: zero
18 April 2012
01 April 2012
Sittin on the Dock of the Forum Shops
I got about 500 words into this blog entry and thought "these people who read this are way too smart to actually believe my justifications for my childish and dangerous behavior...just get to it and tell the damn story..."
...On July 4, 2008 at 3 A.M. I kicked a guy in a bar. So, following what is an obvious and natural human progression from kicking someone in a bar at 3 A.M., in early November of that year he and I went to Las Vegas. And man did we have an awful time. I will spare the details of my disappointment in our trip out of respect for myself, my family, my boyfriend, my boyfriend's family, the dude himself, his family and the human race in general. But man was it just awful.
When you are me and you are put in an unescapable spot such as the one I was in, you go shopping. It's the only way to not only guarantee peace of mind, but also a way to guarantee that said dude will not choose to go with you when you say, as you are half way out the door, "Yeah, I'm going shopping, are you coming along?", closing the door and not giving him a chance to answer. I was half way down the strip on this 80 degree day in my little khaki skirt and my little green top wearing my little gold aviators when I decided that desperate times call for desperate measures: I needed purse therapy.
There it was. On the shelf at the Gucci store in the Bellagio Hotel. The world's most beautiful, useful, classic yet edgy, carry able, durable, wearable bag of all time. The one that my best friend had bought months before and the one that I had secretly been plotting to steal from her...I have 2 children. I'm a single mom. I should not be buying an $1100 bag...is what I said as I handed the woman my credit card.
At last! A feeling of joy! Of self worth! Of a trip NOT gone horribly wrong! All due to this purse- this blessed purse that I was now proudly displaying over my shoulder with my little khaki skirt and my little green top and my little gold aviators. I called my best friend to brag. To feel like she and I were on the same plain; that we were now bound in history and space and time over the most gorgeous Gucci bag in the universe. We literally had a fifteen minute conversation. About a purse.
As I was talking to her I strolled across the street, taking note of all the horribly jealous women who were obviously eyeing my bag and saying to each other "did you see that amazing woman in the little green top? Her bag is to DIE FOR and don't even get me started on her aviators". A few of them even broke into a grand applause, as I vividly recall...When we finished our conversation I was already in Caesar's Palace, down a few ramps and in the middle of the forum shops eyeing even more over priced luxury items that might add more fuel to my fiery shopping frenzy. It was a Saturday. The Forum shops are INSANE on Saturdays. All these people buying items which they couldn't possibly afford and definitely don't need, but are caught up in their dreams that Vegas will fulfill some kind of horrible emptiness and loneliness deep deep down inside of their souls. Suckers. I'm so glad I'm not like that.
The shops were annoying. So many people in my way, so many people to deal with. I got to the end of the corridor where you are supposed to prance around a fountain to make your way up the other side of the mall when I realized I just couldn't stand being in this crowd anymore. It wasn't good for me and it certainly wasn't good for my precious new Gucci.
I found a little hallway branching off of the circular "look at me I'm a Roman fountain-don't you feel like you're in ROME" area. I walked down it, passed the mens' room, passed a drinking fountain (which definitely did not feel like a Roman one) and passed the ladies' room. There was a set of double doors at the end. The kind that looked like doors you took our of the high school gym when you finally get to leave one of those lame pep assemblies- the ones with the silver handles in the middle and the industrial strength locks at the top and bottom. These doors HAD to lead to somewhere I could escape this madhouse. Even if it were some random banquet hall or backstage to Bette Midler's show I could find my way out, surely. I push open one of the doors filled with hope.
The light from what was beyond was blinding. My hand dropped the door as I had to shield my face from the brightness. (My other hand was holding my shopping bag into which my other lame purse- also a Gucci bought on my previous trip to Vegas, but that's another story- was stuffed). As I found my Aviators on top of my head and brought them down to my face the door shut behind me. And there I was. Outside. On a loading dock. Somewhere not even close to the front of the hotel or even close to any sort of human existence. I turned around to the doors. Locked. I banged on the doors. Yelled into the crack in between the doors. Nothing.
I turned and look around. Just me, a dock, a driveway and some cigarette butts. "No problem" I thought as my logic finally kicked in. "I'll just walk around to the front of the hotel and go back down the strip". Easy, right? Wrong. This is not the Days Inn off I-57 in Mattoon, Illinois. This is VEGAS. Everything is an illusion. There is no logic. There is no easy way out. Walking the sidewalks and landscaping around this hotel felt like I was trapped in an M.C.Escher drawing. I did not lead myself to the front of the hotel as I had hoped. I led myself straight onto a sidewalk that was somehow perpendicular to the strip as well as raised above it, somehow, even though I do not remember walking any sort of incline or staircase.
It was now almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon and also about 90 degrees (But it's a DRY heat.). And I was on a street perpendicular to the strip. I couldn't even figure out how to turn around and get back to my safe little dock. I was trapped in some sort of dimension where the only things I could see were the "Muebleria Fantastico" shop, a liquor store that had a special on Marlboro Reds and a homeless guy who looked at me as though I was a filet mignon wrapped in bacon with a side of asparagus and a bottle of Dom Perignon. Or maybe a bottle of Mad Dog. Either way I obviously looked like something he would like to feast upon.
So in my little khaki shirt and my little green top and my little gold aviators I hurried up the road, clutching my new baby in my arms. I could SEE the strip from where I was. I just couldn't get there. It was down there and I was up here. I kept walking, humming "Down on Skid Row" as I went along, praying that I would at least find an empty cab rushing by me. They were all full. Or at least none of them stopped in this neighborhood. Not even for an out of town blonde Glamazon wearing a mortgage payment on her arm. (Sidenote: I lived in Chicago for many years. I'm not afraid of being in "bad" neighborhoods or even being assaulted (see: blog about Barney Miller, again...). This is how bad this neighborhood was. I was terrified. Because I was soooo out of place. I like to think of myself as cooler and more in touch that what I appeared as that day. But in reality, perhaps I'm not...
I must have walked for a mile or so. It seemed like it. I finally stopped when the street I was on turned into an on ramp to the interstate. The road just vanished and the whole thing became an chance to exit Vegas. Funny, I thought. But I had to turn around. Where the hell was I supposed to go? Im not about to go back to where I came from. And the cabs refuse to stop. I was even desperate to flag down a cop. It wouldn't be the first time I was returned home in a squad car. I was not above it. Then I remember that I think I had passed the employee parking lot for the Mirage... (I THINK it was the Mirage...to this day I'm not 100% sure...).
The hope of this parking lot actually existing and not being, well, a "mirage", drove my legs to work faster and stronger. I devised a plan. I told myself that I would go into the garage and find the entrance. There I would wait for an employee to come along and lead me through the restricted employees only part of the hotel and casino out onto the casino floor. Maybe said employee would give me a complimentary stay in the hotel for my trouble or possibly steal a steak from the back to feed me and my weary, war ravaged body. Or maybe I'd come across a bunch of fresh off of their shift Philipino dudes wearing wife beaters smoking cigarettes and playing cards in some back corner of the off limits area of the hotel. SOMEONE will help me, that's for sure. I mean, I'm me! Someone always comes to rescue me, right?
Oh crap. No, that's not right. Quite the opposite actually. Turns out I was right about the parking garage being real. Score 1 for Glamazon. And I did find that employees' door. Score 2. Problem was, it was deserted. Oh sure, there were cars around. But no people. I thought about just sneaking in. But that was another obstacle. Who knew that in VEGAS they have "key cards" for something called "Security"...Sigh...all I could see were concrete walls and cars. And I was hot. And tired. And really regretting my purchase. Really regretting my trip. Really regretting kicking that dude in that bar on July 4, 2008 at 3 A.M.. Really regretting a lot, actually. It's funny how life kind of slaps you in the face at the most unexpected moments. Who knew that I would ever be standing alone in the employees' parking lot at the Mirage (?!) hotel in Las Vegas reliving and questioning the events in it that lead me to this place at this time on this ridiculously hot Nevada day in November? What happened next is something that I hope and pray was caught on a security camera and played over and over again for entertainment by a group of wife beater wearing Philipino employees before their nightly game of craps.
The walls to the parking garage did not go up to the ceiling. They are actually only about 4 1/2" feet tall. The rest is just open air. I walked to one of the walls and over it I saw a lovely sprawling grassy area. The landscaping was really tidy. A little TOO tidy for just the back entrance to a hotel. Along this grassy area, aside from trees and flowers was- Yes! a curving driveway of some sort. I couldn't see where it led to or from because of the curves and the greenery, but it was there. And all of a sudden I saw a cab coming either from the hotel or going to it with someone in the back seat. Someone who looked as out of place as I did! Someone who probably had spent as much money as I had trying to credit Vegas with helping her get her little groove back. Another stupid white girl! I was saved!
The problem was- how do I get to wherever she caught that cab? There were only two exits- back out onto the street where I really didn't want to become a steak dinner or into the employees' entrance to which I did not have a card. Or....
See, here's the thing. I am 5' 11" tall. Hence, the Glamazon status. But this is not a proportionate 5' 11". It's actually quite the opposite. When I sit down I am shorter than my 5' 1" pals. I am all leg. 48" of lanky legs. I measure the wall against my legs and it came up to probably the top of my belly button. I didn't see this as an obstacle. I probably could have just hopped up onto the wall and swung my legs over and been don't with it. But I didn't. It was 90 degrees out, I had been walking for a couple hours and I had just been having a panic attack in the employees' parking lot of the Mirage (?!) about my life, my children, my actions up until this point and my very blurry future plans. I was not in what you would call a "clear" state of mind.
I took my shopping bag with my old Gucci and flung it over the wall. I took my new Gucci and flung it over the wall, too (I was over the purchase at this point). I removed my watch and my aviators. I flung them over, too. I walked backwards, focusing on my breath and the physics of the whole situation (Side note: I only took geology.). I probably bent down into a lunge just to make myself feel more powerful and I went for it...I pictured myself as Flo Jo- in the one armed one legged spandex fantasy suit- my extensions glimmering in the sun- my face puckering as my feet leave the ground and I become airborne, lifting my body 8 feet above my target and landing gracefully on the other side to the roars and admiration of the crowd, most likely the same women who had been admiring my purchase earlier in the day.
This is not exactly what happened. It was more like watching Nell Carter trying to escape a fire. Full of panic and regret that she can't just spring her body over an obstacle, but rather would run for the window, hit the sill, bounce back and forth, bruise her hip and when she finally hit the window sill she would propel her body out the window as hard as she could, having only the screaming children below break her fall. Only there were no children. Only bushes full of thorns, burrs, hatred and shame. There I was, lying on top of the bushes. Bruised and bleeding. And there next to me was my $1100 Gucci. I thought I heard it laugh in a condescending little Italian accent, "ha ha ha stupid American".
I was filthy. My little khaki skirt was covered in the kind of soot and muck only reserved for the top of a concrete wall in the employees' parking lot at a casino. My little green shirt was torn and sweaty. It took me a few moments to locate the watch and the aviators. I pulled myself together as best I could, picked up my stupid purse collection and made my way towards the road. A cab finally stopped for me somewhere in the middle. I think he was as surprised to see me as I was to have found him. My dirty, sweaty, stinky, regretful, embarrassed, exhausted and ridiculous ass got into the cab and said, with a dry and raspy voice not unlike Night Court's 'Selma', "MGM grand, please."
I opened the door to the room. And there he was, still laying in bed, watching poker at 4 in the afternoon. He had not moved. He was watching poker on TV. In Vegas. I hung my head in even more regret. He saw me, covered in burrs, filth, sweat and anger and said "What the hell happened to you?".
Me: "You need to go home. Now."
I spent the rest of my time in Vegas alone, wandering around trying to make sense out of why the hell I would think it was appropriate to kick someone in a bar at 3 A.M. on July 4, 2008. From then on I would be more adult. I would make better choices. I would stay away from the crazy life that I had been living and try to be more responsible...I mean, as soon as I got back home.
...On July 4, 2008 at 3 A.M. I kicked a guy in a bar. So, following what is an obvious and natural human progression from kicking someone in a bar at 3 A.M., in early November of that year he and I went to Las Vegas. And man did we have an awful time. I will spare the details of my disappointment in our trip out of respect for myself, my family, my boyfriend, my boyfriend's family, the dude himself, his family and the human race in general. But man was it just awful.
When you are me and you are put in an unescapable spot such as the one I was in, you go shopping. It's the only way to not only guarantee peace of mind, but also a way to guarantee that said dude will not choose to go with you when you say, as you are half way out the door, "Yeah, I'm going shopping, are you coming along?", closing the door and not giving him a chance to answer. I was half way down the strip on this 80 degree day in my little khaki skirt and my little green top wearing my little gold aviators when I decided that desperate times call for desperate measures: I needed purse therapy.
There it was. On the shelf at the Gucci store in the Bellagio Hotel. The world's most beautiful, useful, classic yet edgy, carry able, durable, wearable bag of all time. The one that my best friend had bought months before and the one that I had secretly been plotting to steal from her...I have 2 children. I'm a single mom. I should not be buying an $1100 bag...is what I said as I handed the woman my credit card.
At last! A feeling of joy! Of self worth! Of a trip NOT gone horribly wrong! All due to this purse- this blessed purse that I was now proudly displaying over my shoulder with my little khaki skirt and my little green top and my little gold aviators. I called my best friend to brag. To feel like she and I were on the same plain; that we were now bound in history and space and time over the most gorgeous Gucci bag in the universe. We literally had a fifteen minute conversation. About a purse.
As I was talking to her I strolled across the street, taking note of all the horribly jealous women who were obviously eyeing my bag and saying to each other "did you see that amazing woman in the little green top? Her bag is to DIE FOR and don't even get me started on her aviators". A few of them even broke into a grand applause, as I vividly recall...When we finished our conversation I was already in Caesar's Palace, down a few ramps and in the middle of the forum shops eyeing even more over priced luxury items that might add more fuel to my fiery shopping frenzy. It was a Saturday. The Forum shops are INSANE on Saturdays. All these people buying items which they couldn't possibly afford and definitely don't need, but are caught up in their dreams that Vegas will fulfill some kind of horrible emptiness and loneliness deep deep down inside of their souls. Suckers. I'm so glad I'm not like that.
The shops were annoying. So many people in my way, so many people to deal with. I got to the end of the corridor where you are supposed to prance around a fountain to make your way up the other side of the mall when I realized I just couldn't stand being in this crowd anymore. It wasn't good for me and it certainly wasn't good for my precious new Gucci.
I found a little hallway branching off of the circular "look at me I'm a Roman fountain-don't you feel like you're in ROME" area. I walked down it, passed the mens' room, passed a drinking fountain (which definitely did not feel like a Roman one) and passed the ladies' room. There was a set of double doors at the end. The kind that looked like doors you took our of the high school gym when you finally get to leave one of those lame pep assemblies- the ones with the silver handles in the middle and the industrial strength locks at the top and bottom. These doors HAD to lead to somewhere I could escape this madhouse. Even if it were some random banquet hall or backstage to Bette Midler's show I could find my way out, surely. I push open one of the doors filled with hope.
The light from what was beyond was blinding. My hand dropped the door as I had to shield my face from the brightness. (My other hand was holding my shopping bag into which my other lame purse- also a Gucci bought on my previous trip to Vegas, but that's another story- was stuffed). As I found my Aviators on top of my head and brought them down to my face the door shut behind me. And there I was. Outside. On a loading dock. Somewhere not even close to the front of the hotel or even close to any sort of human existence. I turned around to the doors. Locked. I banged on the doors. Yelled into the crack in between the doors. Nothing.
I turned and look around. Just me, a dock, a driveway and some cigarette butts. "No problem" I thought as my logic finally kicked in. "I'll just walk around to the front of the hotel and go back down the strip". Easy, right? Wrong. This is not the Days Inn off I-57 in Mattoon, Illinois. This is VEGAS. Everything is an illusion. There is no logic. There is no easy way out. Walking the sidewalks and landscaping around this hotel felt like I was trapped in an M.C.Escher drawing. I did not lead myself to the front of the hotel as I had hoped. I led myself straight onto a sidewalk that was somehow perpendicular to the strip as well as raised above it, somehow, even though I do not remember walking any sort of incline or staircase.
It was now almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon and also about 90 degrees (But it's a DRY heat.). And I was on a street perpendicular to the strip. I couldn't even figure out how to turn around and get back to my safe little dock. I was trapped in some sort of dimension where the only things I could see were the "Muebleria Fantastico" shop, a liquor store that had a special on Marlboro Reds and a homeless guy who looked at me as though I was a filet mignon wrapped in bacon with a side of asparagus and a bottle of Dom Perignon. Or maybe a bottle of Mad Dog. Either way I obviously looked like something he would like to feast upon.
So in my little khaki shirt and my little green top and my little gold aviators I hurried up the road, clutching my new baby in my arms. I could SEE the strip from where I was. I just couldn't get there. It was down there and I was up here. I kept walking, humming "Down on Skid Row" as I went along, praying that I would at least find an empty cab rushing by me. They were all full. Or at least none of them stopped in this neighborhood. Not even for an out of town blonde Glamazon wearing a mortgage payment on her arm. (Sidenote: I lived in Chicago for many years. I'm not afraid of being in "bad" neighborhoods or even being assaulted (see: blog about Barney Miller, again...). This is how bad this neighborhood was. I was terrified. Because I was soooo out of place. I like to think of myself as cooler and more in touch that what I appeared as that day. But in reality, perhaps I'm not...
I must have walked for a mile or so. It seemed like it. I finally stopped when the street I was on turned into an on ramp to the interstate. The road just vanished and the whole thing became an chance to exit Vegas. Funny, I thought. But I had to turn around. Where the hell was I supposed to go? Im not about to go back to where I came from. And the cabs refuse to stop. I was even desperate to flag down a cop. It wouldn't be the first time I was returned home in a squad car. I was not above it. Then I remember that I think I had passed the employee parking lot for the Mirage... (I THINK it was the Mirage...to this day I'm not 100% sure...).
The hope of this parking lot actually existing and not being, well, a "mirage", drove my legs to work faster and stronger. I devised a plan. I told myself that I would go into the garage and find the entrance. There I would wait for an employee to come along and lead me through the restricted employees only part of the hotel and casino out onto the casino floor. Maybe said employee would give me a complimentary stay in the hotel for my trouble or possibly steal a steak from the back to feed me and my weary, war ravaged body. Or maybe I'd come across a bunch of fresh off of their shift Philipino dudes wearing wife beaters smoking cigarettes and playing cards in some back corner of the off limits area of the hotel. SOMEONE will help me, that's for sure. I mean, I'm me! Someone always comes to rescue me, right?
Oh crap. No, that's not right. Quite the opposite actually. Turns out I was right about the parking garage being real. Score 1 for Glamazon. And I did find that employees' door. Score 2. Problem was, it was deserted. Oh sure, there were cars around. But no people. I thought about just sneaking in. But that was another obstacle. Who knew that in VEGAS they have "key cards" for something called "Security"...Sigh...all I could see were concrete walls and cars. And I was hot. And tired. And really regretting my purchase. Really regretting my trip. Really regretting kicking that dude in that bar on July 4, 2008 at 3 A.M.. Really regretting a lot, actually. It's funny how life kind of slaps you in the face at the most unexpected moments. Who knew that I would ever be standing alone in the employees' parking lot at the Mirage (?!) hotel in Las Vegas reliving and questioning the events in it that lead me to this place at this time on this ridiculously hot Nevada day in November? What happened next is something that I hope and pray was caught on a security camera and played over and over again for entertainment by a group of wife beater wearing Philipino employees before their nightly game of craps.
The walls to the parking garage did not go up to the ceiling. They are actually only about 4 1/2" feet tall. The rest is just open air. I walked to one of the walls and over it I saw a lovely sprawling grassy area. The landscaping was really tidy. A little TOO tidy for just the back entrance to a hotel. Along this grassy area, aside from trees and flowers was- Yes! a curving driveway of some sort. I couldn't see where it led to or from because of the curves and the greenery, but it was there. And all of a sudden I saw a cab coming either from the hotel or going to it with someone in the back seat. Someone who looked as out of place as I did! Someone who probably had spent as much money as I had trying to credit Vegas with helping her get her little groove back. Another stupid white girl! I was saved!
The problem was- how do I get to wherever she caught that cab? There were only two exits- back out onto the street where I really didn't want to become a steak dinner or into the employees' entrance to which I did not have a card. Or....
See, here's the thing. I am 5' 11" tall. Hence, the Glamazon status. But this is not a proportionate 5' 11". It's actually quite the opposite. When I sit down I am shorter than my 5' 1" pals. I am all leg. 48" of lanky legs. I measure the wall against my legs and it came up to probably the top of my belly button. I didn't see this as an obstacle. I probably could have just hopped up onto the wall and swung my legs over and been don't with it. But I didn't. It was 90 degrees out, I had been walking for a couple hours and I had just been having a panic attack in the employees' parking lot of the Mirage (?!) about my life, my children, my actions up until this point and my very blurry future plans. I was not in what you would call a "clear" state of mind.
I took my shopping bag with my old Gucci and flung it over the wall. I took my new Gucci and flung it over the wall, too (I was over the purchase at this point). I removed my watch and my aviators. I flung them over, too. I walked backwards, focusing on my breath and the physics of the whole situation (Side note: I only took geology.). I probably bent down into a lunge just to make myself feel more powerful and I went for it...I pictured myself as Flo Jo- in the one armed one legged spandex fantasy suit- my extensions glimmering in the sun- my face puckering as my feet leave the ground and I become airborne, lifting my body 8 feet above my target and landing gracefully on the other side to the roars and admiration of the crowd, most likely the same women who had been admiring my purchase earlier in the day.
This is not exactly what happened. It was more like watching Nell Carter trying to escape a fire. Full of panic and regret that she can't just spring her body over an obstacle, but rather would run for the window, hit the sill, bounce back and forth, bruise her hip and when she finally hit the window sill she would propel her body out the window as hard as she could, having only the screaming children below break her fall. Only there were no children. Only bushes full of thorns, burrs, hatred and shame. There I was, lying on top of the bushes. Bruised and bleeding. And there next to me was my $1100 Gucci. I thought I heard it laugh in a condescending little Italian accent, "ha ha ha stupid American".
I was filthy. My little khaki skirt was covered in the kind of soot and muck only reserved for the top of a concrete wall in the employees' parking lot at a casino. My little green shirt was torn and sweaty. It took me a few moments to locate the watch and the aviators. I pulled myself together as best I could, picked up my stupid purse collection and made my way towards the road. A cab finally stopped for me somewhere in the middle. I think he was as surprised to see me as I was to have found him. My dirty, sweaty, stinky, regretful, embarrassed, exhausted and ridiculous ass got into the cab and said, with a dry and raspy voice not unlike Night Court's 'Selma', "MGM grand, please."
I opened the door to the room. And there he was, still laying in bed, watching poker at 4 in the afternoon. He had not moved. He was watching poker on TV. In Vegas. I hung my head in even more regret. He saw me, covered in burrs, filth, sweat and anger and said "What the hell happened to you?".
Me: "You need to go home. Now."
I spent the rest of my time in Vegas alone, wandering around trying to make sense out of why the hell I would think it was appropriate to kick someone in a bar at 3 A.M. on July 4, 2008. From then on I would be more adult. I would make better choices. I would stay away from the crazy life that I had been living and try to be more responsible...I mean, as soon as I got back home.
29 March 2012
"If this is the worst thing that happens to me today....
....I'm going to be OK."
I seem to say that a lot. I have had an incredibly extraordinary life. I have done things, met people and been places that most people only dream of. I am blessed with amazing children. I am blessed with a good job and good family. I have friends around me who appreciate me. I have passion for who I am and the talents I was given. But I also have horrible horrible luck. So today, I would like to publicly display a list of the worst things that have happened to me and the horrible timing that has come along with them. OK, maybe not the WORST- that would include loved ones dying, etc...let's just say the unluckiest...No, I have never been in the middle of a war. No I have never lost my house in a natural disaster. No I have never been stranded without food or water for weeks. But I have had some ridiculous adventures that have turned into great stories that are fun to tell while we sit around and drink...
Here, the top ten unluckiest/most poorly timed bullshit that I have had to experience...in descending order...(as of how I feel today, March 29, 2012...my list will probably be different tomorrow)
10. In 1990 I was in a production of South Pacific with a community theatre group. I was practicing "Gonna wash that man..." when I tripped on a chair and broke my foot. This was the same day that I had gotten caught in band chewing gum and got a Saturday school from the most ridiculous, anal retentive, sexually repressed man/band director I had ever met. I couldn't stand this guy. It was also the same day I got into a fight in gym class with a kid who was making fun of my lanky legs. This was also the day that I had to meet with the principal and my parents about how much school I'd missed when she never talked with the nurse that I had had a horrible case of mono and this was the reason. This was NOT a good day. Eventually my foot healed and I luckily got to perform in the show and all was right with the world. Fast forward a month. I am in the last performance of "A Christmas Carol" with the same theatre group, including Carol, the woman I danced next to in South Pacific. We are half way through Act 2. Now with most shows, the last show is always bittersweet. This was no exception. We were a little hyper, a little somber. Carol and I decided to relive our South Pacific glory days. So we started to dance. And then came the part where we kick. It's very easy to do the dance in short khaki shorts and a white t-shirt. In my Act 2 of A Christmas Carol costume? Not so much. I kicked. My foot caught up in my skirt and all 5' 11" of me went flying backwards and landed in a pretzel like shape on the concrete floor. My collar bone was broken. ANd I was on stage in 2 minutes. I got up. I went back stage, in shock. I made my entrance where I was supposed to run into someone "accidentally". He did not know what happened to me backstage so all 6' 2" of him rammed right into me. My collar bone probably broke more. I did the scene. I don't know how but I did the scene. I exited. I laid down on the floor. The paramedics showed up and quietly wheeled their gurney being the audience and came to get me. The rest is an absolute blur. I quit band the next day.
9. I peed my pants in front of my entire second grade class. I didn't want to interrupt the teacher when she was talking to a visiting adult, so I stood there and peed my pants involuntarily. It never occurred to me to just make a break for the girls' room. I didn't want to get in trouble for running out. SO I peed my pants.
8. I was possibly a victim of random gunfire in Chicago. See the "Barney Miller" related post on this blog for details...the worst thing about it is that it may have been some kind of karmic self fulfilling prophecy as I had feared for many years that someone would shoot at me while I was driving. I had nightmares about it, I would fantasize about it as I was driving and several times had to stop my car and calm myself down about it all. And then it happened. To me. Alone.
7. I was finally asked by the big kids to play tag. I was in 4th grade on our family's yearly camping trip with our three best friend families. And when I say camping I mean the dad's would have a contest to see who get rent the biggest, most elaborate RV for the weekend. So it was basically like being on a concert tour in a kick ass bus but without the blow and hookers. I was the youngest of all the kids. Youngest by about 6 years youngest. I was also a weird little kid and had a weird sense of humor. The bigger kids didn't really appreciate it too much so I was usually left to hang out with my mom and dad and watch my mom drink champagne by a camp fire and watch my dad and the other men see who could rip up more $20 bills. Ahhh, the great outdoors...
Anyway, they asked me to play tag. For the first time ever. Flashlight tag. And I got put on a team with Jamie Holtz (yeah I used his real name) who was the second youngest, and his dreamy friend Devin Washer (yes real name). Off all the kids went into the woods to play. I was not allowed to hold the flashlight. And I had to be in the back of our three person line. Because I was a seven foot tall fourth grade girl and God forbid they be seen with THAT. In the dark. (a couple years later at a restaurant door county the same people would give me grief about sitting at dinner and turning blue from a shirt I HAD to have but would end up being a horrible lesson in fabric dyes and why you always listen to the Nepalese tag when it says "Wash before wearing"...but I'm not bitter.)
We hid in the most elusive and natural campground environment we could find to sneak up on my brother's team: THE LAUNDRY BUILDING. I know, really becoming one with the outdoors, right? We stood at the door waiting to spot my brother's team. There they were. "Go!" Jamie yelled as he bolted out the door with the flashlight and Devin close behind. I tried to catch up. I tried to see where they were going. I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't see the trees, I couldn't see the building and I certainly couldn't see the humungous green dumpster with the jagged hinge witting there just waiting for my left eye to come crashing into it. And that's what happened.
*SCREAMS SCREAMING SCREAMER SCREAM*
Imagine this: you are a mother drinking champagne with your best friends around a fire. You're having a grand old time reminiscing about your wild adventures in Hawaii or that time on that cruise you all took together or that lovely wedding so and so's daughter was in when she married that handsome pediatrician when suddenly your 7 foot tall fourth grade daughter comes stumbling out of the Wisconsin woods screaming her head off with her right hand over her left eye and her entire face covered in what you are sure is probably ketchup. You would think that the older kids were playing a prank, right? That's exactly what they thought.
SO the adults just sat there, with blank expressions, champagne glasses in hand. Connie the nurse stands up and comes over to me and removes my hand. "Oh dear- Sandy look at this".
What happened next I do not know. I remember laying in the RV on the kitchen table/extra bed with my mom applying pressure with a wash cloth. I do remember my brother freaking out in the back trying to disassemble the tent that he and his friend had been sleeping in. The tent was thrown into the RV in its totally assembled form by my dad who cleaned up our camp site in about 6 seconds flat. I remember hearing my dad ask someone directions to a hospital. Then I remember a doctor with a German accent. The German accent scared me a bit because all I thought about at that time when I met someone German is my dad whispering in my ear "Don't mention the war" which always made me giggle. Then I felt something roll down my cheek. I was certain my eyeball had fallen out.
*SCREAMS SCREAMING SCREAMER SCREAM*
Nope. It was a tear drop.
I had 4 stitches above my eye and 3 under my eye. And a tetanus shot I am sure. My eyeball was fine thank God. I went to school with huge bandages on the next Monday. They called me S-arrrrrrrr-ah for a little while. And then I had these huge red scars on my face that didn't fade until about 7th grade. My left eyebrow still has a tiny bald spot to remind me that every time I see Jamie Holtz from now until the end of our lives I have to make him feel guilty.
6. My car was stolen the night of my 21st birthday. STOLEN. On my birthday. While I was out in Wicker Park getting hammered. STOLEN. Never had anything else happen to me as far as my car goes, but they chose my 21st birthday to STEAL my car. The only thing worse the having your car stolen, is them finding your car three days later after the thieves had been living in it, then peed in it (did they have a second grader living with them?) and then left it close enough to the Humboldt Park impound lot that I had to go claim it. And keep it. (Insert honorable mention under car stories here: I got a speeding ticket on my way to get a divorce on April 8, 2008. And I was crying so hard when the cop was yelling at me that he called for back up.)
5. In the grand scheme of life, this isn't that bad, but it still pisses me off to no end: December 1993 I had my audition for acceptance into the theatre school at DePaul University. DePaul, in my mind, was my only option for college. I was going to be an acting major there. No other plan in place. So I went and auditioned and felt good about it. 2 weeks later I get my letter in the mail. I WAS ACCEPTED!! Of course, I was alone at home when I got the letter so I sped back to school to show my acting teacher the letter. And then I showed just about everyone else I've ever known (and their cats) the letter. I screamed my victory from the mountain tops! Then a few days later I got another letter which read something like this: "blah blah blah we regret blah blah blah it was a mistake blah blah blah you can come study playwriting though blah blah blah here are some complimentary basketball tickets for your trouble blah blah blah".........I cried for maybe 2 weeks straight. Or 2 hours. But it felt like 2 weeks.
4. This happened to me yesterday...So I have been struggling for a long time to get commercial work. I have always been cast as a character type and never as a normal looking person type. BUT on Monday I was cast in a commercial and I was ridiculously excited. I had every last detail ready to go for the shoot, which is happening as I write this...I have been under a lot of stress lately, I mean even more than usual, so I guess I'm kind of prime for getting sick...but what happened to me when I woke up yesterday morning can only be described as the REAL actor's nightmare. I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...and looked in the mirror. My bottom lip was HUGE and I had some kind of small village of gross growing out of my chin. What in the world? I have never had a fat lip before. Ever. I've never been punched in the face so I look like Jimmy Walker, I've never had an allergic reaction to anything and I certainly have never had some kind of infection on my face. SO I went to my mom's house and showed her. We iced it, we washed it, we tried everything. FInally I went to an aesthetician and explained to her "You need to get rid of this lip thing and whatever else is going on because I AM SHOOTING A COMMERCIAL TOMORROW". She steamed it, she caressed it, she even did some sort of dry ice thing. It looked a bit better. We hoped for the best. I took a nap for 45 minutes. When I woke up I was in terrible shape. I could see my lip under my nose when I looked down. My entire jaw was swollen. And it was getting worse by the minute. I went to the emergency care clinic. They had me sitting in a room by myself of ran hour and a half. And my lip grew and my jaw swelled. I left there in anger. I went to the ER. They took me in right away. Gave me a massive dose of Benadryl, a steroid and put an IV in me. The they determined that I had some kind of weird infection. IN MY FACE. So they put an antibiotic in the IV. And my face didn't go down. It was 8:00 pm. I finally decided with my agent that we had to remove me from the commercial. I. was. and. am. heartbroken. Such a cruel joke. Even as I write this I can only drink through a straw and eat mashed potatoes out of the right side of my face. Karma. I have some really really bad karma.
3. I have had a lot of unhealthy people in my family pass away or get very sick. This motivates me to eat right, to workout 5 times a week, to not smoke, to breathe. Yet I am the ONLY one in my family who has been diagnosed with a genetic mutation called "Factor 5" which means my blood clots eleventh times faster than normal people. I had no idea I had this until this past fall when I got a blood clot in my lower arm. I was put on coumadin for three months. I was taken off of birth control. I was told to be careful. I was told there's nothing I can do about these clots. I was told I could have a pulmonary embolism at any time because of this disorder. And the worst thing, I was no longer allowed to eat green, leafy vegetables. I've been cut off from my routine of massive amounts of salad, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, etc. Anything with Vitamin K (which also includes cranberries, green tea and agave nectar, all of which I live on). This vitamin K nonsense interrupts the coumadin...so I was on coumadin for three months. I abided by all the rules. Then I went to get my final ultrasound to make sure the clot was gone. It was! yay! No...wait. There's now another one in another part of my arm. Of which I had no symptoms. So now I have to take this horrible drug for LIFE. I live everyday with the fear that I have blood clots all over my body and at any moment one could move to my lungs or my brain without notice. AND I can't eat salad. I wonder why I even bother going to the gym and eating well and why I don't smoke. Oh yeah, vanity. Which is probably the thing that will kill me in the end.
2. hands down most painful thing I've ever endured: No, it's not giving birth to an 8 lb 11 oz baby boy or a 9 lb 6 oz baby girl. Nope, it was a staph infection in my spinal column. In 2001(and the day before my birthday...) I hurt my back imitating Molly Shannon's "I"m 50!" character from SNL. I was performing in Tony N Tina's Wedding in Chicago and I was playing a spastic caterer. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to imitate Molly Shannon but take it a bit further. When I said "ANd I can kick", I put my foot up on an audience member's shoulder...while we were both standing up...the next day I was in excruciating pain. I had herniated my three lowest discs in my back. After 3 months of therapy, pain management, shots in my spine and exercises, it didn't get better. I had to have surgery. upon researching the surgery I found that a tiny 1% of people who have it get a staph infection and it will either paralyze or kill the victim. Nah, won't happen to me, I thought. Doc, let's do this!
So I had outpatient back surgery. Was NOT given antibiotics before or after the operation. And was sent on my way to heal. The pain relief was immediate. I could feel my leg again, I could sit for more than three minutes without howling in pain, it was awesome.
10 days later: muscle spasms in my back that made child birth feel like a broken nail. I was stuck in the middle of my bed for 24 hours. My brother carried me to the car and we went to the hospital. Blood everywhere. Screaming agonizing pain. They gave me a muscle relaxer and sent me home. The next day: shaking and shivering. 5 paramedics. Off to the hospital, screaming, vomiting. Immediate MRI, immediate morphine drip. The next week I was in a morphine haze. Unable to move, sure that I would end up paralyzed. The hallucinations were constant and I didn't eat anything but ice chips. I thought the hospital was burning down, I thought there was an intruder in the middle of the night, I thought I was in Hawaii, I thought my family was having Easter Dinner in the hall without me, I thought I was in a camper (kind of like the one in Wisconsin...). I had to have another surgery. The abcesses were attacking my hips- if I hadn't gotten in there when I did I probably would have lost most of my muscle...another week after that I was still in the hospital on the antibiotics and the morphine. When I did go home I had a walker. And a cane. And a pick line in my left arm where I had to give myself injections every 8 hours for the next 8 weeks. I had to have home health care. I was a MESS.
I will never put my foot on anyone's shoulder again. At least not standing up...
1. And the number one stupid, horrible, worst thing that has happened to me....
I dropped my iPhone in water this morning and the ear piece won't work....I know, I know....stop crying for me. You're embarrassing yourself.
BUT, and say it with me..."If this is the worst thing that happens to me today I'm going to be OK."
I seem to say that a lot. I have had an incredibly extraordinary life. I have done things, met people and been places that most people only dream of. I am blessed with amazing children. I am blessed with a good job and good family. I have friends around me who appreciate me. I have passion for who I am and the talents I was given. But I also have horrible horrible luck. So today, I would like to publicly display a list of the worst things that have happened to me and the horrible timing that has come along with them. OK, maybe not the WORST- that would include loved ones dying, etc...let's just say the unluckiest...No, I have never been in the middle of a war. No I have never lost my house in a natural disaster. No I have never been stranded without food or water for weeks. But I have had some ridiculous adventures that have turned into great stories that are fun to tell while we sit around and drink...
Here, the top ten unluckiest/most poorly timed bullshit that I have had to experience...in descending order...(as of how I feel today, March 29, 2012...my list will probably be different tomorrow)
10. In 1990 I was in a production of South Pacific with a community theatre group. I was practicing "Gonna wash that man..." when I tripped on a chair and broke my foot. This was the same day that I had gotten caught in band chewing gum and got a Saturday school from the most ridiculous, anal retentive, sexually repressed man/band director I had ever met. I couldn't stand this guy. It was also the same day I got into a fight in gym class with a kid who was making fun of my lanky legs. This was also the day that I had to meet with the principal and my parents about how much school I'd missed when she never talked with the nurse that I had had a horrible case of mono and this was the reason. This was NOT a good day. Eventually my foot healed and I luckily got to perform in the show and all was right with the world. Fast forward a month. I am in the last performance of "A Christmas Carol" with the same theatre group, including Carol, the woman I danced next to in South Pacific. We are half way through Act 2. Now with most shows, the last show is always bittersweet. This was no exception. We were a little hyper, a little somber. Carol and I decided to relive our South Pacific glory days. So we started to dance. And then came the part where we kick. It's very easy to do the dance in short khaki shorts and a white t-shirt. In my Act 2 of A Christmas Carol costume? Not so much. I kicked. My foot caught up in my skirt and all 5' 11" of me went flying backwards and landed in a pretzel like shape on the concrete floor. My collar bone was broken. ANd I was on stage in 2 minutes. I got up. I went back stage, in shock. I made my entrance where I was supposed to run into someone "accidentally". He did not know what happened to me backstage so all 6' 2" of him rammed right into me. My collar bone probably broke more. I did the scene. I don't know how but I did the scene. I exited. I laid down on the floor. The paramedics showed up and quietly wheeled their gurney being the audience and came to get me. The rest is an absolute blur. I quit band the next day.
9. I peed my pants in front of my entire second grade class. I didn't want to interrupt the teacher when she was talking to a visiting adult, so I stood there and peed my pants involuntarily. It never occurred to me to just make a break for the girls' room. I didn't want to get in trouble for running out. SO I peed my pants.
8. I was possibly a victim of random gunfire in Chicago. See the "Barney Miller" related post on this blog for details...the worst thing about it is that it may have been some kind of karmic self fulfilling prophecy as I had feared for many years that someone would shoot at me while I was driving. I had nightmares about it, I would fantasize about it as I was driving and several times had to stop my car and calm myself down about it all. And then it happened. To me. Alone.
7. I was finally asked by the big kids to play tag. I was in 4th grade on our family's yearly camping trip with our three best friend families. And when I say camping I mean the dad's would have a contest to see who get rent the biggest, most elaborate RV for the weekend. So it was basically like being on a concert tour in a kick ass bus but without the blow and hookers. I was the youngest of all the kids. Youngest by about 6 years youngest. I was also a weird little kid and had a weird sense of humor. The bigger kids didn't really appreciate it too much so I was usually left to hang out with my mom and dad and watch my mom drink champagne by a camp fire and watch my dad and the other men see who could rip up more $20 bills. Ahhh, the great outdoors...
Anyway, they asked me to play tag. For the first time ever. Flashlight tag. And I got put on a team with Jamie Holtz (yeah I used his real name) who was the second youngest, and his dreamy friend Devin Washer (yes real name). Off all the kids went into the woods to play. I was not allowed to hold the flashlight. And I had to be in the back of our three person line. Because I was a seven foot tall fourth grade girl and God forbid they be seen with THAT. In the dark. (a couple years later at a restaurant door county the same people would give me grief about sitting at dinner and turning blue from a shirt I HAD to have but would end up being a horrible lesson in fabric dyes and why you always listen to the Nepalese tag when it says "Wash before wearing"...but I'm not bitter.)
We hid in the most elusive and natural campground environment we could find to sneak up on my brother's team: THE LAUNDRY BUILDING. I know, really becoming one with the outdoors, right? We stood at the door waiting to spot my brother's team. There they were. "Go!" Jamie yelled as he bolted out the door with the flashlight and Devin close behind. I tried to catch up. I tried to see where they were going. I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't see the trees, I couldn't see the building and I certainly couldn't see the humungous green dumpster with the jagged hinge witting there just waiting for my left eye to come crashing into it. And that's what happened.
*SCREAMS SCREAMING SCREAMER SCREAM*
Imagine this: you are a mother drinking champagne with your best friends around a fire. You're having a grand old time reminiscing about your wild adventures in Hawaii or that time on that cruise you all took together or that lovely wedding so and so's daughter was in when she married that handsome pediatrician when suddenly your 7 foot tall fourth grade daughter comes stumbling out of the Wisconsin woods screaming her head off with her right hand over her left eye and her entire face covered in what you are sure is probably ketchup. You would think that the older kids were playing a prank, right? That's exactly what they thought.
SO the adults just sat there, with blank expressions, champagne glasses in hand. Connie the nurse stands up and comes over to me and removes my hand. "Oh dear- Sandy look at this".
What happened next I do not know. I remember laying in the RV on the kitchen table/extra bed with my mom applying pressure with a wash cloth. I do remember my brother freaking out in the back trying to disassemble the tent that he and his friend had been sleeping in. The tent was thrown into the RV in its totally assembled form by my dad who cleaned up our camp site in about 6 seconds flat. I remember hearing my dad ask someone directions to a hospital. Then I remember a doctor with a German accent. The German accent scared me a bit because all I thought about at that time when I met someone German is my dad whispering in my ear "Don't mention the war" which always made me giggle. Then I felt something roll down my cheek. I was certain my eyeball had fallen out.
*SCREAMS SCREAMING SCREAMER SCREAM*
Nope. It was a tear drop.
I had 4 stitches above my eye and 3 under my eye. And a tetanus shot I am sure. My eyeball was fine thank God. I went to school with huge bandages on the next Monday. They called me S-arrrrrrrr-ah for a little while. And then I had these huge red scars on my face that didn't fade until about 7th grade. My left eyebrow still has a tiny bald spot to remind me that every time I see Jamie Holtz from now until the end of our lives I have to make him feel guilty.
6. My car was stolen the night of my 21st birthday. STOLEN. On my birthday. While I was out in Wicker Park getting hammered. STOLEN. Never had anything else happen to me as far as my car goes, but they chose my 21st birthday to STEAL my car. The only thing worse the having your car stolen, is them finding your car three days later after the thieves had been living in it, then peed in it (did they have a second grader living with them?) and then left it close enough to the Humboldt Park impound lot that I had to go claim it. And keep it. (Insert honorable mention under car stories here: I got a speeding ticket on my way to get a divorce on April 8, 2008. And I was crying so hard when the cop was yelling at me that he called for back up.)
5. In the grand scheme of life, this isn't that bad, but it still pisses me off to no end: December 1993 I had my audition for acceptance into the theatre school at DePaul University. DePaul, in my mind, was my only option for college. I was going to be an acting major there. No other plan in place. So I went and auditioned and felt good about it. 2 weeks later I get my letter in the mail. I WAS ACCEPTED!! Of course, I was alone at home when I got the letter so I sped back to school to show my acting teacher the letter. And then I showed just about everyone else I've ever known (and their cats) the letter. I screamed my victory from the mountain tops! Then a few days later I got another letter which read something like this: "blah blah blah we regret blah blah blah it was a mistake blah blah blah you can come study playwriting though blah blah blah here are some complimentary basketball tickets for your trouble blah blah blah".........I cried for maybe 2 weeks straight. Or 2 hours. But it felt like 2 weeks.
4. This happened to me yesterday...So I have been struggling for a long time to get commercial work. I have always been cast as a character type and never as a normal looking person type. BUT on Monday I was cast in a commercial and I was ridiculously excited. I had every last detail ready to go for the shoot, which is happening as I write this...I have been under a lot of stress lately, I mean even more than usual, so I guess I'm kind of prime for getting sick...but what happened to me when I woke up yesterday morning can only be described as the REAL actor's nightmare. I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...and looked in the mirror. My bottom lip was HUGE and I had some kind of small village of gross growing out of my chin. What in the world? I have never had a fat lip before. Ever. I've never been punched in the face so I look like Jimmy Walker, I've never had an allergic reaction to anything and I certainly have never had some kind of infection on my face. SO I went to my mom's house and showed her. We iced it, we washed it, we tried everything. FInally I went to an aesthetician and explained to her "You need to get rid of this lip thing and whatever else is going on because I AM SHOOTING A COMMERCIAL TOMORROW". She steamed it, she caressed it, she even did some sort of dry ice thing. It looked a bit better. We hoped for the best. I took a nap for 45 minutes. When I woke up I was in terrible shape. I could see my lip under my nose when I looked down. My entire jaw was swollen. And it was getting worse by the minute. I went to the emergency care clinic. They had me sitting in a room by myself of ran hour and a half. And my lip grew and my jaw swelled. I left there in anger. I went to the ER. They took me in right away. Gave me a massive dose of Benadryl, a steroid and put an IV in me. The they determined that I had some kind of weird infection. IN MY FACE. So they put an antibiotic in the IV. And my face didn't go down. It was 8:00 pm. I finally decided with my agent that we had to remove me from the commercial. I. was. and. am. heartbroken. Such a cruel joke. Even as I write this I can only drink through a straw and eat mashed potatoes out of the right side of my face. Karma. I have some really really bad karma.
3. I have had a lot of unhealthy people in my family pass away or get very sick. This motivates me to eat right, to workout 5 times a week, to not smoke, to breathe. Yet I am the ONLY one in my family who has been diagnosed with a genetic mutation called "Factor 5" which means my blood clots eleventh times faster than normal people. I had no idea I had this until this past fall when I got a blood clot in my lower arm. I was put on coumadin for three months. I was taken off of birth control. I was told to be careful. I was told there's nothing I can do about these clots. I was told I could have a pulmonary embolism at any time because of this disorder. And the worst thing, I was no longer allowed to eat green, leafy vegetables. I've been cut off from my routine of massive amounts of salad, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, etc. Anything with Vitamin K (which also includes cranberries, green tea and agave nectar, all of which I live on). This vitamin K nonsense interrupts the coumadin...so I was on coumadin for three months. I abided by all the rules. Then I went to get my final ultrasound to make sure the clot was gone. It was! yay! No...wait. There's now another one in another part of my arm. Of which I had no symptoms. So now I have to take this horrible drug for LIFE. I live everyday with the fear that I have blood clots all over my body and at any moment one could move to my lungs or my brain without notice. AND I can't eat salad. I wonder why I even bother going to the gym and eating well and why I don't smoke. Oh yeah, vanity. Which is probably the thing that will kill me in the end.
2. hands down most painful thing I've ever endured: No, it's not giving birth to an 8 lb 11 oz baby boy or a 9 lb 6 oz baby girl. Nope, it was a staph infection in my spinal column. In 2001(and the day before my birthday...) I hurt my back imitating Molly Shannon's "I"m 50!" character from SNL. I was performing in Tony N Tina's Wedding in Chicago and I was playing a spastic caterer. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to imitate Molly Shannon but take it a bit further. When I said "ANd I can kick", I put my foot up on an audience member's shoulder...while we were both standing up...the next day I was in excruciating pain. I had herniated my three lowest discs in my back. After 3 months of therapy, pain management, shots in my spine and exercises, it didn't get better. I had to have surgery. upon researching the surgery I found that a tiny 1% of people who have it get a staph infection and it will either paralyze or kill the victim. Nah, won't happen to me, I thought. Doc, let's do this!
So I had outpatient back surgery. Was NOT given antibiotics before or after the operation. And was sent on my way to heal. The pain relief was immediate. I could feel my leg again, I could sit for more than three minutes without howling in pain, it was awesome.
10 days later: muscle spasms in my back that made child birth feel like a broken nail. I was stuck in the middle of my bed for 24 hours. My brother carried me to the car and we went to the hospital. Blood everywhere. Screaming agonizing pain. They gave me a muscle relaxer and sent me home. The next day: shaking and shivering. 5 paramedics. Off to the hospital, screaming, vomiting. Immediate MRI, immediate morphine drip. The next week I was in a morphine haze. Unable to move, sure that I would end up paralyzed. The hallucinations were constant and I didn't eat anything but ice chips. I thought the hospital was burning down, I thought there was an intruder in the middle of the night, I thought I was in Hawaii, I thought my family was having Easter Dinner in the hall without me, I thought I was in a camper (kind of like the one in Wisconsin...). I had to have another surgery. The abcesses were attacking my hips- if I hadn't gotten in there when I did I probably would have lost most of my muscle...another week after that I was still in the hospital on the antibiotics and the morphine. When I did go home I had a walker. And a cane. And a pick line in my left arm where I had to give myself injections every 8 hours for the next 8 weeks. I had to have home health care. I was a MESS.
I will never put my foot on anyone's shoulder again. At least not standing up...
1. And the number one stupid, horrible, worst thing that has happened to me....
I dropped my iPhone in water this morning and the ear piece won't work....I know, I know....stop crying for me. You're embarrassing yourself.
BUT, and say it with me..."If this is the worst thing that happens to me today I'm going to be OK."
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)