Brother, Can You Spare a Kidney?

Ever had a kidney infection? I did, which meant that August was a full-on festival of fun.

It all started on a quiet Tuesday morning, when I rolled into work with a bit of a fever. (Later, I discovered that it was actually quite a lot of a fever.) I told a few coworkers that I seemed to have a touch of the flu, and therefore might leave early. One of the women in my office told me I looked much sicker than that, and might want to consider going to a hospital. Pshaw! Hospitals are for wusses.

So I went home. I felt fine. Well, except for the raging fever, the shooting pains in my side, the pervasive mental fog, and the sickening feeling that maybe I was pretty bad off after all.

I spent the next hour at home, cuddled up in bed, cradling my cell phone. A friend called me with the address of an urgent care clinic in my neighborhood, so I walked over. On the way, a cop driving past rolled down his window and asked if I was OK. My response? “Oh, sure, fine. How are you?”

I got to the clinic and settled into a chair. When I was called in to see a nurse, she immediately shoved a thermometer into my mouth, drew it out, and almost dropped the thing with surprise.

Nurse: So, what brings you here today?
Me: I might have a touch of the flu.
Nurse: It might be more than a touch. Your temperature is 104.
Me: Cool!

After some paperwork, I was shuttled in to see a doctor. He punched me in the back a couple of times, then informed me that I had a kidney infection. I was a little delirious at this point, but I do recall asking if I could simply borrow his kidney. Then he told me I should really be in a hospital, at which point I refused because “people die in hospitals.” Yes, that was my logic. Like I said, I was a bit delirious.

Eventually, my fever went down to a downright comfy 101, and I was sent home. The doctor had me “monitor my condition” for the rest of the evening. “Monitoring” meant I was supposed to sit around and see if I got any sicker, in which case I’d have to go to the ER. The doctor was concerned that I wouldn’t know if my temperature went back up to 104 or not, but once you’ve experienced a temperature that high you don’t tend to forget it.

The next morning, I received a two-week prescription to Cipro. Seriously, two weeks. Did people with anthrax even take Cipro for that long? The next 14 days were a parade of Cipro’s greatest side effect hits, including: loss of appetite, wooziness, ooziness, and, grossest of all, a yellow metallic-tasting goo that coated the inside of my mouth for two days. I resorted to scraping it all off with a metal nail file, which did interesting things for my gag reflex. Sexy!

I was pretty sick over the next few days. Fever, chills, goofy delirium, 16 hours a day of sleep, and occasional moments where I shook all over and prayed for death. (I marked my recovery in terms of how long it had been since I’d prayed for death…12 hours! I must be getting better! 24 hours! The PTD “Pray for Death” Scale became the central theme of my life.) There were also balcony repairs going on outside my building, meaning that occasionally I felt as if I were trying to nap inside a cement mixer.

I thought about how much easier it would have been this sick in my old life. The Embassy Health Unit would have been my one-stop-shop. My spouse could have taken care of me. Missing a week of work wouldn’t have been such a financial setback for me, because I had sick leave, and a spouse to pick up the financial slack. I spent entire hours feeling sorry for myself, which is more self-pity than I’ve allowed myself all year.

But it’s OK. My friends nurtured the heck out of me, with everything from movie nights to grocery runs to reassuring text messages. “Thinking of you…” “How can I help…” “A kidney infection is life’s little way of telling you to stop and smell the roses…” “If your temperature hits 105, sell!”

The recovery felt like it took forever. By the end of the week, I’d lost about 8 pounds (a lot, when you consider I barely weigh triple digits as it is). My pants hung off me, making me look a bit like Marky Mark. I had to drink almost a gallon of cranberry juice a day. I had to cut back on sodium and caffeine, my two favorite food groups. I slept for much of the next three weeks, and had to cut back on my usual Paris Hilton-style social life.

Maybe this really was life’s little way of telling me to stop and smell the roses. I looked at my appointment calendar, and realized I’d gone out 13 of 14 days before I got sick. I’d been having symptoms of a kidney infection for almost a week before I’d noticed that anything was wrong. I didn’t have any clean clothes because I hadn’t been home to do laundry for almost three weeks. Hey! Maybe I overdo things a little. Maybe I should slow down.

But, most likely, I won’t. Who am I kidding? I need for life to have momentum, to have something new always around the corner. But maybe I’ve gotten smarter. Hopefully next time one of my organs goes rogue agent and tries to assassinate me, I’ll see a doctor right away. Like I’ve always said, I need to learn my lessons the hard way.

A Typical Monday Morning

I often say that I am not a morning person, and that I simply do not function at any intelligent level during single digit hours. Many of my friends believe this is just an effort on my part to be cute. I'm cute enough. I really couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Therefore, for your approval, I submit the true story of my most recent Monday morning:
7:05 Alarm goes off.
7:15 Alarm goes off.
7:25 Alarm goes off.
7:35 Alarm goes off.
7:45 Alarm goes off. Get out of bed.
7:46 Forget that bed has been moved to new position. Exit bed, crash forehead into wall. Emit copious string of swear words in multiple languages.
7:48 Turn on coffeemaker.
7:50 Turn on shower.
7:51 Brush teeth.
7:55 Remember that shower is running. Get into shower.
8:10 Exit shower. Retrieve clothing for day, which had been lovingly compiled the previous evening.
8:12 Notice that I have shaved my left leg twice and my right leg not at all, meaning that one leg is a gory mess and the other is a maze of stubble.
8:16 Compile new outfit, not involving leg exposure. Dress.
8:20-8:22 Drink first cup of coffee.
8:23-8:26 Apply makeup. Stab self in eye with mascara.
8:27 Comb hair. Attempt to subdue hair, which has achieved a ski jump formation on left side.
8:30 Give up on hair.
8:31 Chug second cup of coffee.
8:32 Remove lunch from fridge. Pack bag. Leave apartment.
8:33 Return to apartment to retrieve forgotten cell phone.
8:35 Return to apartment to retrieve forgotten Metro card.
8:36 Return to apartment to retrieve forgotten item which had not, in fact, been forgotten.
8:38 Board elevator. Get stuck in elevator.
8:40 Band together with fellow passengers to pry open elevator doors. Smush fingers.
8:41 Escape elevator. Leave building. Go to work.

PS - Happy birthday to Jason Hamrick and Matt Lauer, both of whom got older and wiser yesterday.

Hundred Dollar Baby

My life philosophy can be summed up as, “Always do anything that would make a good story later.” I haven’t decided whether this means I’m a free spirit, or that maybe I have an impulse control problem.

A month or two back, I was drinking these margaritas called “El Cheapo” and somehow volunteered to be in a bachelor and bachelorette auction. (Note to self: this is why you don’t usually drink tequila.) Once the hangover wore off and the reality set in, I decided to go ahead and do it. Hey, I gotta get back in the dating pool sometime, and this was like doing a cannonball off the high dive. In this case, the beneficiaries were the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Sunday night was the big night, and it was surprisingly a lot of fun. I had my strategy down pat. Realizing that most guys don’t comprehend 90% of trendy clothes, I wore a simple black dress and some heels. Then I handed my checkbook to my friend Sean with the instruction, “If I tug on my earlobe twice, BUY ME.” Hey, it never hurts to have a backup plan.

Most of the auctionees and auctionettes got there early, and we all managed to bond before being ushered into what I’d been calling the “babe pit” or “cattle pen.” I had noticed a really ooky guy doing orbits of me, so I was pretty freaked out. I’m not a snob or anything, ugly is OK, and stupid is survivable for one date, but this guy gave every appearance of living in his mother’s basement, with various female body parts stuffed into his freezer and a thrilling job as night manager at the Taco Bell. (Hilariously, a couple of the bachelors had noticed the creepy guy and quietly told me, “If that guy bids, we’re buying you.” Solidarity! Aw. I must say, the best part of the auction was meeting the other bachelors and bachelorettes. They were wonderful, encouraging, fantastic, enthusiastic and fun.)

Once we’d all been ushered into the pit, we were called up one by one and sold off. The guys sold for anything from $65 to $200. Weirdly, all of the blonde women sold for $150 and up, while the brunettes were fetching around $100. So, on the open dating market, blonde hair equals an instant 50% markup. Who knew?

When it was my turn, I went up to my preassigned theme song, “My Sharona.” I’d requested “Short People Ain’t Got No Reason to Live,” but I think the DJ conveniently forgot my request. I had to do a bit of banter with the auctioneer, buy beer in three languages, describe my perfect date, then hope for the best. Really, the whole thing was a complete blur, but I do recall the ooky guy bidding $75. Then one of the bachelors stepped in with $100, and I was sold. I was told afterwards that I seemed very “natural” onstage, probably due to the three glasses of liquid courage I’d downed before going up. (I did keep my drinking pretty tame, as I’d had a nightmare the previous evening about tumbling off the stage and into the orchestra pit, with my lucky ninja panties on display. Though, let’s face it, I fall off of stuff cold sober as well.)

Supposedly, this bachelor guy and I are going out for brunch sometime. At a sports bar. Really.

I’ve learned a few things. The first thing I’ve learned is that I have awesome friends – which I already knew. Thanks to Mike T, Sean, Rowena and Amy for coming out, cheering me on, providing fashion advice and indulging my insecurities. In fact, a big thank you to everyone I’ve come in contact with over the last two months, as you’ve all in some way indulged my insecurity.

The second thing I’ve learned is that being divorced is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s a handy-dandy BS detector. Every time a guy chatted me up on Sunday, somehow the issue of my being divorced would come up. (Mainly, I have no other way of explaining why I’ve lived in such random places.) What I do is casually mention my divorce and check the guy’s reaction. If he runs for the hills, then I’m better off without him. After all, if a guy can’t handle the fact that I’m divorced, then he probably couldn’t handle my wacky family, my morning crankiness, or my neurotic shoe-alphabetizing habits. If a guy sticks around to chat some more, then he’s probably a winner.

So, the auction was really fun. I’m really glad I did it, but more than that, I am really, REALLY glad it’s over.

Love for Sale?

I’ve always been really bad at dating. I mean, awful. Catastrophically, ridiculously bad. I went out with a guy who spent the entire evening droning on about how his family disowned him, then stuck me with the check. I’ve been pinched on the butt by a guy who got roaring drunk on our first date, too. Then there was Trashed Me on His Website Guy, You’d Be Cuter if You Were Jewish Guy, and Let’s Get Matching Tattoos Guy. I’m wary of the whole enterprise.

But I’ve decided to launch myself back into it anyway, and in a rather spectacular fashion. I signed up for a bachelorette auction for the end of July. OK, it’s for charity. The event is sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, so what’s a little bit of embarrassment compared to helping cure cancer? Plus, I’m rounding up a cheering section. A few of my friends will be given blank checks with which they can rescue me if a Mullet Man decides I’m his dream date. I’m looking forward to it.

Plus, this auction has allowed me to have some awesome conversations. “Would you mind taking a digital photo of me?”
“What for?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Match.com?”
“What’s more embarrassing than Match.com?”

In preparation, I decided to read an issue of Cosmopolitan. Yes, I am aware that studying for a bachelorette auction is hopelessly geeky, but I tend to overthink things a little. At one point I even contemplated gathering letters of reference from former boyfriends. (Is there such thing as Attention Surplus Disorder?)

Cosmo, for the record, is just a dreadful as I remembered. Every article is “62 Things to Do to Your Man Tonight!” which just sounds exhausting to me. Do men really expect 62 different things in one night? I must be getting old. When do Cosmo girls sleep? When I was 23, the typical article was “48 Things to Do to Your Man Tonight”, so I guess inflation is everywhere.

Plus there’s all the articles about “How to Twist Yourself Inside Out to Get a Man”, or “How to Dress Trampy”, or, best of all, “The Secret About Men.” (Typically, “They Like Sex.”) All of this makes me feel woefully unprepared.

So my new strategy is to just not think about it at all. Maybe someone nice will buy me. Or maybe someone awful will buy me, but at least it will make for a good story.

Ikea: 2, Dignity: 0

I’ve moved into my new apartment, and it’s just as cute as I could ever want. It's bright and sunny and really small, meaning that by comparison I feel like Godzilla.

However, I’ve discovered something troubling: I don’t own anything. When I got married, I more or less assumed it was a permanent arrangement. So I gave away most of my household stuff. Therefore, it’s been my patriotic duty as an American to spend a bunch of money that I don’t necessarily have on things I’m not sure if I really need.

I managed to purchase a few items off of Mike and Erin, meaning that I have a secondhand Ikea TV stand. (Nothing symbolizes post-divorce socioeconomic decline like secondhand Ikea). Then Worth took me to Target, where I spent $274 on stuff that every 19-year-old in America already has. Who knew you could spend so much money on forks and trash cans? The worst part was maneuvering the cart out to the car. The full-length mirror fell off the cart, dragging along the ground and shooting sparks for about 10 minutes before we figured out what that godawful noise was. Sccccrrrrrrrraaaape!

Then there was Ikea. If you ever want to be feel inferior to Sweden, then Ikea is the place for you. Kevin and I made an epic trek out there last weekend. I again spent almost $300, but this time it was on balcony furniture, a nightstand, and a bunch of kitchen stuff. All of it came neatly packed in microscopic boxes, meaning I had no conception of how much I had actually purchased until I got it all home.

For those of you who live in the non-Ikea hinterlands, the central idea of the place is that you buy cheap, Scandinavian semi-disposable particleboard crap that you assemble yourself. It's a money/time exchange: what you save in cash you lose in time and frustration. I decided that as a strong, independent woman, I could easily assemble the furniture myself. Never mind that I have no mechanical ability, am totally incapable of following directions, and don’t own a toolkit. (A toolkit is on my neverending list of Things to Buy.) I’ll borrow some tools and kick some butt.

First, there were the folding chairs for my balcony. Oh, the chairs. The first chair came out OK, except that I put the seat on backwards. The second chair refused to budge from its folded position (note to self: next time, don’t kick the wrench to make sure the bolts are tight enough).

The third chair broke me. The thing wouldn't go into the other thing, meaning I couldn't screw on the doohickey, no matter how hard I whacked the doohickey with a hammer. This started a chain-reaction freakout. I can't assemble furniture. I am totally incapable of taking care of myself. I'm weak and incompetent and stupid. I'm doomed to die alone. No, I'm doomed to die alone here in my little apartment, and no one will discover my body for weeks. I'll be eaten by my 50 cats, all of whom will be wearing little cat sweaters that I painstakingly knitted for them. No, I'm going to die alone under a bridge, in an old refrigerator, and no one will find my body until spring thaw.

After 15 minutes of free-association doom and gloom, I snapped out of it. I decided that the third chair could wait its turn, and I would move on to the fourth. The fourth chair practically assembled itself, which did wonders for my confidence. I even managed to put together a table and a nightstand without too much drama. (Well, except for when I put the nightstand drawer in upside-down, thereby diminishing its storage potential. But that was easily rectified. And I didn't cry.)

So, I assembled furniture myself. It wasn't even on my to-do list, so I feel like I achieved some self-sufficiency extra credit. I rock, I rule, I govern the known universe with an iron fist of coolness.

And as for Evil Chair #3? I got a guy to fix it. All it took was a beer and a few manly elbow jabs.(Thanks, Damien!) Hey, no woman is an island, and sometimes it's OK to ask for help.

How to Snag the Insecure Man of Your Dreams

Click on the article above and prepare to be very, very depressed. I came across this while on Hotmail today and got annoyed enough for another one of my ranting blog posts.

I just can't believe in the year 2006 successful women are still being told to dumb down their accomplishments so as to not scare off the menfolk. Granted, this doesn't really apply to me, as it's a rare man who is intimidated by office temps. (If you can locate one, I'll go out with him purely on humanitarian grounds.) However, I find it absolutely galling that women out there might actually follow this advice.

Some choice quotes:

Apparently just because you have a lot of degrees on your wall doesn’t mean you have a lot of suitors at your door.

Girls, if you're going to go to college at all, maybe you should just major in Home Ec and find a nice young man to marry you. After all, isn't that why women wanted to go to college in the first place? To shop for husbands?

And a woman having an impressive job always yields the same reaction from a man: Confusion, awkwardness, that moment when he’s wondering, “Is my job as an assistant manager of a copy shop going to sound pitiful?”

Seriously, is this true? Do all men always feel insecure when talking to successful women? I know some guys read this and post comments, so I really want to know if that's what men really think. For the sake of humanity, I hope not.

So are successful women doomed to a life of tense cheese-tray introductions? Of course not. These women can either be patient till an equally high-powered man or a naturally confident fella turns up. Or they can know how best to present their career so as not to scare off less-assured guys.

See, I would pick option #1, of being patient until I meet someone self-assured, interesting, and supportive. However, I suppose the wiser option is to learn how to play dumb, because Lord knows nothing is worse than not having a "fella". The use of the word "fella" strongly implies that this article was imported directly from 1956.

Bring your career down to reality, suggests John Gray, Ph.D., author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Open up and show a vulnerable side right from the beginning, “When a woman immediately senses that a man is intimidated, she should find a way of communicating that she has a need for some advice,” Dr. Gray explains: “For example, if she’s a doctor, she could talk to him about something frustrating that happened at the hospital that day.” Dr. Gray points out that men want to feel needed, so this tactic is a good way to bring him inside your circle.

Oh, my God. I didn't think I could despise Mars/Venus Guy any more than I already do, but now he comes out with this pile of steaming stupidity. Girls, you gotta display your needy, whiny side, so the Big Man can make you feel all better.

Seriously, did MSN borrow this article from 1956? It's 2006, and I can't believe I'm still having to explain that, yes, women can have careers, and no, they shouldn't play dumb to score their very own copy shop clerk.

I fear for humanity.

PS - Did anyone else notice the other Hotmail articles today? Women: Slim Down for Summer, and then something about billionaire bachelors. I'm very depressed.

The Summer of Self-Sufficiency

I found an apartment! It's an urban shoebox, weighing in at an Oompa-Loompaish 481 square feet. I have a balcony overlooking the freeway, meaning I can unleash my inner redneck by drinking beer and watching cars go by. I may even pretend it's NASCAR and yell "Woo HOOOO!" at them. I move in next weekend and I am WAY more excited than I should be. Hooray! An urban holding cell next to the freeway! But it's cheap, it has a balcony, and it's all mine.

As I wrote out a check for the deposit on Friday, I realized that was the first time I'd written a check since 2003. Then I realized I'd completely forgotten where my signature was supposed to go. And, why again was I writing the dollar amount in longhand?

My general lack of adult competency has been troubling me. Between being married and the viselike grip of Mama State, I've been spoon-fed the last three years of my life. I'm finding basic tasks terribly complicated. How did I get so weak so fast? I'd always been so independent. Not to mention strong-willed, stubborn, and completely unable to accept help. It's like I received a complete personality transplant.

So, I hereby declare this the Summer of Self-Sufficiency, where I will accomplish everything I haven't done since 2003. Better yet, I'm adding things to the list I've never tried before, so I'll be even more awesome than ever. So, here are my 20 Steps to Adulthood:

1. Purchase and install lightbulbs.
2. Select, purchase, and hook up one electronic item.
3. Obtain full-time, professional job.
4. Have my own credit card.
5. Go on a date.
6. Operate power tools.
7. Learn how to drive a stick shift.
8. Book a flight.
9. Balance a checkbook. (Note: First, I need to get a checkbook.)
10. Save for retirement. In fact, learn how to save money in general.
11. Put in a maintenance request.
12. Choose the wine at a restaurant, rather than looking around blankly hoping someone else at the table does it for me.
13. Squash a spider, bug, or other creepy crawly, as opposed to subcontracting said squashing to the nearest available male.
14. Win an argument.
15. Obtain health insurance.
16. Set up online banking, and pay student loan bill online.
17. Give decent driving directions, rather than directing friends and associates to Mapquest.com.
18. Legally change name back to original name, meaning that I will no longer sign receipts in an immature, passive aggressive fashion (squashing my married name down to a squiggly blip).
19. Obtain DC driver's license in original name.
20. When the papers come through, throw a rockin' divorce party. Hey, if you get a party when you get married, you should get one when you get divorced.

In other news, Victoria is famous. I remember when she was in second grade, and now she's stripping down to her underwear at the CUA quad. How time flies!