Pig Chase : While Ian was here, he invented a drinking game to be played during Karaoke Revolution. If you choose the County Fair venue, there is a large pig-shaped balloon floating in the background, stamped with the words ‘Pig Chase’. The rules of the game are as follows: every time you see the Pig Chase balloon, you take a drink. We were playing it with Dasani, luckily, or poor Eeen would have gone into an alcoholic coma, but my favorite thing ever was while Mare was singing ‘Call Me’, Pie, Ian and I were on the sofa yelling ‘Pig Chase!’ and then laughing like dirty pig chasers. Pie and I have since discussed the Pig Chase phenomenon and we aren’t sure why it’s funny, it just is. Especially when you change the lyrics of ‘I Will Always Love You’ to ‘I Will Always Chase Pigs’. I think it’s like ‘The Snapping’. Hysterically funny but no one understands why.
Orbitz : thinks that it’s my best friend because it sends me e-mails almost every day. Today’s e-mail highlights a threesome enjoying a sack race (which is supposed to look far more wholesome than that sentence would appear to be) and I wonder why sack races fell out of vogue? Maybe this is a trend that is ripe for picking by the hipsters, like knitting and Eames furniture? Everything lame will be cool again. Sack races. It’s only a matter of time.
Sideways: Last weekend, Pie came over for South Beach dinner and also wine. At some point, I waved at the television screen and shouted ‘You TOTALLY need that cami! We could SO MAKE THAT FOR YOU! We’d just need some lace and a glue gun! It must be so!’ and Pie looked at me and said ‘You are so drunk right now.’ In fact, for some reason, we were both extraordinarily drunk. Even though we still maintained our standard number of bottles, the quality of the alcohols was quite impressive. White merlot will apparently kick your ass. Who knew? And then I think we drunk dialed some people. And created several new Pig Chase hits. I don’t know. It was all a little foggy.
The State of the Office : 95% finished. I just need to paint the closet doors and find a doorknob for the door (although, as a child, my houses were always in a state of restoration, so a knobless door seems oddly comforting) and it will be completely finished. I am sort of stunned, quite honestly, by the completeness of it all. The living room went without baseboards for years and still has a ragged edge of carpet sticking out where I have to order the transition (note to self: get transition) so this Almost Done state is very. At some magical point in the future, perhaps we’ll finish our projects in the same calendar year in which we start them. Fingers crossed.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge : I am having all sorts of problems finding a new swimsuit. Last year, I contented myself with wearing the marginally acceptable athletic suit (although me in a swimsuit is hardly athletic) and while it was great for coverage and straps didn’t slip and the torso was long enough, I came to the realization that really, I needed a mofo underwire suit. However, could I find an underwire suit that was built for someone who is 5’9′? No. Each suit was built for someone who was 5’5′, and really, you wouldn’t think those three inches would make a difference, but you either end up adjusting the top portion and showing too much cleave action, or you pull the bottom up and suddenly have progressed into a Bai Ling situation. It was so frustrating, because honestly, I was fully ready to invest in the perfect suit, so much so that I was looking into custom suits and surfing the Fat Acceptance sites, which oddly enough, have bikinis but no support. How are you going to change anyone’s mind about accepting different body sizes when there is flopping and droopage? Newton’s Law, people. It’s not fashion, it’s physics. You wouldn’t rest a watermelon on a house of cards, so why do you think the words ‘shelf bra’ are going to do anything for a set of triple Ds? Fuck your shelf bra. It’s just a glorified training bra, and I wouldn’t put up with that shit when fully clothed, so what makes you think I’d want to wear it when putting on an emotionally-charged very revealing piece of clothing? So stupid. However, they gave me an idea, so I came up with the three tier attack. I would buy separates, including an underwire bikini top, but then pair it with a surfer’s rash guard zip top. Sporty, supportive and with the extra bonus of eliminating the need for sunscreen on my back, where I get an allergic reaction half the time. No one would ever actually see any unfortunate gut action, because I would have layers of protection. Brilliant. I was very satisfied with my creative problem solving and so felt vindicated in spending a ridiculous amount of money compiling what has since come to be called the Swimming Ensemble. When it arrived, I found that the bikini top was just another house of cards with a wire frame. I am completely befuddled at this point. True, I haven’t actually tried it on in a controlled environment, technically, only held it up to my girls, but honestly, I’m afraid that I’ll put it on and then pass out from laughing at their pathetic attempt to contain my bosom. Or that the piece will capsize all together.
Subsequent Whining : Being a girl is really hard.
Diet : I ate all sorts of horrible food all week, between what they fed us for lunch (two words: cream sauce) and who knows what during the evening, I am starting to feel like a veal calf. I’m dallying with the South Beach principle, since Pie has seen some great success so far. Really, the main problem there is my morning mocha. When it is cold, I need the mocha. I am hoping that this resolves itself by getting warmer outside, at which point, I will switch to Diet Coke, which is South Beach approved. I think. I went grocery shopping last night for what seems like the first time in weeks (if you don’t count Whole Foods and Trader Joes while in Shermer) and picked up a ton of fruit and supposedly healthy foods. While traveling, I remembered how much I love a simple breakfast of fruit and really good cheese, so I’m going to try to replicate that at home. Which is sort of contradictory, because isn’t brie just a wedge of fat? It tastes good so it must be bad. I bought some ‘Wee Brie’ last night, because of the conveniently wrapped individual wedges, and I think they’re being a bit flagrant with the term ‘brie’. It’s more like Bree. Those French women who don’t get fat would probably never eat this shit.
And Then There’s This Crazy Elephant In The Room : Esteban is sick. He wants to pretend that he’s not sick, even so much as to spend an entire day helping a very unprepared friend move their entire house (Dear Friends Who Move: Is it so hard to have things packed before asking your friends to help you move? And really, maybe you should hire a service next time because it’s not like we’re in college anymore and have nothing better to do than labor manually for some cheap pizza and a few Mountain Dews. And really, I would normally be more generous, but boxes! How can you be surprised that you need more than seven boxes to move forty years worth of accumulated crap?), but the truth of the matter, whether he wants to admit it or not, is that he’s sick. Specifically, he’s anemic again. It’s been a very upsetting thing. Last time, half of his blood was missing. This time, it was two-thirds of his blood gone. The doctors weren’t even sure how he was walking up stairs and putting together bookshelves (and participating in Olympic Bedroom Triathlons, although that wasn’t discussed so much as implied with a guilty look) with so little blood. He required six blood transfusions and two days in the hospital undergoing tests and observation. He spent most of his time in the hospital pissed off that his mortality just bit him in the ass. I spent most of that time freaking the fuck out, which is why I couldn’t write about it until some time has passed. He’s doing so much better right now and currently has more Brand X in him than Brand Esteban, but even after all that, he’s still classified as ‘extremely anemic’. They didn’t fix the leaky boat, just bailed it out (love those doctor analogies) and suffice to say that he’s bleeding internally at an alarming rate, so the transfusions only bought us some time, to see if a new medication would help him make blood faster than he is losing it. We don’t know the rate of the blood loss (because some asshat who will not be named refused to go in and get checked until his heart wouldn’t stop pounding like a Godsmack drummer as it tried to move a third of the blood supply it needed) and there’s a chance he won’t have to have a potentially risky surgery, but he’s really coming to terms with the fact that he’ll need it.
I’ve been playing all sorts of mind games with myself, as this new episode sort of confirms my inner suspicion that nothing can go well for very long and that we’ve been building up some serious debt in the yang column. His condition is such a gradual thing but I’ve been kicking myself that I didn’t notice his symptoms. He has been more grumpy than not and had a few of the classic irrational episodes that marked the last time. Looking down at him in the hospital bed, I was hit by how pale he was. His base tone is always at least two shades darker than mine, and even in the summer, after hours in the pool, I can only make it to his non-tanned base, but right then, even compared to my consumptive winter pallor, he was at least a shade whiter than I was. I am so stupid. The person I live with and see every day of my life, the person I sleep next to every night and kiss goodbye every morning, the person I love most of all is bleeding to death before my very eyes and I didn’t even notice. I am so completely stupid.
