Bits and Pieces

I'm trying to avoid writing the "OMG BlogHer Squee" post, so this is what you get.

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A friend told me that his therapist thinks I should post more. He pays his therapist to advise a random woman whom she has never met how to post on her blog.

I have this to say to his therapist:

In other words, there is now a LOLcat for everything.

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One Monday, I was getting all my crap out of my car for work. Laptop, lunch bag, big Mary Poppins purse, travel mug. I was standing on the curb and turned to walk into the building. Tripped and fell, twisting both ankles.

I laid there face down in the parking lot, watching my coffee flow into a puddle in front of me, thinking exactly this: "Ow. Ow. Ow."

Within two hours, one ankle had swollen to about 150% its usual size, while the other one merely hurt like hell.


In less than 48 hours, I would leave for BlogHer 2010, an event that requires as much walking as an Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer event. Impeccable timing. I haz it.

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On the Tuesday before BlogHer (I left on Wednesday), EmmieJ, one of the bloggers flying on the Virgin America party plane tweeted that she was sick with a cold. And that she was on her way to join us for our Wednesday flight.

I did not handle this news well.

I had what might charitably be called a freakout of epic proportions. I was going to be stuck on a plane for five hours in close proximity to Germ Girl. You KNOW how I feel about germs.

I tweeted a couple replies, the subtext of which was "WTF BITCH?? Are you trying to KILL ME???" I am nothing if not compassionate.

The beautiful irony was that she had had to move heaven and earth to get on the flight with us, as she was coming from Sacramento to LA and then to NYC, and Virgin wanted to do nothing more than fly her direct to the Big Apple.

I furiously tried to get on the Virgin America website to change my flight. They, meanwhile, were having a major sale. The page WOULD NOT load. I sat there staring at the screen and obsessively refreshing for an hour. I finally got the site to tell me I could fly a few hours later in the day than I had planned for only an additional $350. Uh, no. I'm a germaphobe, but I am also a cheap bastard germophobe.

Plan B: Aromatherapy. No joke. My aromatherapist, Bambi (NO, I am not making this up. I'm from California. Everyone in California has an aromatherapist named Bambi) has this Miracle Smell Juice that kills germs for yards around you, guaranteed. Ok, not guaranteed, exactly, but it got me through 4 cold and flu seasons in Cubicle Hell without getting sick, which makes it practically FDA approved, right?

But Bambi was out for the evening, so I went to the health food store, where I found something similar to Bambi's Miracle Juice in the aromatherapy aisle, but it needed to be diluted.

"Do you have any small bottles?" I asked. Yes, on the bottom shelf. Next to the giant bottles of patchouli oil. Which is my least favorite scent, by the way, right up there with lavender, cat crap and deviled eggs. Patchouli oil in giant GLASS bottles that are easily tipped over and shattered if an exceptionally clumsy person taps them just right...

Yes, I did. I caused a Toxic Airborne Event in my health food store. A two-foot wide pool of pure Hippie Stank Patchouli Oil spread out all over the linoleum, releasing its fumes from hell.

People were wheezing and coughing and covering their faces. All except for a little 8-year-old mini-Goth girl, who loved the stench. You gotta wonder about how that child is going to turn out.

And of course the health food store checkout line was long and it took forever and I was blanketed in a coating of Patchouli smell and I still had to go home and get up at 2:30 a.m. to get to the airport, so I stopped and got a burrito for dinner on the way home.

A vegetarian burrito with avocado WITH avocado (sometimes I splurge) and took it home to eat.

It was a meat burrito, not a vegetarian burrito. I do not eat meat. I think it was then that I tweeted "If I were the type of person to think God messed with people, I would think God was messing with me."

I drove the mile back to return the burrito and waited in line for 20 minutes to do so. Not exaggerating - it was 10 minutes to closing time and every stoned surfer in town was waiting for a grease bomb.

I got my burrito, got in my car and burst into tears. I was just...done.

But then I really WAS done. I decided to quit freaking out, to go home and pack my clothes and sleep for 3 hours and get up and be cheerful and have a great time. And that's what I did.

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EmmieJ was on the flight, feeling icky but sitting a row back and across the plane from me. Sitting in the seat directly in front of me was a four-year-old girl who was feverish, coughing, and sneezing loudly the whole flight.

Too late, God. Too late.