Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

In the course of a week I aimlessly wandered through Central Park and ate up the luscious shades of fall. Needless to say, I graded midterms on the subway and in the park.  I aimlessly wandered along, breathed in the crisp autumn air laced with the scents of fallen leaves, and did not have to remind myself of how much I love this city. Then . . . Then, I stopped and ate a bagel in town.  An everything bagel with chive cream cheese, and tomato slices, is my favorite dinner.  Don't forget the side of coffee.  Yea, I know . . . not the atypical dinner, but it works for me.  As I got up from my chair my knee loudly popped, others in the shop turned to look, and my eyes got big.  A dull pain began . . . That was on Saturday. I didn't go to the doctor because I had to see my Lupus guy on Thursday, so I figured why pay an extra co-pay for something that was probably minor and could be fixed with a cortisone shot and a muscle relaxer.  There is also the ...

While sitting in the waiting room of the OBGYN's office, I sent a text to four of my girlfriends reminding them of where I was.  I updated my status on FB remarking about being in the lady parts doctor's office.  Seems my willingness to go semi-public with my lady parts visit reminded several of my friends that they needed to see their girl parts person.  Score one for the sisterhood, right? While sitting in the waiting room I ran into an old co-worker.  We chatted, not about lady parts, but it was nice to catch up.  Only I could have the run into someone you know at the lady parts.   Then, while sitting on the table, waiting for the Dr. to come in, I sent a text to four of my girl pals about the pepto pink walls, the open in the front robe, and the impending stir-ups.  I asked if they were jealous.  Seems no one was.  I made jokes about the Franks resurfacing and being allergic to functional men.  My Dr. seemed to still get my humor...

There's something to be said when I willingly take a round of prednisone.  Clearly, I'm on a crappy road of pain, fevers, rashes, and exhaustion.  This time I'm only on it for seven days, but sevens days can feel like a lifetime . . . sometimes.  A decade ago I took several rounds of prednisone, and they were the extended rounds of a couple of months.  One word: unpleasant.  When I went on it this time my mother said she's glad she doesn't live near me (and she didn't a decade ago as I was in NM and her in VA).  When I called the house two nights ago she hesitantly answered the phone.  Clearly, she was fearful that the prednisone had sent me into an emotional flurry of fire, rage, and cloudy gray.  It hasn't.  An old friend, who lived through predinsone 90s-style with me, keeps reminding me to not kill my students.  She seems very afraid that I'm going to get all ragey and go apeshit.  Naw.  Not this time.  Besides, I'm to...

For what feels like forever I have been making jokes about the state of my heart, the lack of mainstay relationships in my life, and the type of "men" who cross my path.  Lovers, or wannabes, beeping me eight hours before meeting a hundred or so of their closest friends in a church to say "I do" to another woman, fading Ladies Men lying to say they want me in the end, and outright loosers with badly placed come-ons fill these pages.  Yet, they aren't the only things to break my heart. As much as I would like to place solitary blame on one, or two, of them I can not.  At seventeen I learned my heart was broken, in a minimal kind of way. Unfortunately, over the years, it has continued to beat on and sometimes it needs help to make it through the day.  Yea . . . this time around it is called an irregular heartbeat.  At seventeen I was first diagnosed, but my doctor back then had the good sense of mind to tell me the Cardizem was for migraines.  I had been di...

So, I've been silent for a spell.  Yea, it happens to the best of us.  I could easily write a novel on the dynamics of students these days, but since I've got a stack--or three--of papers I'll save that for tomorrow.  Instead, in short . . . and no, that's not a pun on me. Last night the Yanks swept the Twins in the ALDS series.  I may, or may not, have consumed an entire bottle of South African burgundy in less that two hours.  This would have left me sans wine by the seventh inning, tragic, and I might have drunk texted.  I know that I did not tell anyone I was pinning for them, but I drunk texted.  When I went back to the liquor store today, for a second bottle, the clerks might have looked at me like I linger on the Drunky McGee side.  After all, they do remember me for buying my bottle of bourbon in there not long ago.  A five block radius from my house also knows I love the Yankees like a fat kid loves cake.  After spending a...

So today I got to utilize one of my newly re-instituted benefits . . . vision insurance.  I get vision via my bargaining unit of UUP, so I'm stoked.  Not so stoked that I've got my first cold of fall, had to schelpt to Kew Gardens, spend time in Jamaica, and get out of bed today.  But, I am stoked that even with my fever ridden self I got to spread my special breed of germs along the subway lines from Astoria to Kew Gardens while feverishly running to Davis Vision.  Why? I broke my glasses earlier this week, so life was not as crisp as it could be.  No fear, the hinge on the old purple pair is repaired and the new pair should be in next week.  Rest assured, fever or not I will trot myself over to pick up the new specs.  The doctor asked my age, and he was more than taken aback that I am not twenty-four.  Nice, subtract a decade from me . . . it's all good.  He noted the I looked flushed and glowing like a twenty-something.  Perhaps, it w...

Sitting on my stoop I overhear tib bits of conversation and life.  The trails of conversation are never endless, and more often than not they are downright amusing.  Today was no different. On this delicious autumn evening a man stood on the sidewalk yelling to the window three floors above.  "You emaciate me! You drive me crazy!" Female voice from above, "What you talking about asshole?" "Always making me do your shit. Get your tampons. Get your bras from the laundry." "Yea, well most men would be happy to do it.  You get to be with me!" "Fuck you and your emaciating!" Perhaps someone should help this poor soul out.  I believe he means emasculate, not emaciate.  You know, since emaciate means to make someone abnormally skinny.  He was not, with his beer gut and all.  I should also not that several weeks ago I saw a burly dude walking down the sidewalk with a hot pink laundry bag slung over his shoulder and a handful of g...