the other day i dreamt that my boyfriend bought a bike for his ex and rode it over to her house, but crashed on the way. later, she called me to tell me that she thought it was so sweet that he wrecked himself and the bike on the way to her house, didn't i agree? i mean, she had always wanted a bike. i woke up feeling quite sick.

to the asshole in line behind us at the sushi place last night in sellwood:
thank you for pulling in the parking lot behind us, screeching your tires as you parked, jumping out of your car and sizing us up.
thank you for racing us to the door but acting like you weren't, looking away whenever i tried to meet your eye.
thank you for seeing that there were 12 tables waiting to be seated in the hour before they closed and then crowding us into the corner so that we couldn't see what was going on.
thank you for snatching the clipboard almost out of karen's hands as she put it down to look around and see if waiting was a good option.
thank you for pushing her out of the way with your twice as big steroid made body.
thank you for making sure that we left, pissed off at you and still hungry.

we went to a different sushi place with no line and no assholes where we could sit comfortably and not feel rushed. i hope your dinner was akin to lining up at a feed trough. may you have eaten some bad eel and crap in your pants today.

thank you again.

pleurisy. i've got it. my lungs ache, my heart aches, it hurts to laugh, to breathe, to move quickly. the first night i knew something was wrong wrong wrong i thought i was going to die. sure i've said that before, but i had never really believed it. my heart hurt and i was dizzy, hot; thought i was having a heart attack. i was at my boyfriend's rock show in an overheated, smoky bar and i leaned over and felt like i had been kicked in the chest. with a pointy-toed boot. with a fork on the end. i insisted that my friend eddy take me home and moaned the whole way, feeling my swollen potato heart causing me agony with every breath. no, not a potato. more like a sausage in the microwave on high. you know what happens then. it bursts. chris and eddy assured me that i wasn't going to die, but i knew it was a massive coronary event or a blood clot, and sure enough, the next day when i called the advice nurse she looked at the long list of medications i take and said, "Yes, it's possibly a blood clot." and "It's incredibly difficult to diagnose heart problems over the phone. You should come in to the Urgent Care Center as soon as possible."

and so chris and i drove there in silence and checked in. then we waited. and waited. after two hours i was finally allowed to see the triage nurse. she apparently didn't think i was going to die either, though i begged to differ with her, and we waited some more. the turnover in the e.r. waiting room was complete. i had visions of my possible blood clot reaching my heart, introducing itself, and then killing me in an impressive display of gore right there in the uncomfortable chair. i imagined my eyes popping out and blood spilling out of my ears, my heart simmering in an unfortunate nurse's hand as she chased it around the floor slippery with my blood and vomit.

after three hours, i got sent back to a smaller room to wait (half naked) for a doctor to eventually come and see me. when he arrived, he was small and furry, like a marmoset. but friendly. he ordered a breathing treatment right away for my asthma, which i definitely did not want, because i could breathe fine, i thought anyway, and all that albuterol makes me shake like a strung out junkie. but i dutifully inhaled the adrenaline vapors and swooned from the combination of that and the needle-sickness i get whenever i get blood taken for anything. then a cute lady came cruising in with an ekg machine and told me she would have to "expose me" and asked if it was okay if "that gentleman sees." chris raised an eyebrow and i gave her the go-ahead. so polite. hooked up like a cyborg, punched full of needle holes, and toking on my medicinal bong, i felt myself traveling to la-la land, but chris kept shaking my foot and bringing me back to reality. curses!

ekg=no heart attack
blood tests=no clot
breathing treatment=dizzy but clear-lunged
x-rays=AHA!

so it seemed i had developed a case of pleurisy. what the hell is that? you ask. it sounds like something your grandmother would've put a poultice on, right? yeah, that's what i thought too. pleurisy is an inflammation of the lining of the lungs, usually the result of an underlying infection or virus. having both asthma and pleurisy is like having two evil embryos fighting in your chest to see who can make you feel the shittiest. it's really hard to tell who's winning. the 1800mg of ibuprofin i am taking a day to relieve the inflammation in my lung lining is making me wheezy, which makes me use my inhaler, which makes my chest hurt and my head spin.

and so i feel like i am going to die. i wrote down my final instructions for my sister(i.e.-here's the money for helping with the bills, move my box of vibrators before mom comes in the house, cremate me and sprinkle me someplace pretty) and it depressed me. i really have so little. my sister read the list and looked at me over a plate of eggs and bacon. "This is your legacy?" she said, and i knew what she meant. So sad. So wheezy.

there was a smell coming from the cupboard. a beety, tangy smell. i had been noticing it everytime i opened the door to get my glass or to find a bag of tea for the last two weeks. since i share the cupboard with the other 200 people working in my building, i figured it was just something that had gotten spilled and forgotten about, as will happen. but it kept getting worse. so the other day i finally decided to just be a man, if you will, and clean up whatever was stinking. i got to the top shelf and all the way in the back in the corner was an open carton of milk. i picked it up, and yes, it had something in it. the something was no longer liquid, though, and i recoiled from it even as i went to open it to look inside. i just had to know what was making that smell. ugh! green and fuzzy, black in the deep crevices, a lumpy looking shape now occupied the space where once a delicious beverage had been. the odor actually made visible lines as it rose up and out of the cardboard container. i gagged. eddy, who had been standing all the way across the room, gagged. we both reeled out of the kitchen, our lunches temporarily losing their luster in the face of that green atrocity...

so my question here is: who put the milk in the cupboard on the top shelf in the corner? was it a momentary lapse in thinking clearly? did they also put their box of cereal in the fridge? or was it malicious? the fiend rubbing his/her/its hands together as they cackled with evil delight in the gorges they would soon make rise?