Surgery, Travel, and March Madness

Days till Surgery: 7
Days till Old Age: 16

So today marks the beginning of several week's worth of insanity. It also marks the beginning of my downfall in our office's NCAA Bracket, but I'll get to that in a minute.

This week is a whirlwind of last minute preparation before surgery next week, including a few doctor's appointments, making sure my surgeon has Factor 7 on hand (just in case I decide to start bleeding profusely out of embarrassing orifices), finishing the limerick book drawings for my mother's Kindergarten class, packing, pre-op stuff, and traveling. Oh, traveling.

I'm heading up to Boston on Friday night, taking my old standby, Amtrak's Regional Overnight. Some people hate taking the train, and I'll admit that it can be difficult to spend anywhere from 8-12 hours (depending on whether or not there are delays) stuck in one seat, but the way I look at it? I'd much rather be comfortable and on my ass for hours on end, than plummeting out of the sky when a plane has a mechanical failure and crashes to the ground in a massive, fiery explosion. Unless I ended up on the Lost island... hmm...

Now this should cure my fear of flying!

Surgery is on Monday, then it's a week on my ass for recovery/binge eating/chocolate consumption. Then, MOST unfortunately, I do have to fly back on Sunday the 6th. I wanted to take the train, but I feel like 8+ hours on a rumbling, shaking train probably isn't the best way to travel so soon after having surgery. I mean, I'm mobile again after about 3 days, so by that Sunday I'll be feeling much better, but still, I figure it's best not to risk it. I'd be so pissed if I felt good, then got on a train and fucked myself over.

So yes, I'm flying, and I'm taking Jet Blue and I'll probably be on lots and lots of happy pills so I can do it, but oh well. You gotta do what you gotta do.

So I get back on Sunday night, and go back to work on Monday. On Wednesday I turn 23 (speaking of which, I found another gray hair this morning - delightful!) and immediately lapse into a coma of self-despair. Luckily, I'm going to the Celtics game that night, and watching then crush the Wizards (while drinking copious amounts of FREE alcohol in our company's Box Seats) will surely cheer me up. Nothing says "Happy Feelings" like booze and basketball.

¡feliz cumpleaños!

I hope the bar in the Box has Margaritas.

The very next day, I drag my hungover ass out of bed, and roll into yet another Amtrak seat, as I'm whisked away back to Boston for my post-op appointment, and more birthday celebrations. Hopefully by this point I'll be walking with ease, and the train shouldn't hurt too badly. I seriously considered flying back and forth for this weekend, but the idea of flying literally makes me so nervous I want to cry, and since I'm already subjecting myself to it once this month, I decided to risk the train. If the appointment were any earlier, I'd fly, but I lucked out. I think. I hope.

Anyway.

I was hoping that after this weekend's NCAA college basketball games, I would at least have the Office Bracket to cheer me up. As of Round 1, I was firmly in second place in our office, with an impressive score of 44 points (which, okay, was only 2 points more than the person in third place, but that's beside the point.) Well, this morning I added up the points after Round 2, and realized...

...What the fuck, I'm in last damn place! By 4 points! When my boss first announced we were doing a bracket, I didn't even want to participate. Sure, I know the basics of the NCAA; I know who's good and who sucks, I know who's favored to win and who isn't, but I had no burning desire to get caught up in the mayhem of it all, especially considering I'm the only female in my office, and everyone takes it very seriously indeed.

But then I got roped into doing it, and now I'm freaking out about it. We're all getting so competitive it's ridiculous, stooping so low as to count and re-count our tally, even when we all know that everyone in the office has counted each sheet about 20 times. One miscount turned into a massive brouhaha, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a certain co-worker so riled up about, well, anything. It was somewhat impressive.

I will fuck your shit up

At any rate, I now know why they call it March "Madness." Talk about insanity. I'm hoping that UNC continues to kick ass - I have them going all the way, and beating UCLA to take home the title. Of course I had Georgetown in my Final 4, and Davidson kicked their stupid ass, so who knows. As long as UCLA and Memphis keep going, and UNC stays strong, I'll be all set. I better fucking win this bracket - there's not only Nat's tickets on the line, there's my pride.

(Brain) Death Becomes Her

Days till Surgery: 17
Days till Old Age: 25

Good news, Boston folk! I will be coming up for a weekend after my surgery (which means I'll actually be mobile and not a gross pile of whining pain) and I'll be all set to drink and have a good time. I'll be up on Thursday April10th through Sunday, April 13th. Yay! And since I'll be 23 at that point, I'll need to drink away the pain. Bottom's up.

With that said, I most definitely need to drink away the pain after last night's LOST. I spent the entire hour near tears, for a variety of reasons, and almost had a heart attack at the end of the episode. Jin, you bastard, you better be alive and well! To ease the pain, I was linked to EW's assessment of the episode which offers hope and a different take on the episode's end. I think they've hit the nail on the head, especially because the tombstone have the date of death as the day the flight initially crashed. I smell a plan!

And I was super pumped to see that Sun was the last member of the Oceanic 6. I was so afraid she'd stay on the island and risk dying, so it was a very welcomed relief to see otherwise. Although I'm still wondering just how accurate the flash forwards are. They may be 100% set in stone, but it is LOST, and they enjoy pulling the carpet out from underneath us every chance they get. Point in case: last night's evil flash forward and flash backward scenes that totally fucked with our heads.

Maybe next week, just to calm ourselves down, we should be treated to an hour of just this image:

Hell yeah, bitches.

So, that's all I have for today. It's Friday and it's still only 11:30am (exactly) and I've used up my funny/witty/intelligent quotient for the week. Tonight I plan on drinking and passing out (again, because I'm pathetic and fell asleep at 9pm last night, missing LOST and MMAS and had to get caught up this morning at work) and not having to wake up at 8am. Hurray for weekends!!!

Quasi-Goodbye, Childhood

Days till Old Age: 36

It's amazing just how much shit one can accumulate in as little as twenty-two years. This past weekend I went home to Boston to tackle the epic duty of cleaning out my childhood bedroom, and let me tell you - it was no easy task. And this was already after my bed, desk, and bookcase had been taken out of the room.

It was easier emotionally than I had expected, at least. To say that I'm a sentimental pack rat is quite a shocking understatement, so I fully expected to be sobbing over each beanie baby, troll, and barbie doll that had to take the final journey in the great black Hefty bag. However, after spending an hour floundering among massive piles of late 80's paraphernalia, I found it getting easier and easier to junk the majority of it. As fun as Polly Pockets were when I was 8, a mountain of them quickly lost their appeal.

I'm not sure what's more terrifying; the fact that this girl collected all these trolls,

or the fact that this girl is, well, this girl

I ended up saving three large bins: a memory box (full of pictures, notes, and other little trinkets), a trophy box (with my sports trophies and academic trophies - yeah, I was cool like that), and a random crap box, full of odds and ends like a stuffed "puffalumpagus" (your guess is as good as mine) and other things that my mother and I agreed would be a good idea to keep. Everything else got the old heave ho'.

It also probably helped that my mom and I kept drinking Nutty Irishmen (think coffee, Bailey's, and Kahlua) so not only was I manic, I was in a fabulous mood and was all too happy to throw everything away. My mother is a genius.

Saturday night we went to Tosca on Hingham Harbor to celebrate my mother's birthday. She turned 52, but because she's been blessed with the genes I somehow missed, she looks about 40. Anyway, we tossed back a fair number of martini's (I was drinking appletinis because I'm a pussy - my mother was knocking back Kettle Ones) and made my brother jealous of the fact that he has two more years before he's 21.


This was the first time I've really seen my mother a few sheets to the wind, since the infamous La Dalat incident of '04 (which involved my then-boyfriend, the imbibing of too much saki, a scandalous fortune cookie, and [several] gleeful comments about how I would be getting laid that night. I love you, mom.)

On Sunday, we hit up Linens 'n Things for storage containers, and gleefully broke our diets over bacon cheeseburgers at The 99. While that's a far cry from gourmet food, it's a tradition my mum and I have, and I have to admit I love gossiping over frozen margaritas and shockingly calorie-full burgers. Nothing says "fun bonding" like "grease and clogged arteries."

Anyhow, the weekend was lovely, and I had a fabulous time with my family. It was over far too soon - and I am not happy to be back at work - but at least I had the long weekend to enjoy. Now if only I could justify having coffee drinks at work...

Oh, and I'm having surgery on April 21st. I fully expect boxes of chocolates and vats of wine. Thanks guys!

Just Kidding! I talked to my doctor and I'm having surgery March 31st. So chop chop, kids.

Spice Up Your Life

Oh, hey look, the countdowns are back:

Days till Boston: 3
Days till I'm Really Old (23): 43

Yes, I'm going to Boston this weekend; no, it's not for fun. I'm going up to clean out my childhood bedroom, as my mother has officially kicked off her "Get the Children the Fuck Out of My House" movement. With me having already been gone for a solid 9 or so months, and my brother moving out for good this summer, she's already imagining how nice all of her belongings will look, strewn about the rooms that her children once claimed as theirs.

In her loving words, "Seriously, if you don't get up here this weekend, I'm throwing everything out. Even your stupid stuffed animals."

Thanks, mom.

Since I'm losing a (massive) chunk of my childhood, I was beyond excited to reconnect with my youth in what can only be called the single best way possible: on Thursday, we saw THE SPICE GIRLS.

Zig-a-zig ahhhh

I'm not entirely sure what a "zig-a-zig ah" is, but I do know that seeing The Spice Girls in concert has been my ultimate goal in life since I was 13 years old. I vividly remember the days when we used to dress up like each of the spice girls, wearing our platform shoes and feather boas, and speaking in horrifically garbled British accents. I was always Geri, not because I had red hair, but because I had a fiery personality (and was always kind of easy.)

The Spice Girls were feminists for our age - they were all about getting laid, but hey, a girl needed her friends' approval before taking that final plunge (er, so to speak.) "Girl Power!" was their motto, and young women everywhere embraced it. If we wanted to run obstacle courses in 6 inch stilettos (see: Spice World) then dammit, we were going to put on those heels and get out there. We could do everything just as well as the men, and look hotter doing it. If that's not feminism, then I just don't know what is.

My Idol

All-in-all, the concert was amazing. The Spice Girls are the fiercest bitches I have ever seen (take notes, Christian Siriano) and they put on one hell of a show; man bondage, man humping, and catwalks were just a few of the treats. They sang all my favorites (namely Spice Up Your Life and Wannabe - and When 2 Become 1, which I like to sing to Erin to make her uncomfortable) danced their asses off, and regaled us between wardrobe changes with an endless parade of hot, buff, sweaty men. Perfection.

The only thing less than perfect about the night was the fact that the four of us - a group of 22 year olds - were about 10 years older than the average groupie. Now, The Spice Girls officially formed in 1994 (when I was in the 4th grade, putting me at 10 years old), earned their nicknames (Posh, Ginger, et al) in 1996 (when I was 12 and in the 6th grade) and released Spice World in 1997 (13 and in the 7th grade.) They were really at the peak of their fame from 96-98, so my friends and I were old enough (or young enough) to hero worship them, and really keep track of what they were doing.

So, 10 or so years later, one would imagine the fanbase would be in their early twenties, and that the concerts would be packed with that age group. Instead, the Verizon Center was crawling with girls barely in high school - and they were all dressed up in ridiculous costumes. It'd been one thing when we did it, back in the late 90s when platform shoes were in, and when the girls were still curvy and didn't dress like sex pots, but now everyone was wearing ridiculously revealing clothing, and going on and on and on about how when they were 5, the Spice Girls were the best thing ever. Excuse you? When I was 5, I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle, so shut your mouths.

This was right after my "I want to be naked all the time" phase and right before my "I want to be Punky Brewster and rescue Cherry from the fridge" phase

What I also found startling about all the young girls, was that apparently "Wear Gold Spandex" had been announced that morning in homeroom, and everyone had taken it to heart. I've never even seen gold spandex before, let alone 1,000 girls wearing it. It was like the sales rack at Forever21 had been violently ill, and projectile vomited everywhere. All I wanted to do was start smacking bitches, but parents don't like it much when I assault their young children. At any rate, the beer line was exceedingly small, so at least we got alcohol into our systems. And, I suppose it's worth mentioning, we did have fun making fun of everyone around us. Although if I saw one more Scary Spice with those stupid braids made into horns on the top of their head, I thought I was going to kill someone.

Oh, I was going to buy myself a t-shirt, as they had an adorable pink one that said, fittingly, "If you wanna be my lover" but it was $50. $50 for a t-shirt with an estimated value of $10.50. So now it's time for me to log into ebay, and see if mama can find herself a discounted shirt. Wish me luck!