Sick Girl

I vividly remember my first migraine. I was in my old green Saturn fighting traffic on Riverside Drive on my way back to the studio. I was still an intern, and had been running errands for my cokehead producer boss all afternoon. I remember staring at a traffic light across the street from a dilapidated strip mall when the dark spots first started to appear. Blinding pain shot behind my eyes. The light changed and I drove a few blocks but I couldn't shake the spots. I was sufficiently freaked out enough that I pulled over onto a side street near Ribs U.S.A. and parked under a tree. I sat with my eyes closed while I tried not to freak out about how I was going to drive back to the lot.

That still goes on record as the worst headache I've ever had, but the one that hit me 48 hours ago takes the silver medal. No amount of Motrin or Advil could relieve it and I could hardly keep my eyes open for more than a few minutes before having to close them to somewhat abate the excruciating pain. Add to that having a sore throat, no appetite whatsoever, and probably significant dehydration based on the color of my piss this morning and you have a very sick girl on your hands.

My mother stopped by yesterday to bring me some soup and a Barack Obama bumper sticker and was completely horrified by her sweaty, fevered, extremely disheveled daughter. Ever since, she's been imploring me to go get a flu shot.

"Especially with all those damn airplanes you sit on!" she reasoned. "Even your father got one and he won't take an aspirin!"

So, this Wednesday, I'll be humoring her and getting a goddamn flu shot.

I woke up this morning and the headache was gone along with the fever. The dull throat pain remains so I won't be indulging in any unpressed trichromes in the near future. Still, I'm grateful to even be running at 70% capacity. If I still felt like shit tomorrow my uninsured ass was going to have to go sit for five hours at the free clinic with all the illegal Mexicans.

And I'm really not a very good sick person.

Pauly is flying to Budapest tonight to cover the EPT Hungarian Open. Hungary is one of those "what the fuck" places one never thinks they'll wind up, and yet there he'll be. I researched some of the local cuisine and told him he'd better get ready for a lot of chicken paprika and ghoulash. Another thing I never knew about Budapest? It's actually two cities-- Buda and Pest divided by the Danube. When I told this to Mandy yesterday, she had the same "WTF?" look on her face that I had when Pauly told me.

Safe travels, my love. Viva la paprika.