the interview
Posted on April 11, 2007
Filed Under marriage, kids, parenting, suburban joys, snark, self interview |
There’s been a rash of blog interviews posted on other sites lately. One blogger asks insightful questions of another blogger and the results are posted for the blog audience to enjoy. Seeing as no one has asked to interview me, I thought I might interview myself. (Truthfully, my brain hurts after the last 48 hours spent sleeping next to the toilet between bouts of colon purging. I’m in no position to write anything marginally intelligent, so let’s see if I can illicit some interesting commentary from my subconscious.)
Could you explain the events leading up to your vomiting into a snowbank outside Palmer’s Bar and Grill the other night?
Sure, it has a lot to do with timing and those split second decisions we all have to make sometimes when the reasonable bit of the brain doesn’t have time to weigh the options. One minute your eating crab cakes and enjoying a lovely Pinot Noir with friends and the next minute your throat is tightening and you’re salivating in an unnatural way. It occurs to you that the metallic taste in your mouth is not the aftertaste of crab or red wine but rather the omen that you might be reacquainted with lunch sometime very soon. I suppose I should have asked the hostess where the bathroom was and charged in there to void in the proper receptacle but there was this fear that the hostess would be on the phone or seating another party and, in my estimation, a moment, just a second, makes a huge difference in this kind of scenario. Charging through the front door and puking in the snow bank seemed the only option at the time.
So does this illness explain the tardiness of your post today? Usually you publish new material every morning at 12 a.m. to entertain your audience of five.
Oh definitely, I was trying to get down to the computer all day yesterday but my body just wasn’t responding to the prompts. My physical being was really taken with having learned a new trick, purging stomach bile from both ends at the same time. It’s a real danger once the body takes over for the brain. I wasn’t sure it would ever tire of the voiding trick and so I made a little nest next to the toilet and spent the better part of the day there, hoping for death.
Do you think it’s coincidence that Your Better Half always seems to be out of town when you are overcome with plague?
Well, I gave this a lot of hard thought yesterday morning when I was physically unable to leave the bathroom in order to make the kids’ breakfast or prepare brown bag lunches or be sure they were wearing pants to the bus stop. It would have been really nice to have had another parent in the house at that time and I think it would’ve prevented the fight that broke out over who was going to raid their piggy bank in order to scare up the $5 necessary for the two of them to purchase ravioli with meat sauce. I couldn’t be sure where my wallet was at the time and I was pretty certain that even if I were able to get up find it, there’d be nothing in it, so I let them duke it out. It appears that they both got lunch but I’m still not sure who paid for it. 
So to answer your question, I do think it’s coincidence, kind of an ill-timed serendipity. And really, no, I’m not hoping My Better Half finds himself sitting on the john at a Best Western in Wooster, Ohio with a bucket on his lap because no one deserves that kind of hell. Even spouses who abandon their dying wives in their crucial time of need should be spared that experience.
Do you think that your mouth tasted like the bottom of an ashtray and your head felt like an overripe melon at 10 p.m. last night because you were still experiencing the effects of the virus or because you hadn’t been able to stomach anything caffeinated all day?
That’s a great question, one I really can’t answer but I would definitely consider, the next time I’m so close to death, having a caffeine IV inserted into my forearm. It really seems unfair to have to endure the violence of the stomach virus AND the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal at the same time. Just the thought of coffee made me wretch yesterday (you know things are grim when you find your usual lifeline abhorrent). But I think an IV drip would’ve really helped speed the recovery process.
Any plans today, now that you’re up and about and feeling relatively symptom free?
Unfortunately it’ll be a day of catch up. It’s amazing how much didn’t get done yesterday and I’ll be digging out for the duration. Laundry, dishes, bills, drafting the Cake Walk report that I was supposed to submit yesterday, a trip to the grocery store as no one, not the dogs, the cats or the people of this house has food, all the plants are wilting, the bathroom is in desperate need of some Lysol disinfecting, there are great drifts of pet hair billowing beneath the piano and the couch, there’s last night’s American Idol to watch, I must drag in the recycling bins from the curb and check the mailbox for the rejection letter I’m awaiting. The kids rooms are war zones and I think the mudroom should be just blown up and reconstructed, the pillows that the family has soiled with vomit should be bagged and discarded and there are rugs to go out to dry cleaners and I must, must remove all the leftover Easter ham from the fridge because, somehow the thought of leftovers is threatening to retrigger the whole unfortunate event…
That’s enough, I think we get the idea. Life comes to a grinding halt at your house when your out of commission and everyone suffers.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Vomiting image borrowed from theAbdellab website.
Second image created by G who has real eye for detail. Notice the mouth she’s drawn on my sleeping form and the dregs of vomit her subtle shading evokes. I also think her penchant for drawing figures in see-through clothing shows that she’s really trying to capture the whole human, spinal curvature and all.
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12 Responses to “the interview”
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Girl, I am right there with you.
The other day I had a cough and it was like the whole house fell apart. First, Sossana was late and I had to watch the baby until 8:45. Then Carmela stirred up a dust-storm whilst vacumming the house. I retreated to the bedroom and away from the crying spawn and clouds of dust, only to hear our lawn-company fire up every known weed-whacker, mower and blower known.
On a different note, the pain on G’s face is SO palpapable in her drawing of your gastro-intestinal battle.
I know, doesn’t she look just gleeful to be witnessing my demise.
Sorry to hear about your cough and the travails you endured while your staff hopped to it around you. That must have been just excruciating.
This is SO DAMN FUNNY.
And I feel your pain on multiple levels. I spent part of last night at the ER with Jack, who spiked a temp of 105.2 degrees. I KNOW! SCARY SHIT! And Jack’s been sick with strep for so long, and I with the mother of all sinus infections, that my house looks like a bomb went off in it. Bills, laundry, dying plants, clothes and toys everywhere, Easter candy smushed into carpets…
And I look at it all and feel overwhelmed. I haven’t got the foggiest idea of where to begin. So I don’t. I am paralyzed.
slouching mom…just do what I am going to do in a few minutes, go back to bed. I’ve watered a plant and fed the pets and the kids are at school with lunch boxes so I think I’ve earned a nap. Hope Jack’s better today.
wow, what a lovely image you chose to include with your post.
i like the idea of a self-interview; at least you know there will be no surprises. 
thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. oh how that sense of smell gets us when we least expect it…
hi cce,
will catch up on missed posts.
sorry about the virus
and love the idea of the self interview.
man, i love reading your stuff. glad to have connected with you.
am heading back to read more now.
Damn. I used to make little deals with the universe: Ok, if I never again eat grapes and drink root beer through a strraw while watching the Merv Griffin Show on a Wednesday can I please never throw up again? You’ll nte how the deals recreated the scene of each vomiting episode and exoked a heartfelt promise to never recreate it. Alas, still I vomit. Thank you though, for demonstrating that it can make a kick ass, hilarious, I-don’t-feel-so-bad about my own circumstances blog entry.
Feel better!
Wait.
Don’t you have staff in New England?
Yes, we have staff but of the union wage, legal variety which pretty much prices everyone but Martha Stewart out of the market.
If I understand the Interview game correctly, this is one of those things that rather than be tagged you get to ask to be interviewed. I waited until one of my favorite bloggers posted his responses.
Ahh… vomit stories. Something universal about those.
[…] The post that I will include to represent something that I love is called Closer to Okay, a suggestion that however imperfect my stabs at affection, I really do love my children. […]