Boom de Yada

I love the whole world, too.

An old addiction

I have several addictions that drive my day to day living. Some are relatively new, such as WoW. The internet, another addiction, really only morphed into it's current state of daily need sometime around the time I turned 15 or 16.

One, however, has been around since the age of near 3.

Books. Reading. Oh, yes.

Be it reference book, work of fiction, biography, horror, children's, compilation or stand alone work. From the time that my mother first sat me down and started teaching me how to read in Spanish, I have been ensnared. Possibly even before then. There are tales of me as a very young child throwing tantrums because my brothers withheld a book with the taunt "You can't even read yet!" What did I want with them? Who knows, but it drove me to learn, apparently.

I do have my preferences, but most are somewhat mutable. It's more like one day I might crave one type more than another, much like having a craving for good spaghetti one day and fantastic hummus the next.

I am grateful to the many enablers that I am friends with when it comes to this particular addiction. Many, in fact, who hale from the same clan. Some have introduced me to authors such as Paulo Coelho, who's body of work I have been slowly accumulating and appreciating. Going to their homes offer countless opportunities to pick up a book from a neat stack to begin while curled up under a quilt, often accompanied by a good cup of coffee. Or perhaps an already great visit is made even nicer by being handed a work of vampire fiction that occupies an evening with delightfully disturbing imagery.

Addiction is nothing to be made lightly of, perhaps. But this is one that I wouldn't mind plaguing my loved ones. After all, there are so many books I'd like to share....

Back home

Finally, I'm home. Back to my computer, back to my couch.

The last several days served their purpose of covering massive amounts of testable medical knowledge, and I'm proud to say that I attended the vast majority of the lectures and actually stayed awake. Go, me.

Of course, I'm now feeling that nervousness that I always feel when I spend a large amount of time hearing about all the possible things that can go wrong with an apparently healthy human body. Particularly, I am trying to reassure myself that I don't, in fact, have a clot in my left leg. But it hurts! And I've been flying all day after spending hours sitting in lectures!

Damn the DVT lectures.

At any rate, I wish all fathers a happy day with their loved ones. I'm looking forward to spending time with mine and my oldest brother in a few hours. But for now, shower, couch, and sleep. I will share my tales later.

One shot kill

Monday, it seemed that my destiny was work, followed by food and blessed sleep. It was a call day, and while not extremely busy, it was the kind of day where all the work was dumped on your lap mere hours before the shift was going to end. "No karaoke tonight", thought I.

Sometime during the day, Karrie (a karaoke cohort, as well as friend in general), began to text me. "Tip tonight?" No, unlikely. "Karaoke tonight?" Probably not this week. "What time are you off?" Too late in the evening, probably, and I'm going to be tired, get the rest of the posse, but count me out.

Slightly earlier than anticipated, but still rather late in the evening, I was sleepily making my way back home. The phone rang.

"Gigi, we're singing this!" The line filled with the voice of Peter Cetera, crooning about being my hero and fighting for my honor. Damn. I like that song. It always makes me thing of The Karate Kid (although it was actually the theme of part II). Sigh. I guess sleep will have to wait.

I arrived to the Tipp and joined the gang. The decision had already been made in my mind that there was to be no alcohol for me. No food within the last hour = no drink. Simple, but effective rule to keep me out of trouble. Coke, water, and singing seemed like a recipe for some good times, and I was correct.

Enter James. Damn you, James. James is one of my partners, and he is always a fun addition to karaoke. Good voice, interesting conversation, and he knows how to cheer. It wasn't far from closing time, and he offered to get drinks, to which I pointed to my water glass and declined.

He returned to the table with 2 handfuls of shots. Shots. Now, the adult thing to do would have been to firmly say, No, thank you. Let someone else put that thing away. I started to do so. And yet, I drank it in the end. Oh, not a good idea.

Within a few minutes, my stomach let me know exactly how it felt about my choice of calories. It had a very low opinion about it. In fact, it wanted nothing to do with it and was going to exercise it's right to veto very, very soon. Thankfully, closing time was at hand, and I began to beat a hasty retreat. Apparently my face didn't do a very good job of concealing what was going on, because several of the party expressed concern. "Let's get some food." "Let's go to IHOP, you'll feel better after you eat." No, James, you bastard (love you anyway), that was a good idea before you brought me a shot. I got into the car, trying to control the hypersalivation that signals that was starting to take place. I arrived to my apartment, and my stomach proved that it does not threaten idly.

Life lesson (which, honestly, I've learned enough times that you'd think this would never, ever happen again): Don't drink on an empty stomach, no matter why, or who is handing you the drink. You will face consequences if you do.

Random link: An interesting article about the 5th taste, umami.