You know, it's really hard to be a hypochondriac who once had a legitimate scary illness, because then for the rest of your life, you can't just have a symptom and say to yourself "It's probably nothing" because you never know. The good thing is that I never ever imagine that I have a legitimate scary illness -- that brain tumor diagnosis just knocked my socks off. I figure I have a kidney stone, probably, or something like that. Even so, I looked up that Detrol stuff online "("Gotta go, gotta go right now!"), and baby, I got all those symptoms. The fact that I hormonally want to kill people is just a side benefit, probably unrelated. I may save the killing for the gynecologist next week when she, once again and most unreasonably, refuses to do a hysterectomy because I WANT ONE! NOOOOOOOOWWWWW!So there's the not sleeping and the various abdominal twinges and the like, yet I left school today feeling somewhat up, probably because I was leaving, but, what.ever. I went to the computer store to get an ipod thingy to play the shuffle in the car and then, a craving! I wanted a sandwich. I haven't had a sandwich in ages and ages; I don't even keep bread in the house. So I went to Subway, where I could get a perfectly lovely 6" ham and turkey on wheat, under 300 calories! Of course, I was adding a bit of swiss, but not much.
Did you know that they toast the sandwiches at Subway now, if you want? So excellent! So I got it toasted, and had them put a bit of lite mayo on it, too. Yum.
And then ... da da DUM.
Some asshole had totally blocked in my car by parking in the "no parking here to corner" space, and was sitting in her car watching me being unable to move. Finally, I got out of my car and indicated that she needed to pull back. She pulled back like, a fucking foot. Why not pull back a car length and take my space when I pulled out? Because she was an asshole. She pulls back a foot and then hops out of her car and into the cleaners next to the Subway.
By which time a train was passing through the middle of town, and the cars were backed up so I couldn't pull out, even by maneuvering back and forth a couple of times (which I had to do), so that when she came out of the cleaners, I was still sitting there, trying to get out.
And she caught my eye, and then she laughed.
OH.MY.GOD! Why are people like this allowed to live in the world?
Listen, I've said this before: I have a terrible temper. I have a temper that frightens me so that I have not unleashed it, except for once that I can remember, in many, many years. I know that temper outbursts have consequences, which is why people should not randomly let their tempers fly. But I was livid. Estrogen and progesterone were flowing willy-nilly. If I had let go, this babe would have been verbal toast, and she deserved it.
I looked back in my mirror; she was taking forever to get into her car, and was similarly blocked in by the traffic anyway. I rolled down my window and called back to her "I'M GLAD I AMUSE YOU!"
Okay, not scathing. But at least I said something and I didn't lose it. I'm thinking that perhaps this is someone who knows me, which really, would only make her assholiness worse. She might possibly be one of the young teachers in school that I really don't know. If it turns out that she is, and she says anything to me in school, I'll let you know.
My sandwich was goooood. I'd better sleep tonight, boy.
I sent a package to K at her old apartment in DC in June. It had her allergy medicine in it, among other things, and it never arrived. I hadn't insured it, which was dumb. The Post Office put a "tracer" on it, aka, they did nothing, and determined that it was "lost." Gee, I wonder how long it took them to come up with that one? I already knew it was lost. Anyway, it came back to me in the mail today, as if they had suddenly realized somewhere that magically, the package had a return address on it. It's marked "Not deliverable as addressed." Ya think? She moved in July.
I'm very intrigued by Cosmic's meme, but as I read responses to it, it just seems that I don't have a lot of strong olfactory memories. Here's the best I can do.
- Cinnamon - I love the smell of anything baking with cinnamon in it. I can't pin this down as an exact memory, but my Grandma Sadie was an amazing cook and baker, and one of her specialties was that she would make a big batch of dough and then use it to make a lot of different cakes and rolls and cookies and things, all of them with cinnamon on top. So I assume that my cinnamon love comes from there
- Coffee - My parents did not make a pot of coffee in the morning; if they wanted a cup, they made instant. Instant coffee does not so much have an aroma. But we would go for every vacation up to Taunton, Mass., to Grandma's house until she died when I was 9, and then to Aunt Rose and Uncle Ben's house. Uncle Ben put up a pot of coffee first thing every morning, and the first thing I was aware of when I woke up in that house was the amazing smell of coffee. Waking up to the smell of coffee in the morning smells like vacation to me
- Dorm - To me, every dormitory I've ever been in has the same smell. It's not a good smell; I've always somehow thought it smelled like someone's been urinating in the stairwells. But all dorms have it, and it smells like youthful independence to me. When I first smelled it, I knew I wasn't home and living under my parents' rules anymore. When I smelled it in my kids' dorms, I felt happy for them that they were away and living on their own.
- Vanilla - I love the smell of vanilla, but I don't know if it's connected to a memory or not. It's my favorite scent.
- Mothballs - Yes, another strange one. When I was a kid, I thought all old people smelled like mothballs, because Grandma Ida and her sister, Aunt Becky, who lived with her, thought it was the only way to store clothes, surrounded by little hanging bags of mothballs. It was their scent, and although I hated the smell, I loved them, and mothballs always make me think of them, and being in their apartment in the Bronx.
