I made it through the night

Wow.  Wow.  As I drove to get coffee this morning I thought back on the events of last evening in preparation for this post.  As you can see, I originally thought that being in Hialieah was going to be the most exciting part of my night.  I had no idea that the real drama was waiting for me after the party was over, and at the hands of an EXTREMELY drunk Sarah.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We went to Hialeah last night for Sofy's birthday party.  The only thing I know about Hialeah is that whenever Sofy says she from there everyone gives a knowing chuckle.  That and our old manager would refer to her as Hialeah and it would enrage her.  Whenever I ask anybody about it I get, "it's the cuban neighborhood".  Needless to say I was excited to finally go.

Upon getting there we quickly realized that Sofy was nowhere near as plastered as she needed to be.  There were already people swimming in their underwear and she was still clucking her tongue and acting all aloof and sober.  Sarah took it upon herself to remedy that situation with some shots.  And by some shots I mean a lot of shots.  I mean seriously, that poor girl, they drank a lot very quickly.

The rest of the party was spent with the main group of us hanging out and enjoying pleasant conversation while Sarah either walked around the party with Sofy lifeless on her arm a la weekend at Bernie's, did keg stands, or became intimately familiar with vomit.  How do I know that last part?  Because she felt the need to tell us about it over and over throughout the night, always as if it was new information that we were actually interested in hearing, and often starting in to the story immediately after Gaby and I both said we didn't want to hear about it.  But for us the party was fun.  Some infant came up to me and asked me what school I went to which made me feel 10 years younger.

By about 3 in the morning Gaby and I had decided we'd had enough so Sarah did her final keg stands, I'm not kidding, and then we left.  As I pulled up to Sarah's house to drop the girls off Sarah grabbed my arm, looked deep in to my eyes, and said, "can we get pizza?".  How can I say no?  No really, I should have said no, but I went along with it like a fool.  Good for you Gaby for leaving when you had the chance as the night quickly descended in to madness.

First of all, Sarah kept forgetting what we were doing so I was literally driving around in cirlcles for the first 15 minutes.  We'd be going along and she'd say, "where are you going?" and I would say, "we are going to get pizza, you were supposed to tell me where we are going" to which she would reply, "ohhh, we passed it a long time ago".

I would make a U-turn, we would drive for a while and I would ask, "ok Sarah, where is this place" and she would reply, "Where do you want to go?  We can get Taco Bell, we can get Burger King...".  "I thought we were getting pizza?" I would remind her.  "Ooohhh pizza?  We passed it a long time ago".

We finally ended up at Denny's where I thought I could get some food in her and bring her back to reality.  Oh how wrong I was.  When I got back from the bathroom I found Sarah, face in hands, moaning softly to herself.  First it was that she lost her phone.  When I asked her if she wanted to look for it she sadly said, "It's an iphone, it's gone, it's gone, just forget about it, it's gone".  I finally convinced her to go look in my car but she returned a short time later empty handed, defeated.  She begrudgingly stayed and let me buy her food but the entire meal was spent with her bemoaning her position in life as a grade-A fool.

At some point she overturned her purse on the table to prove that her phone wasn't in there, which is when she realized that she didn't have her keys.  Oh did the theatrics start then.  Driving her home she was literally just rolling around in the passenger seat, moving it in every direction possible, and babbling incoherently.  She kept asking to use my phone so she could do things, which I see this morning, was send really important texts like this one: Are you wake is convrete feet.

Ahahaha what is that even supposed to mean?!  There was no talking to Sarah, no consoling her, no helping her.  All I could do was what she asked me to do so my evening ended in the parking lot of a florist shop where we had to wait for one of Sarah's friends who she was convinced would "fix everything".  When he arrived and Sarah got out of the car she found her cell phone on the floor of the passenger seat.

After she smothered me with kisses and "I love you"s I forced Sarah to get out of my car so I could go home.  I have no pity for her, she is a fool.  I do appreciate that I had my first 'out all night' night in Miami, and I'm glad I was with the people I was with.  And lesson learned for next time, I will be holding Sarah's things in my pockets.

my face, my beautiful face

The other day I was taking a shower and as I washed my face I suddenly felt an intense burning right by my eye.  I inspected as best as I could with my hands and felt that there was definitely a raised spot right where the burning was.  I rinsed my face and continued with my shower, reminding myself to check out my face closer in the mirror later.

As I began to wash the rest of myself I started feeling the same burning sensation in various spots on my arms and legs.  Being able to see these spots I could verify that there was definitely something going on with my skin.  I of course immediately assumed skin cancer.  The hours I've spent in the sun coated in nothing but coconut oil have finally caught up to me.

I tried to put it out of my mind but throughout the day I would feel these various spots on my body stinging and burning, reminding me of their presence.  I commented about it to Heather at lunch and asked her if she thought it looked like skin cancer.  She immediately said the spots looked like burns and asked if I had burned myself recently.

Suddenly, in such a rush, my memories from the night before came back to me.  I may have had one too many glasses of wine and decided to make myself a pizza.  All I remember distinctly was trying to move the pizza out of the oven and on to the counter, dropping it, and shouting, "MY PIZZA PIE!!"

I actually found pizza sauce splatter on the most random cupboards in the kitchen the next morning, but never put two and two together that the sauce probably also splattered on me.  Specifically any areas that were exposed...face...arms...legs...

Now besides the fact that my face really hurts I feel like I have this terrible conspicuous spot that begs the question, "what happened to your face?"

This is how I feel:

good advice

Sitting in traffic yesterday Jon noticed their license plate holder.  I like that it's not advertising any particular pizza place, just pizza in general.

We got rained out of the beach yesterday so with nothing else to do, we listened to the advice of the corvette.

It was delicious.  And today we woke up to the sun shining and the birds singing!  At least we can spend a little time at the beach before I have to take Jon back to the airport.

this was me

I love when Sarasota makes national news.  It's always for something like this.

I've missed this place

From the moment I got to the 6 train platform and saw this terrifying ad I've become quite nostalgic for my life in nyc.

My first order of business was getting 9th St. with Meghan before heading downtown to get my haircut.  The best part about having Christina cut my hair is that I get to hang out with precious angels like dolly while I'm there.

She did not help my wanting a little dog problem.

She did not help at all.

And this other bundle of joy made me miss the detective and reminded me that I should really get a little doggy to be his friend because it clearly makes her VERY happy:

Once Meghan and I finished with all our chores we did the only thing we could think of to warm ourselves.  Jam our faces with delicious pizza.

If I lived as close to motorino as Meghan does I don't think I would eat anything else.

Otherwise our day/night last night was pretty lowkey.  I got to accomplish a long held life goal of getting Meghan and Laura together and it was magical.  I think my favorite was when I reminded Laura of the time some girl threw up on her in the subway and Meghan's face lit up as she exclaimed, "that was you?!"

Unfortunately it was far too cold for any of us to have the energy to pull an all nighter so we eventually parted ways.  It was nice anyways because I got to hang out with Sam a bit when he came home from work and before we all passed out.

I'm not sure what all today will have in store for me but I do know it will include an encounter with the incomparable Dan D.  I can't wait, I think my hair is finally long enough to have achieved his request that he made so long ago.

For now I've got my long johns on and I'm ready to venture to the outside for some coffee.

porkslap!

Meghan encouraged me to get this last night at Motorino because she said the image on the can was well worth it.  And she was right.

The beer was good too.  Had a nice honey flavor to it.  And the pizza, oh the pizza.  I'm going to have to take Jon here the next time he's in new york cause it was mad good.

Pepper. Huh? What is it good for?

Ah pepper.  Man's best friend.  Certainly Jon's favorite seasoning, that kid will cover a pizza in so much pepper you can't even see the cheese!  But it goes beyond that, pepper is bigger than just a seasoning.  It's the ultimate seasoning.  I mean, salt & pepper?  It's like peanut butter and jelly, like black and white, like the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.

So why is this necessary McCormick?

Doesn't this do a disservice to what wikipedia calls "the worlds most traded spice"?  In fact, I'd like to quote the entire first paragraph from the wikipedia article on black pepper's section entitled "History":

     Pepper has been used as a spice in India since prehistoric times. Pepper is native to India and has been        known to Indian cooking since at least 2000 BCE.^[15] J. Innes Miller notes that while pepper was grown in southern Thailand and in Malaysia, its most important source was India, particularly theMalabar Coast, in what is now the state of Kerala.^[16] Peppercorns were a much prized trade good, often referred to as "black gold" and used as a form of commodity money. The term "peppercorn rent" still exists today.     source


I'm not entirely sure where in the world the term "peppercorn rent" still exists, but apparently it does and I feel a fool for not using it all along.  I think I'd like to run a boarding house and charge people in peppercorn rent.

Anyways, besides the fact that telling people what pepper is good on is patronizing and unnecessary in the first place, it also doesn't even begin to explain the many uses of peppercorns.  What about using it as rent, or as medicine?  And apparently wikipedia completely forgot about this memorable moment in the history of pepper:


     Black peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of Ramesses II, placed there as part of themummification rituals shortly after his death in 1213 BCE.^[19] Little else is known about the use of pepper in ancient Egypt and how it reached the Nile from India.     source

If the egyptians were shoving peppercorns up peoples noses and that's all we know that they were using it for, you can bet they were doing some pretty messed up things with it.  They were certainly putting it on (or in) more interesting things than beef, chicken, pork, and salads.

'But this is a spice, they are probably just giving you suggestions based on the assumption that you are going to use it for food' is what you're thinking I'm sure.  I bet your fingers are poised over the keys, ready to send me some email about how I need to get off my high horse and leave McCormick alone.

Fine, it's still irritating because it goes against everything I learned in SAT prep.  And I mean this, I really don't think I remember anything else from the SATs except this kind of question.

Which of these things does not match the others?  Beef, chicken, pork, or salads?

Why?  Why put salads?  Why not just put vegetables, which can be used to make salads, along with many other things.  And frankly, pepper is delicious on vegetables.  I just had some pieces of tomato with a little sea salt and pepper on them, and let me tell you, it was fantastic.

But if I were to obey McCormick's suggested usage I would never think to try such a wonderful thing.  I would never know the joy of a fresh bloody mary with ground pepper on top.  I wouldn't think to add pepper to dark chocolate for a spicy sweet combination of amazingness.  And I certainly wouldn't think to shove them up the nostrils of any bodies I was trying to mummify.

So I guess what I'm saying McCormick is leave off the serving suggestions on the package of pepper.  Give us a little credit and don't bite off more than you can chew.  It's like trying to play a symphony on a comb with a piece of wax paper wrapped around it.  You're in over your head.

cliche

Ugh, I feel so ridiculous for saying that I'll miss nyc pizza but it really is true.  I feel like a ninja turtle.

This was the sign at the pizza place in my neighborhood, it made me laugh and I decided to try to discretely take a picture.  The guy behind the counter started laughing and said that like 7 other people had taken a picture of it and that he had drawn it.  I said it was the part at the bottom that made it for me and he said, "I know, I should be in marketing".

And it's true, I put all the ones i'd been carrying around in my back pocket for the past few days in the tip jar.  Also because I got weirdly nostalgic about leaving nyc pizza.

It's true!  It's just something that can't be explained until it's experienced.

I'll be back.  I'll be back for the pizza.