Subway convo: Baby-talk.

When I was on my way to the walk-in clinic to get checked out and get antibiotics, there was this done-up late 20s mixed race (half-white and half-hispanic?) mom with yellow fingernails and nice hair and this sweet face, and her son was in the lap of some older (white) lady (the grandmother?) on the facing seats on the subway train, and the mom would quietly lean in and coo to him and talk with him, and you could tell she loved being a mom and just doted on her son.

When the subway was above ground, we must have passed a gym or something, because the mom pointed out the window while looking at her son and in her same baby-coo tone was like, "Look honey, look there, you can work there someday, and be a personal trainer, and make some real money..."

My worst sinus infection ever...

...was happening for 3 days before I saw a doc (actually, a nurse-practitioner) and got antibiotics.

(She said if I had come in sooner, they probably would have sent me home to stick it out more and see if the infection was viral or bacterial.)

Anyhow, I was using my neti pot a lot, and I simply could not believe the volume of snot coming out of my nose 3-4 times a day when I dowsed...

(The nurse-practitioner in her notes wrote "copious"; I was reading what she was typing over her shoulder.)

I'm guessing it must be at least a cup-and-a-half of thick green snot that came out of me during that period. Just thinking of seeing it in a measuring cup makes me gag and want to vomit.

A Cautionary Tale of Sickness (2 of 2): Farting.

The next day, I had really watery shit, and then I farted a lot. And then, when I was in the bathroom, I went to take a fart, but it was watery shit instead from the bowls of chili pepper beans I had eaten, and big streams of orange water went down the inside of my legs while I was like, "Fuck, I can't believe this is happening."

A Cautionary Tale of Sickness (1 of 2): Cooking.

So it turns out I got this really bad summer cold that's been going around and laying people out on their asses.

But my fridge was empty, so I ended up gathering up enough energy to make some southwestern-style pinto beans - only to realize at the end that I added *way* too much powdered chili pepper, because my nose was plugged and I didn't realize how much I was putting in or was able to taste it from sample tastes from the pot.

A Legionnaires Story (2 of 2): Mass.

From Mike Murphy's "Mike & Me" (p. 204):

[Gran] was in the old folk's home in Donnybrook when Declan came back to Ireland as a priest. Nothing would do but her grandson should come into the home and celebrate mass. Declan was delighted to oblige. While he said mass, our grandmother sat about a third of the way down the small chapel. As was customary with [his order], Declan gave a good deal of time to the celebration. He left long pauses and was quietly reverent and dignified. When he came to the elevation, he slowly intoned the first part and then left a pause for meditation. After a moment or tow, my grandmother's voice rang out in the church.

"'This is the cup of my blood,'" she called irritably. "I say, 'This is the cup of my blood.'" She thought Declan had forgotten the next part and was prompting him. Declan caught my eye and grinned.

"Thank you Gran," he said, and continued with the mass.

...

A Legionnaires Story (1 of 2): Ordination.

I was reading the memoir "Mike & Me" of Mike Murphy, an Irish broadcaster whose brother Declan turned out to be one of the 1st Irish Legionnaires of Christ. As it turns out, he arrives in Rome the day before the ordination (p. 70):

That night, I took [my siblings] Pat and Catherine on a pub crawl and the next morning we were, all three of us, dying of hangovers.

I had been invited to read the lesson at the ordination, which was a group ordination. All the families of the Legion were gathered in the same convent as ourselves and we had to take a bus to the Vatican for the ceremony. The bus was forced to wait for me, as I was feeling quite ill...

In photographs of the occasion, my face looked a curious shade of green and apparently I could hardly be heard as I read the lesson. Many of the people present didn't know whether I was speaking Latin, Spanish, or English. But it was a joyous occasion, nonetheless.

His younger brother also joined the Legionnaires seminary for a bit, and another sister was part of their laywing Regnum Christi. At that point in his life, he would call all 3 his mother's "3 little tickets to Heaven".

Man, that was some snot.

The other week I kept waking up during the night due to post-nasal drip.

In the morning, I woke up and was lying in bed, and I kind of swallowed my saliva a few times to make the back of my mouth feel better, and then I could feel something lurking in the back of my nasal passages, so I horked it back, and then since it started gagging me, I spit it out in my hand - this big big chunk of matte almost olive green snot, about the size of a 1/3 of a pack of Tic-Tacs.

I wiped it underneath the bottom of some nearby furniture, since I didn't have a Kleenex handy. I wonder how long it will take it to dry out, and then what it will look like. I have a feeling I'm going to be embarrassed if anyone ever looks under my tables when I move apartments.