I haven't written a post in a few days because I've been, um, kinda coughing up blood and stuff?

I'm going to skip the gory details, but the short version is I developed a bad upper respiratory infection that left me hacking and spitting for days (days in which I DID NOT SKIP CLINICAL) Then I hacked up some "blood-tinged sputum", a fun and slightly alarming term I have so far only used in the context of patients. (Since this is really the biggest thing I've got going on in my life right now, you can see why I've been staying away from blogging, right?)

Today, I went over to my local Really Crappy Neighborhood Hospital, where I had unfortunate encounters with both reception staff, med students, and a snappy arrogant resident who's "really interested in dermatology and could you just indulge me a minute? I could prescribe you erythromyocin/benzoyl peroxide cream that would really clear up your face."

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was at the dermatologist. I thought I was at a FAMILY PRACTICE because I've been COUGHING UP BLOOD.

This was after the very pretty and slightly greasy med student told me that my throat was red and I might have, and I quote, "something called strep throat". SOMETHING CALLED STREP THROAT. Because I am a third year nursing student who might have missed Strep Throat Day in class? Because I took microbiology and in fact spent a good deal of time staring at streptococcus itself? Because I have never been an American kid who got this mysterious strep throat every single winter?

Then Dr. Dermatologist also made some snitty, asinine remarks which I don't want to go into in great detail, but involved my birth control, my safe sex practices, and my history of pap smears. Again, clearly related to my sore throat, fever, and bloody cough. Apparently, he's horrified that I'm married in my early twenties. I know, it's so rude of me to have found someone to be happy with when I could have been learning how to pop zits and humiliate patients?

Fun times. Anywhoo, the blood didn't seem too concerning to him, although he did say it could possibly be tuberculosis and wow, that would suck. He said the possibility was remote, which was the only nice thing he said to me, and offered to prescribe me robitussin with codeine, which I politely declined. I'm sick, but I don't need codeine.So I went home, feeling pissed but also relieved that I am not actually dying.

And then.

And then tonight I coughed up a lot of blood.

But I'm currently watching Grey's Anatomy and just decided that I need to put this out of my mind for a few minutes and see which Grey makes into the Great Beyond.

Yesterday, I realized there are some very important issues that need to be addressed here on my blog. The State of the Blog, if you will. Yes, I only have 12 posts and no, I don't think any of them are earth-shattering revelations. Mostly whining, but isn't narcissism really the reason most of us blog in the first place?

But here's the thing - this blog is actually a secret. Not from my husband, or even from a lot of my friends (hello, Tricia, Erin, and Timmy). But it's a secret from my family, my in-laws,my classmates, my school...some of my good friends know I have a blog, but they don't know what it's called, and they are not the kind of people to read or write one themselves and therefore don't look at mine.

My mother-in-law found my old blog. She found it through my sister-in-law, and pretty soon they were printing out entries, and she was checking through my archives, and I got scared and stopped writing there. I read back through every post,and for some miraculous reason I had never written anything horribly snarky about my in-laws, about sex, about alcohol, or my high school escapades that could have easily filled out an episode or nine of Girls Gone Wild. My mother-in-law actually thinks I am very funny,and I think she enjoyed my adventures in nursing school and newlywedded-ness. That's nice. But in this blog I use words like "bitches". In my real life, I occasionally drink to excess (um, please see last night) and I am a bleeding-heart liberal and you better believe I will be writing about the election (a woman and a black man fighting it out for the Democratic nomination, politics does not GET any better than this). Call me chicken, but I am not at the point in my life where I want to defend myself on these things - not to my in-laws and also not to my own family.

Ever since I was little, writing has been "my thing". One of my short stories is still used in the elementary school I attended, as an example of what 4th grade writing could be. A poem about Jesus that I wrote in 3rd grade won a blue ribbon in a creative writing contest, and everyone in my family still knows all the words. I am reminded of that poem - creatively entitled A Candle in the Darkness - every time I go home. I think I am supposed to have written a best-seller by now.Probably about Jesus.

My parents are 110% supportive of me being in nursing school and becoming a nurse practitioner. They supported me when I didn't go to college right away, and they supported me when I moved 3,000 miles away at age 19 and got engaged a week later to someone they had only met once. But I think they still wonder why I'm not writing, and I don't know if they even know what a blog is. It's certainly words on a page, and I definitely wrote them, so I think that counts. It's pressure on me that I know they don't intend, but it's also a lifetime of people telling me what I'm good at and I don't like being told anything, really. It's so strange - why do we feel so comfortable throwing it all out there for strangers, when we are really hiding from our own families?

(I just re-read that last line and realized it was so Carrie Bradshaw that I am a little sick inside. I was going to delete it, but I could just hear Sarah Jessica Parker's voice as she typed away on her little old-school Mac and I'm going to keep it in here, just as an homage to the fact that I've watched every single episode of Sex and the City approximately 27 times.)

I think I've exhausted the State of the Blog. After all, I slapped a picture of my smiling face on here, so if anyone happens to stumble across this page - well, I would be the worst-kept secret since Hilary Clinton's presidential ambitions. Also, I mentioned that last night I drank to excess. We had some friends over for dinner, which involved two roasted chickens, practically every dish we own, six bottles of wine, a hookah, the first season of Boston Legal, and a glorious ending where I fell asleep on the couch and missed the part where our friends left. This morning, Joshua made me french toast (yeah, he's amazing) and then ran off to band practice leaving me with the mess that accumulates when you make two roasted chickens, drink your own personal bottle of wine, and have to get carried to bed by your (slightly) more responsible spouse.

So...I don't have time to write anymore. I'll be doing the dishes for months.

I hate being let down by food.

There are a few foods that never let me down - chocolate, just by virtue of its chocolate-ness, oatmeal crisp cookies from Ikea,Alaska maki from just about anywhere,lobster from Maine, homemade pesto, big slabs of mozzarella with tomatoes in the summer and my grandmother's cinnamon buns. Other, less gourmet items that never let me down include Coke (not diet, that is for whiners and people who don't know that aspartame is spelled c-a-n-c-e-r), any kind of fried potato item available, and whipped cream straight from the can.

Unfortunately, I did not eat even one of those things for lunch today.I did eat the glorious, chocolate-y, crispy, Ikea cookies yesterday when we went there to buy six of these:



- the cheapest and loveliest dining room chairs you ever did see. But now I'm getting off the subject.

What I did eat today (and I'm taking my sweet time getting to it, apparently) was this:


The whole-wheat version. Why does whole wheat pasta have to be SO BAD? We eat 100% whole wheat bread, muffins, I even bake with 100% whole wheat flour! I believe in whole grains very strongly, but why does the pasta have to suck? It's just so...whole. And so...wheaty. And so brown, which is not at all attractive with the white and creamy cheddar sauce. I love Annie's, so much in fact that I just close my eyes and avoid the fat content as I dump milk and butter and dehydrated cheese into my "petite shells". How can you not love 100% organic comfort food with real cheddar cheese and a name like petite shells?

Well, you can hate it if it's whole-wheat, that's for sure. Joshua and I eat very healthy (ok, we eat fast food when I haven't been grocery shopping, and that's unfortunately often). I even buy organic ketchup and peanut butter because I do firmly believe it's better for us and the environment. I check for trans fat and partially hydrogenated oils and I make our own salad dressing. Our spinach is organic, we hardly ever eat red meat (hello, cheddarburgers). I guess I cannot emphasize enough that we like healthy, whole foods, and it makes me very angry that I cannot jump on the whole wheat pasta bandwagon because it LOOKS like a fun time, and yet it is actually blech.

I am comforting myself with the fact that I only bought one box, it was on sale,and I brought home enough reliable food from the grocery store that I think I can whip up a slightly more satisfying dinner. Also, I have chocolate.

It's snowing here in Chicagoland. As a matter of fact, we are actually having a real, bundle up and break out your lawn chairs to save your parking spot kind of Chicago snowstorm. For some people, particularly those under the age of 18, this is a day of great joy because almost all the schools around here are cancelled (although not the world-renowned Chicago Public School system because they seem to have some official policy that resembles that of the US Postal Service - come wind or snow or sleet, whatever, you truants get to class!). However, if you happen to be a college student who PAYS for the education, particularly a nursing student who pays EXTRA, get over it because even if there is heavy snow with 40 mph gusts of winds? That's right, you are going to clinical.

In my defense, I tried to go to clinical. I dragged myself out of bed early to maniacally check the weather and school cancellations. I prayed for my clinical instructor to call and just tell me to go back to my warm and heavenly bed; the roads were bad and it would be dangerous to drive 20 miles to the suburbs. In the dark. Of course, that call never came, but one of the girls in my clinical group did call to say her car wouldn't start.

In the irony that is my life, I assured her I could pick her up, then went out to the car to discover mine wouldn't start either. Seriously. It always starts. Eventually that old beast roared to life, only to sputter out. Then start again, hesitantly. Eventually Joshua and I decided to give it a whirl around the block just to make sure I could make it.

This is the part of the story where I should mention that both Joshua and I have a torrid love affair with bad weather. He missed his calling as a meterologist, but makes up for it with breathless updates on any and all storms in all areas of the country.
("Babe! It's hailing in Tennessee. It's the size of golf balls!"
"Joshua, do we know anyone in Tennessee?"
"No, but the HAIL! Is the size of GOLF BALLS!")
Anyways, I grew up in on the East Coast, which I like to mention excessively, but in this case it's appropriate because we know snow back east. I absolutely love a good dumping of snow, but I narrowly escaped death on small New England highways in whiteouts several times, so I have a complex about driving in it. And Joshua likes the weather to be as badass and dangerous as possible in order to AVOID having to go out in it.

So there we were, in the Little Car That Wouldn't, slipping down the side roads of our neighborhood while I talked to all the poor people I am responsible for bringing to clinicals. Then we thought - let's see how the main roads are! I pulled a left turn onto the main road...and kept turning left...and the back of the car kept sliding to the right...and voila!

Perpendicular to the road. I called my clinical instructor and told her that I had made one left turn that morning, which had turned into one spectacular spin-out, and sorry, but we're not coming.

This is of course, a drama, because I have not yet figured out how to escape drama. How will we make up clinicals? Do we have to pay our instructor? - yes, they told us this would be a possibility if we couldn't make it. What if we have no money to pay our instructor? How can our instructor force us to pay when we almost took a spin into The Great Beyond at 6am? (what if that last question was also a little bit dramatic and slightly blown out of proportion?)

And why the hell haven't they cancelled our night classes?

I am not a "product" girl. I have makeup, but most of it's from Target, and I have moisturizer, also from Target, and I have facewash, and it might be from Walgreens, but most likely Target. Last year, my mother-in-law gave me a giftcard to Sephora and while I absolutely adore the idea of being a product girl, clearly I am not cut out for it because Sephora gives me serious anxiety. You just walk in, and everything is So!Cute! and the packaging is adorable, and the choices are endless, and it all costs over twenty dollars, which means it must be really, totally worth it. Yet somehow, all this adds to up to just make things confusing for me.

So, I have not really bought much makeup or other girl products since that overwhelming trip. I did, however, score some good stuff back then- Benefit Bad Gal Lash mascara and Nars blush in Orgasm. I mean, who could say no to a mascara called Bad Gal? And a blush called ORGASM?!? Talk about spicing up your life. Unfortunately, I also bought this really disappointing all-in-one concealer and foundation that didn't really conceal, but it did a super job of turning my face orange. This is when things get depressing. I moved on to Neutrogena pressed powder that again, had an orange-y tint and was only slightly better at concealing my blemishes (i may be getting older, but my skin is still hanging out in adolescence) Then I upgraded to Clinique. Um, orange again? Check. When I was home at Christmas, I stole one of my mom's Cover Girl powders - she keeps about 4 colors on hand for I have no idea why _ and although it was a nasty consistency and had basically no concealing power, it did not turn me orange.

But just today, I discovered that there is still hope for me to become a product girl, and this hope was discovered at the Prescriptives counter in Macys, where a lovely girl named Maggie introduced me to CUSTOM-BLENDED POWDER. Yes, your wildest dreams can come true, and if your wildest dreams are anything like mine and include getting rid of an orange chin line forever, you are in luck. Well, let's talk about how this stuff is amazing. First they find your underlying skin tone using these little concealer sticks - it turns out that mine is blue/red. But almost all makeup is made with a yellow/orange base. Hence, the sweet potato color I've been sporting for years is actually not my fault. No one ever told me this! Then, they dump out a powder base onto this slick white slab, chop up carefully selected color pigments and mix it all in (which IS strangely reminiscent of Coldstone) and,voila! The perfect color. They can even add oil-control or moisturizer or whatever you need to your powder. You get to take home a big tub of the loose powder, and then they press part of it into a compact. And it lasts for A YEAR.

Even Joshua was very impressed. I was practically falling out of my little stool, and I may have told Maggie that I loved her and quite possibly I made a big fool of myself over pressed (and loose!) powder. Pressed AND loose! And in the perfect color! Does life GET ANY BETTER?!?!

Yes it does, because they give this gloriousness to you in a special bag that says Custom-Blended Powder on the outside, so everyone knows how fabulous and smart you were to buy this product. So, if you live in the Chicagoland area, and can find your way to Old Orchard Mall, ask for Maggie at the Prescriptives counter in Macys and she will chop up a powder just for you.

Oh, and Oprah uses it too.

Well, my husband has left me...

for his first Big Boy Business Trip. And I am sad, because this is only the second time we've been apart since we got married. In our almost two years of marriage, we've only spent four nights apart, and now we are adding four more. We didn't make any You Can Never Leave Home pacts when we got married, it has just sort of worked out that we rarely had any place to go that didn't involve the other person. (Also, having limited finances helps. It's hard to whirl off on vacation when you try to buy a plane ticket and your credit card gets rejected). Add full-time jobs and school and bands and making movies, and well, there's no time to go anywhere anyways.

But I think when it comes down to it - and I thought this as I left the airport with little tears squirting out of the corner of my eyes as dramatically as possible - Joshua and I just like to be together. We don't get bored, we don't get annoyed with each other's presence in our apartment, and we have all these little, sickeningly domestic routines that we both like to follow. We argue aggressively (but that's not boring), we definitely get annoyed (again, not boring, and not due to our living situation), and we can't stand anyone else in the world for the duration of time we can stand each other. Even with our work/school/not ideal situation, we manage to have lunch together almost every day. I couldn't have lunch every day with my very best friends in the whole world. I'd want to smack them upside the head (in a very non-violent manner).

It sounds slightly sickening and cute, but isn't that the point? I mean, that's why I got married - not to cook, or keep house, or to be domestic or settle down (even the words "settle down" make me want to go out and do tequila shots). I got married because I I found someone that I could not and would not want to go one day without. I know that not everyone's relationship is like this - some people need more space, more literal aloneness. I need my time alone, but I like to have it in the same time zone as my husband.

However, I think he was glad to leave Chicago on what I am now calling Black Monday, or possibly Blame It On the (Purple)Rain, or alternatively Damn You Bad Rex For Showing Up in Miami and Crushing Our Dreams Day. I might be emotionally distraught over a week without Joshua, but I have not forgotten the pain of last night. This is what happens when you move to a new city and become caught up in their sports fanaticism. When you are from New England, and your football team gets to the Super Bowl, they WIN (go pats!). Then you move to Chicago, and not only have you had almost a lifetime of crushed baseball dreams back home (I say almost because WE BROKE THE CURSE!!), now you inherit two more heartbreaker teams. Yeah, I mean you, Bears and Cubs.

It's too much.

Things I Did On Friday That Actually Made Friday Feel Like A Monday?

-dishes
-put away laundry
-file bills
-homework
-clean up kitchen
-file 2006 taxes online

Things I Did On Friday That Actually Made Friday Feel Like A Saturday On The Beach In Cabo?

-file 2006 taxes online and fall off my chair looking a federal return that ended in "-ousands"

Let me tell you, H&R Block, you have made my week a little better, a little brighter, a little richer. Thanks to you we will be able to go out and --- oh wait, you thought we were going to SPEND that money? No, you have given us a glorious trip to the bank and an even more glorious moment as I write a check to Fully.Pay.Off. the credit card that is the bane of my existence.

DEBT-FREE IN 2007.

Obviously, I'm not including student loans in my DEBT-FREE IN 2007 goals (more like 2027) but hey, you can consolidate those bitches and put them on the back burner until your kids head off to college. Anyways, paying off our stupid credit cards has been our number one goal since we got married with a load of debt that included the DJ, the down payment on the reception hall, various wedding-and-honeymoon-related expenses, and probably some clothes I now never wear. It's amazing to me how many people our age have debt. Like serious, in over our heads and still throwing the plastic around type of debt. How did we all get in this mess?! Luckily, Joshua and I are now being blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel (thank you for holding onto our money, Mr. Federal Government, but we'll take it from here!) but in the 1.7 years we've been married, we've only used the cards maybe twice, and we still haven't been able to pay them off.

I think the problem is that we (the debt-bearing generation) have other priorities and see the future as so limitless that we don't think being in debt is a huge problem. Joshua and I have bled thousands of dollars from our checking account on Starbucks, Citizens jeans, music equipment, plane tickets, sushi, wine...all those hip and urban expenses have easily distracted us from crawling out of the debt hole. We rationalize this by the fact that I will have a job in a year and double our income (ps -CAN'T FREAKING WAIT FOR THAT) and since we will be comfortably financially secure THEN, the debt isn't a big deal NOW.

I'm over this myth. I packed up all our 2006 bills a few weeks ago, and organized them in snazzy blue file folders from Target (again, a must-buy!) and in doing so, I took a good look at where our money went that year. And it went to interest. I could have bought multiple pairs of my favorite,oh so expensive jeans. Joshua could have bought a new bass, we could have INVESTED or SAVED hundreds. But instead, we merrily sent it all off in interest and wondered why our balances weren't really coming down that much.

And I am done with that. I hate being indebted, I hate owing people (or emotionless, soulless corporations!) money. So we have decided to be done with that particular shenanigan.

Let's see...with all the money we save in credit card payments, we will have so much more to spend!

And there's another problem.