When my body found out that New York was the city that never sleeps. It took it to heart.
It didn’t quite get the memo that “never sleeps” really just implies staying out really late, destroying your liver, and then sleeping in until 1 or 2 to replenish it. An energetic kind of insomnia.
Instead, it decided to take the whole thing at face value. By 8 AM. I am up without fail. Whether I went to bed at 11 or at 4 (although if I went to bed at 11, odds are I was up by 6).
The femoral nerve has been keeping me up at night. It’s deviant. And wily. And I don’t like it.
We are doing the lower extremity (i.e. leg and foot) in anatomy right now. And there are two nerves of import – the sciatic and the femoral. The sciatic is not a problem. (Unless you’re a drug user. In which case, please remember to ONLY inject your heroin into the upper lateral quadrant of your butt. Anywhere else in your gluteus maximus and you risk jabbing your sciatic. It will hurt. The needle will get stuck. Just don’t do it. Trust me.)
Have I mentioned yet how good you look today?
Because you do. You really do.
That shirt really brings out the color of your eyes. I feel like I could look into them. Forever.
Does sexy eyebrow raise.
And WHOA is that your bicep? Have you been working out? No, really. Flex it for me. Again.
I just can’t get enough of that action.
Damn. I think I need a cold shower.
I will forever remember the summer of 2008 as the Summer of Stovetop Cooking.
My parents’ oven had broken sometime around Christmas. Which we realized when we pulled out the five trays of lasagna after an hour of “cooking”. Only to find really crisp noodles and thoroughly unmelted cheese. The standing rib roast that was sitting on the counter, waiting to be roasted to the consistency of shoe leather (according to my parents’ predilections) didn’t stand a chance. (Black and blue beef it was! Although I think I was the only one who was happy about that.)
We got through Christmas (thanks to one of my aunts, who lives across the street) and I went back to school. Totally carefree. Absolutely positive that it would be fixed by the time I returned.
A few months passed. I came home for spring break. Still no working oven. (Breathe, Jo. Breathe. It’s only two weeks. You. Can. Do. This.)
Hold on. I need to take a moment. Thinking about this still makes me tachycardic.
Okay. Much better. Let’s go on.
A few more months passed. I came home for summer vacation. Still no working oven. (I can’t imagine what was being cooked during all this time. Since I use my oven at least once a week. I’m thinking they must have been relying on take-out and fried chicken cutlets. It’s amazing they came out of this with their cholesterol levels intact.)
And this was where the shit hit the fan. Because maybe they could live without an oven for six months. But there was no way that I could do without one for three.
So I hemmed. And hawed. Cajoled. Prodded. Poked.
And around August. They finally caved.
When my brother arrived for dinner last Friday. To say that I was a sight for sore eyes. Would be a slight understatement.
I looked kind of like I had been electrocuted. And then forced to wade in a pool of flour. It was definitely a mad scientist kind-of a “do”. My hair was standing up in just about every direction possible. And there was not a spot that wasn’t white and powdery to be found on any part of my clothing. (Okay maybe I looked like a cross between Einstein and that cocaine addict who lives on your corner and asks you for a hit every day. What, you don’t have a local town coke fiend? Weird.)
That was when Daniel deemed it appropriate to give me the apron he had brought me back from Argentina. A little late. But much appreciated. For, you know, the next time I make pierogi (hah).
Let’s dredge up some memories.
Shall we?
(Am I the only person out there who finds long term memory to be absolutely romantic? Your neurons take a thought, an image, a feeling. Break it up into little pieces. And dot them throughout your brain. It’s a safety mechanism so that, should something happen to a cluster of neurons in one location, your prefrontal cortex for example, you don’t have to fear. There are other clusters with the same information in your cerebellum. Ensuring that, at least the important things, will not be left behind. Forgotten. It also explains why you could be sitting on a stationary bike at the gym. Thinking about what color socks you will wear tomorrow. When all of a sudden images of your first school dance pop into your head. You just never know how the circuits are connected. It’s random. And yet not. Love that.)
Welcome to Eats Well With Others, where we take a vegetable-and-cupcake laden approach to life (always with a bit of laughter on the side)!
