My Romanian travel brochure arrived today and has pinned my interest right up against a tree trunk like a frat boy fresh from a kegger.

Suspiciously, there has been little mention of the local cuisine so I wiki’d it last night and I’m happy to report that I’ll be losing a lot of weight during my sojourn, which is great because I’ve been looking into stocking my closet with some of those hot goat milking dresses the broads wear in the field.

Also, families sacrifice pigs for Christmas, so if you’re into that you should think about calling your travel agent on the ASAP.

Shit, I need this for the hillside picnic photo shoot. I need this badly! I found one on sale for $17, but I don’t know enough about masks to be certain this is a good deal.

Can you imagine getting raped by someone wearing that? Chilling. You know what I’ll be thinking about all night now.

Two of the deleted entries, combined:

Dear local friends (even if we have never met),

I just got a Holga camera and I’m dying to use it. Who wants to participate in a photoshoot sometime very soon?

It’ll be super fun and you can wear animal masks and guacamole if you want.

Let me know.
——————————
And now, a riddle:

What is really hot and goes up and down and smells like beef jerky and cabbage?

The guys at work thought this was gay and non-sensical (durr, that’s what they get when they ask me to make one up on the spot).

First person to guess it gets a holiday card of their choosing.

Henry lost some of my entries when he moved my stupid blog over to a different thing and now I really feel like bashing his ugly fucking face in. He won’t apologize either. I have to go back and fix the html on every entry now. Fucking douchepie.

Today, I sold a Lizzie Borden card and a 10-card set, which puts me approximately $30 closer toward my final destination of Romania. Henry’s not invited, since he wouldn’t take me to the hospital. He can have fun staying home in gay Pennsylvania while I’m off riding donkeys and wildin’ out on Romanian date rape drugs. I can’t wait to taste Romanian pie and pee in their toilets. With a little conniving and perseverence, this dream might be realized by next summer. It’s only my dying wish, you know.

It’s not too late to purchase holiday cards. Send me to Romania. If you’re lucky, I’ll get stuck over there and wind up living a meager existence hauling oats in a field with no Internet. And then I’ll lose a wager with a gypsy over who has a bigger ballsack – the town cobbler or the albino who lives under the bridge and inspires dark fairy tales – and next thing I know, I’ll have a gaping hole in my side and my kidney will be chilling out on ice. Don’t you want that for me? Tell people about my cards; make your dreams (and mine) come true.

Thursday, 11-15 and Friday, 11-16:

I had slight twinging on my left side. I was fairly certain it could be my kidney, but also considered a strained muscle. The pain was just a dull ache that fades into the background of my day, so I didn’t concern myself too much.

Saturday, 11-17:

When I came home from school, I started to get body aches so I sprawled out on the couch under a blanket and had Henry serve me Tylenol. Henry bitched that I was 5% sick, 95% dramatic, but by that night, I was nearly convulsing and couldn’t get warm no matter what I did. My teeth were chattering so hard that I was afraid they would chip. Henry bitched for me to call my doctor, but I just got new insurance last month and hadn’t had a chance to choose a doctor yet, so his bitching was for naught. Henry is MEAN when I’m sick.

Sunday, 11-18:

I had a fever of 103. I wanted to go to the ER, but Henry bitched again about calling my doctor (which I still didn’t have).

That night, the music wafting from Chooch’s monitor started talking to me. Maynard James Keenan was telling me to pull out my intestines and tie them in bows (A Perfect Circle will never sound the same to me again).

The CD in Chooch’s room also has a Club Ibiza remix of Bush’s “Letting the Cables Sleep,” a song that used to be quite capable of soothing me but under the spell of my fever had suddenly sounded like if vinegar and garlic and bile, straight from Satan’s saliva, solidified into a thorny-armored army of musical notes and began its cavalcade down my temporal lobe. I wanted to reach out and shut off the monitor but I couldn’t muster the energy.

Monday, 11-19:

I was sick. Sick, sick, sick. Fever. Henry bitched. My only meal was a small cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream which made me nauseated. That night, I hallucinated that I retrieved my imaginary $15 flea market shot gun from under my pillow and Frenched the barrel while finger-jobbing its trigger.

Tuesday, 11-20:

In the early AM, I called Henry and begged him to come home and take me to the hospital. He came home alright, but instead of taking me to the hospital, he found me a stupid doctor on Brookline Boulevard because it would only cost $10 instead of the $100 ER fee, but my appointment wasn’t for another 6 hours. I didn’t care about the extra money it would cost to go to the ER. I just wanted to get better and go back to work. Time is money and either way I was losing out on it.

The doctor’s office was next to a laundromat, and as soon as I walked in, I was barraged by a stench of Beef-a-Roni and vitamins. Some poop, too I think. There were watermarks on the ceiling, wallpaper was ripped from the walls near the floorboards, and the magazines catered only to the elderly patient bracket. The receptionist had a brassy hair helmet with fringed bangs and close-set, beady eyes. I didn’t like how forcefully she grabbed the clipboard from me.

A male nurse came and took my vitals. He had a creepy white handlebar moustache with blonde highlights and wore beige scrubs which made me uncomfortable. The bathroom where I gave my urine sample had tile ripped up from around the commode. I felt like I was in a Nicaraguan clinic and became afraid that Angelina Jolie would come in and try to adopt me.

My doctor was in his forties and very personable. He put me at ease and didn’t patronize me when I told him I was sure I had a kidney infection. He wholeheartedly agreed and, as he took my pulse, said that I was “very sick.” No shit, I felt like I was dying. I told him so, too. He laughed when I said I expected to be able to return  to work the next day.

Later on, I was home alone with Chooch while Henry went to pick up my prescriptions. Chooch kept beating on me and I was so sick and exhausted that I lost it and started wailing. It was a pitiful moment. Not really one to share with Kodak.

Wednesday, 11-21:

I couldn’t find any relief during Tuesday night. I was so tired and wanted to sleep but I had a searing pain in my head and my fever kept spiking. I called Henry into the bedroom (he had been banished to the couch for snoring) and gasped, “Look, I surrender. I cannot manage this pain. I’m dehydrated. I want to go to the fucking hospital.”

He was all, “Well, I don’t know how you’re going to get there….” and I growled, “Work it out!” He of course sat there stupidly, so I yelled at him  to call Janna, who arrived shortly around midnight and took me to St. Clair Hospital, where there was an apparent gnat outbreak.

After I registered (the nurse loudly asked my weight, but then whispered, “And when was your last period?”), Janna, my knotted hair, and I sat in the dingy waiting room on hard teal chairs. Some bitch we went to high school with walked by with her butch-gait and I scowled. Then I panicked that she would fuck with my chart and I would wind up getting chemo or a mastectomy.

When I finally got a room, a nurse came in and asked me what was causing me the most pain. “My head!” I whined. “You have a kidney infection, but your HEAD is giving you the most pain?” she asked in disbelief. Oh lady, if you only knew. It felt like an irate Roman god had stuck tuning rods in hellfire and then pierced both of my temples with them until the formed crosses behind my eyes, at which point seventy-three bolts of lightning were summoned to strike while a Molotov cocktail made from bleach, John Candy’s stomach acid, Black widow venom, BTK’s semen and Flava Flav’s athletes foot exploded in the back of my head, the after effect of which was like being persistently bitten all over my brain by a swarm of fire ants. This would happen over and over, like Groundhog Day.

Except it was every hour. So Groundhog Hour, I guess.

It also didn’t help that I was lying on a headful of knots on top of more knots, sucking the dicks of other knots. Janna chose our hospital quiet time to request a story. I’m sorry Janna, but this IV in my arm is kind of distracting me from spinning yarns. Why don’t you pull out that book in your purse? I hear those book thingies have lots of stories.

I was released at 5am, but not before the ER doctor said, “You know, generally when people have kidney infections like yours, they’re admitted.” Tell  that to my boyfriend, doctor. I tried to sleep when I got home, but my headache was still there. In fact, by late morning it was at its peak. Henry called the doctor and had my prescription switched from Cipro, because as it turns out, we’re just not meant to be friends.

He also called in a prescription for a pain reliever, so I was ready to get stuffed by dinner time.

My mom never called to see how I was doing.

“We can still be friends.”

I should have known then, when he took my hand as we walked down E. Carson Street, that it wasn’t going to end well. I should have known.

Oh wait. I did know.

Oh shit, I wish those Steelers played every night because my boss Kim and Eleanore are entertaining the everloving piss out of me, watching their little game feed on the computer.

And then Eleanore gets angry and starts yelling, “You fucking retards!

You fucking pop-eyed Tomlin!” and I don’t know who she’s talking about but it’s making my chest hurt from laughing-strain.

Kim just jumped up and almost missed her chair when she went to sit back down.

Football rules. At work, at least.

Today, I toured the WQED studio with my Creative Non-Fiction class. We were incognito as Communications majors. Perhaps if I truly was a Communications major, it would have been more interesting. But, as an "Erin," it was horrifically boring and counted as the first time since the Great Kidney Infection of 2007 that I had to stand. Kind of a lot. On my feet. Without the aid of Henry’s arm as a crutch. But at least I got to see some Mister Roger’s props. And we got "treat bags" full of guitar picks and stickers from some synth company, which we learned were leftovers from a Battle of the Bands that the studio hosted two weeks ago. I’m so excited that I’m going to score my picks right now.

Now I’m supposed to write about this for Wednesday. Christ. It’s going to suck.

I be lovin’ my new beret.

I will wear it when I bake next, yes? Crepes and French bread, mon ami? Frog leg casserole, ole? Bravo.

Good morning. I made a creamy pear pie last night all by myself. (Except that Henry cut the pears because I’m not allowed to use knives.) Then Henry skulked around behind me like a member of the Kitchen Secret Service, making sure I didn’t set off any culinary equivalents of the a-bomb.

And it came out good! I’m a baker! I’ll be baking more pies today. Maybe not today, but soon. I’m making my own crust for the next one.

"So, basically, I can put anything I want in the middle of a pie?" I asked Henry.

Flipping through the circulars, he mumbled, "Yeah, pretty much. Wait, why?"

"Because now I’m thinking."

"That’s scary," he monotoned.

I can’t stop thinking about oranges and currants. And maple syrup.

There I was, scouring the kitchen for the perfect receptable to hold the large amount of orange juice and DiSaronno I was about to pour, when Henry disbanded the party.

"Uh, are you sure you should be drinking? You do have a kidney infection."

"Oh shit, you’re probably right." My shoulders caved a little as I replaced the amaretto on the shelf.

"And did you take your antibiotic today?"

"Oh shit…"

I sent Henry off to the market with his little wicker basket to fetch the ingredients I need for my SECRET pie.

He just called and yelled, "I’d like to thank you for sending me to Giant Eagle so I could have some jackass back into me!"

I was really panicked about it, wanting to know the degree of damage, but first I had to sit through Henry’s painful (because he’s a crappy storyteller) account of the accident. "….and I was just sitting there, at a complete stop, waiting for someone to pull out of the space ahead of me, when this dick comes backing out real fast into me and then he has the nerve to get out and yell at me! ‘Don’t you see people backing out?!’ Yeah, and I’m at a standstill!"

"And is there a lot of damage?" I cut in.

"….he just gets back in his car and leaves. Dumb bastard."

"Damage?" I ask again.

"I mean, if he hadn’t pulled out so fast…."

"Damage?" I ask with a mouthful of fingernails.

"….didn’t do any damage to the van…."

"Oh, you’re in the company van? Then I don’t care. Good bye."

When faced with the daunting decision of after dinner pie-choosing, I would always be swayed by the sweet familiarity of the apple persuasion (although I could be bribed by any coconut or banana creams on the menu). My eyes would dance right over the cherry pie, with its deep red filling making it look like the harlot at the desserterie.

I will admit that the few times I’ve had it, the glaze of the cherries serviced my tongue in more ways than any lover has ever accomplished, but it was always the tartness of the cherries themselves that sent me back into apple’s arms.

My aunt Sharon offered three pies for consumption on Thanksgiving: pumpkin, sweet potato, and a proud-looking cherry with a regal latticework crown. The tartness of the cherries pleased my buds this time.

Call it growing up, call it acquiring a new taste, but I call it being struck by cherry’s arrow.

Fuck you apple, you boring slop of caramel-colored crap in a pan. I’m sticking with cherry and all it’s menstrual-hued beauty.

And you know who else can suck a dick? Pumpkin pie. I’m so fucking sick of pumpkin pie now that so many restaurants have unlocked it from its seasonal confines.

When you can get pumpkin pie on a sweltering July evening, it kind of takes away its holiday magic. I’m riding the sweet potato jitney now. I still hate meringue.

Speaking of pies, today I’m going to be making my own special one for practice (Henry said I can!

) because there’s a really fabulous-sounding one that I want to make for my guests at the upcoming Game Night. Quaking yet?

I like this picture because it shows off my awesome Pacman arm warmers. And my kid! And my kid.

Look, I lost an eye in the Great Kidney Battle of ’07. You win some, you lose some, I guess.