Happy Thanksgiving! (Who Needs a Xanax?!)

Let's talk about how Ray (my boyfriend) met Ray (my dad) on Thanksgiving and now I'm pretty sure that Ray (my dad) is going to shoot Ray (my boyfriend).*

Really dad? Like it's not suspicious you asked him to go hunting a half-dozen times? Really?

* Yes, they have the same name. I know. I KNOW.

Talk About Your All Time Slaps in the Face With A Tutu

I got up early on Saturday all excited to cash in my adult ballet Groupon and they didn't have adult ballet this weekend.

Outrage!

So I went to the grocery store in pink tights, furry boots and a bun in my hair.... Which is to say I looked like everyone else at Hyde Park Bigg's on a Saturday morning.

In A Name

Had I been a boy I'd have been named Clint… as in Eastwood.

My dad talks about "Eastwood" as if he's an old family friend. "You see Eastwood on TV last night?"

He even squints and mumbles and walks around enacting justice and barking orders like he's in an endless loop of Dirty Harry.

Ray and Clint. Peas and carrots. Spaghetti and westerns.

My mom wanted to name me Wayne, except my dad hates John Wayne, so… overruled.

Because my mom had already had two boys she was certain I'd be a boy. Clint it was. But just in case they decided Gina would do for a girl.

Gina, pronounced... G-Na.

Gina shortened from Regina, meaning "queen."
Or "silvery," if you're Japanese. (Cause you know, lots of Japanese girls are named Gina.)
"Garden," in Hebrew.
The pet of the Latin Virginia, meaning "maiden" and the English pet form of Georgina, meaning "earth-worker" or the Italian Luigina, meaning "warrior."

A name meaning placard I had as a kid pronounced girls named Gina "mischievous." It's the only description I've lived up to thus far.

Gina is a family name on both sides. I have a cousin on my mom's side, Gina Michelle, and another cousin on my dad's side, Gina Lynn. They both go by their middle names and are both about 12 years my senior.

I was named after my dad's niece, who he affectionately calls "crazy Lynn" because she is vivacious and fun and prone to talking out of turn and saying hilarious things.

I had a lot to live up to.

The most famous Gina is probably Gina (Luigina) Lollobrigida, an Italian actress and dancer popular in the '50s. Or Geena Davis, but she doesn't really count with the double "e"s.

But Gina G totally counts, depending on if you remember that one hit wonder from the mid-'90s. (World's biggest tragedy is that this amazing performer stopped making music.)

At work GINA is best known as the acronym for the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

G-dawg is a common variant. But mostly people call me Gina or G, depending on when you met me and how you know me. If you met me through work you call me Gina. If you met me in college or high school you call me G.

If you know me through my kin you have completely forgotten that my first and middle names are actually separate and you call me Gina Lynn, with a southern twang, as in "Gee-na Lynn, time for supper!"

My birthday was last month and as I was chatting with my mom about the momentous occasion that was my birth we giggled at her first words to me, "A girl!! What am I going to do with a little girl?! Awww, she's beautiful." Then she passed out.

Then she said, "Your dad wanted to name you Clint. I'm glad you were a girl."

The Sun Also Rises

Just home from the Florida coast where I saw the sun come up. Which got me to thinking, when was the last time I watched the sun come up? Hmm... Guess I'm more of a The Sun Mostly Sets kinda girl.

The highlight of the trip was an unplanned excursion to Key West and the Hemingway Home and Museum. To be honest, I was lured in by the ridiculous number of cats I saw through the fence. Fueled by a strawberry daiquiri and a mango margarita I was overcome with a deep desire to pet them all.

But then I was surprised at how much impact and inspiration the house had on me, less because of the books and belongings in it and more because I learned a lot about the man. Hemingway has a terrific life story, full of great and perilous adventures, famous writerly and artistic friends, multiple wives and unfortunate injuries.

The stuff great stories are made of.

Later that night on a barstool I was chatting with a fishing boat captain (seafarers love me, apparently), a couple from Rhode Island and a plastic surgeon from Boston about the novella The Old Man and the Sea. The woman from Rhode Island hated it.

It's been ten years or better since I read it, but I remember loving it and thinking in spite of everything it was more a book about triumph rather than defeat, even though the only image I could conjure from the story was that of the old man coming back with the giant marlin skeleton, evidence of his luck and subsequent misfortune at sea.

I thought about reading it again to see if I'd have the same perspective but I'm not going to. I don't want to ruin it. I was a lot smarter back then; god knows how I could screw up that novel by reading it now.

They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore

Presents for me are always from my mom. I open them up and my dad looks over and excitedly says, "What'd I get you?!"

In his defense, he bought me a sapphire necklace about 10 years ago for Christmas, and another time when I was in the hospital I sent him to the gift shop for a toothbrush and he bought me a very small stuffed bear. But other than that, presents from my dad are A) scarce and B) random.

Thanks, Dad, for the... pliers?

I'm glad you like them. I saw them at an auction and thought of you.

Great, I love them.

But this year he kept saying he had a birthday present for me... and that it was "starting to smell."

Usually my mom tips me off to any strange presents he might send my way so my reaction isn't one of complete bewilderment.

She was silent this year when I pressed her.

Hmm... Suspicious.

Last weekend he stood beside me as I unwrapped my birthday present. When he told me to be careful cutting the tape off the box I envisioned god knows what oozing out from the puncture wound, smelling like rotten garbage and prepping for my "ooh, what a nice surprise!" face.

Then, I was legitimately surprised.

He'd made me an afghan. I'd forgotten that during the hunting off-season last winter he'd started crocheting again after a one-off afghan he made 20 years ago.

And there it was. I was smitten. He made my porch swing, has built me bookshelves and flower boxes and countless picture frames and stands. Those things are what he does. This is different.

I don't think I've ever loved a present a more. I gushed over it sincerely and even admired his color choices, black and gray, to better hide cat hair.

Initially he had plans to make all three of his sisters one, my mom's two sisters one and me one. But that was before the afghan meltdown of 2010, where stitching turned to bitching and he had to redo all of his work - twice.

He thought he was getting faster. At first it took him 40 minutes to complete a row, then 35, then 30. Before long he was down to 20 minutes per row.

But when he was nearly finished and finally spread it all out on the living room floor my mom goes, "Why is one side shorter than the other?"

"Damn it all, Gina Lynn," he told me. "I wasn't getting faster, I was dropping stitches!"

There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear my masculine old man say.

So he pulled it out and started over.

The ladies at Jo-Anne Fabrics thought he was buying yarn for his wife and adored how sweet he was to shop for her at the craft store. When they found it was him doing the crocheting they admired his diversity and told him, "Isn't crocheting so relaxing!"

"Bullshit," he said. "I can't watch TV while I'm doing it, I got two blisters and my rows got all messed up."

Then he grabbed his bag of yarn and walked out with an, "Afternoon, ladies."

I bet they are still gossiping about him.

"I hope you like it because I'm not making anymore," he told me. "I'd die of old age as long as it took me make that one." Then he added he'll be spending this winter where he belongs, in the garage sawing wood and making knife cases and porch swings.

Hot Type

Today we gave one of our cardiologists a mock-up of a newsletter with Lorem Ipsum filling in the content.

He looked quizzically at my colleague Rachel and was like, "What does this say?"

"It's filler text," she said.

"Oh! I was trying to translate it!"

We adore this doc and started cracking up... Of course he would try to translate it.

And that's why he's a doctor and we're not.

Would You Rather?

There is a gun to your head, you must chose one.

Would you rather read in its entirety:

A.) "The Situations" new tome, Here's The Situation: A Guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades, and Getting In Your GTL on the Jersey Shore






or

B.) George Bush's new memoir, Decision Points.










Let me help you… Here's a video of The Situation addressing those nagging herpes rumors (and his workout routine) and here is Bushy's thrilling YouTube book trailer.

C.) You could take the bullet... but with A or B you at least get a lesson in how to fail upward.

I Heart The Tots

The lights in the cafeteria went out today and the first thing I thought was, "If my tater tots end up missing someone is getting hurt."

Then we all had to evacuate for a Code Gray, which means we were shoo'd out of the cafeteria and into the tunnels and basements. It was just like elementary school when we had to line up against the interior walls, get on our knees and put our hands over the back of our necks.

Except, you know, it kinda wasn't anything like that really… Aside from the fact that I'm still eating tater tots for lunch and my first concern during a tornado is, "Oh no! What about my tots!"

Ok yeah, everything is exactly the same.

Over The Tapas

We're all friends here, right? We like the the same things: 30 Rock, Halloween, Jersey Shore.

Great.

Now the rest of you, for crying out loud, shut-up already about tapas. Just stop it. "Oooh, the new tapas place blah-blebity-blah!"

Guess what, it's not that great.

And you know, now that I'm at it, enough with the martini escapades too. ENOUGH. "Ooh, a mango-tini sugary explosion of diabetes, YUM!"

If you can add "bar" to the end of any word making it doubly pretentious to go there then you get punched and dragged off to Madison Bowl.

I know the rest of you got my back.

Proof It Gets Better

One of my closest friends in high school school was gay.

He wasn't out back then, but we all knew Shane was gay. There was a tight crew of about 5 of us, plus many more of his close friends, and we all knew and nobody gave a crap. It elicited a big fat shrug from us. We didn't try to force him out, we played along with his girl-crushes and we not only tolerated his deep love and affection for Madonna and the endless loop of Like A Prayer and Erotica, we embraced it.

We rolled through our late high school years doing what teenagers do - not taking school very seriously but taking ourselves very seriously.

We were regulars at a diner in town called Alice's, and we spent hours upon hours there drinking coffee (black, like our deep, dark souls) and eating cheesecake (hey, even very serious teenagers have a softspot for cherry topping, ok?!) and discussing life's more significant topics, such as new music, the school's hotties and our high school's theater production of To Kill A Mockingbird, which if we all didn't get a part then life was seriously effed up!

When it got late enough we forked our friends' yards (take that, ya bastards!) and expressed ourselves by dying our hair, driving too fast down residential and country roads and participating in all manner of recreational trespassing and alcohol abuse. (And by alcohol abuse I mean I couldn't drink anything stronger than a wine cooler or 'Seriously guys, I am gonna throw up RIGHT NOW!')

But under the surface of all that teen angst was some real, well, teen angst. We all had our problems to confront. And our friend Shane had problems we hardly even considered. Because even though we didn't care he was gay, other people certainly did, and that culture made him terrified to tell us, his family, the school and... oh god, what if his dad found out.

Life certainly seemed simple. And yet, here was this 16-year-old wrestling with some real life shit.

Shane had some dark secrets and a world awareness that went through him like wrecking ball at times.

In the fall of our senior year of high school he tried to kill himself. There were lots of pills, an ambulance ride to the hospital, and an extended stay at the mental health hospital. Word spread like wildfire at a party most of us were at that night - Shane's been taken to the hospital for a suicide attempt - and that's when shit got real.

The guy who's default was to make self-deprecating jokes and provide hilarious and scathing commentary on all manner of high-school ridiculousness had tried to kill himself? What. The. Hell.

The reasons were many. He was closeted, afraid of who he really was, what it meant and the facade he'd built. Plus he was nursing a broken heart. The rest of us when we were heart broken could at least be open about it and cry on the shoulders of friends. Not him.

When I went to see him the next day in the hospital he had a temporary tattoo of a skull and crossbones stuck to his forehead.

Well, that's a good sign, I thought. And when I went to visit him in the mental health clinic a week later we plotted what we'd do when he got out. Obviously he'd get to ride shotgun in my car from now on. Obviously.

But we didn't talk about what landed him there or why he did it or even if he'd try it again. We'd had dinner together the night before the attempt at my favorite restaurant and the only thing I said at the mental health clinic in reference to what was really happening was a dry, "Was it something I said at dinner?"

To which he replied, "I shouldn't have gotten the veal."

Fortunately, he survived and pressed on and life got a little easier to deal with and our freshman year of college he came out.

We all shrugged when he told us. If anything, we under-reacted. We were trying to show him we didn't care that he was gay because, well, we didn't care that he was gay, but looking back, maybe we should have given it more weight given how difficult it was for him. But we were 18. Plus, we were really, really cool.

A few years later Shane and I were roommates my senior year of college. As in, he slept on the top bunk and I slept on the bottom bunk in an apartment above the campus laundry mat. (We went to school together Kindergarten through college... and I am proud to say I knocked him down with my swing in kindergarten for trying to kiss me, which we later decided was probably what made him gay in the first place.)

We stayed up until 3 a.m. most mornings, still drinking coffee, still dying our hair, and occasionally debating, "If you could take a pill that would make you straight, would you take it?"

The answer was no.

But I know a lot of young and closeted gay folks would say yes. Why wouldn't they want life to be that much easier.

I like to think folks have become more open-minded, more accepting, happy even that Glee is on the air, but when I think about hypocritical megachurch "converts," gay-rights legislation haters, don't ask-don't tell, the ban on gay marriage, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about the recent spate of gay teens killing themselves.

And yet, somehow, I am. Often I forget what hate-filled, ignorant, awful little trolls people can be. And I forget what it would be like to be a vulnerable gay teenager amongst those haters and imposters.

Today Shane's Facebook status reminded everyone to wear purple. Then there was another update with a list of names, mine included, and the message that he's proof life gets better. His dark tour through the recesses of hate and suicide attempts was almost 20 years ago. I'd nearly forgotten all about it.

Then I remembered, the list of names were of those people who supported and visited him when the skull and crossbones was still stuck to his forehead and he was still afraid to be who he is today.

I am proud to be on that list. I am proud that even at a young age I knew better than a lot of the people today who sit in positions of religious and political power in this country.

And I am proud... wait a second... that rat bastard gave me second billing... Oh hell no! But look, what's this... A picture of us from prom, where I look fantastic, and he looks like a game show host!

If I lived closer I'd fork his yard.

Proof it gets better, and friends are forever.

You Gotta Know When To Fold 'Em

Because of the awesomeness of my apartment building, all three dryers went out last Sunday afternoon just as I'd overloaded them with 50 pounds of my sopping wet skivvies.

The woman who's shady kids own the building suggested, "Oh hon… just hang them to dry."

Yes, finally! A use for all that clothesline I have strung-up throughout my apartment.

Bitterly I loaded my wet towels, sheets and v-neck pocket t-shirts from Target (which is pretty much all I wear) into plastic bags and headed for the laundry mat.

If I smoked I would have, because it seems like having a Marlboro Red is the only appropriate way to drive yourself to the laundry mat with bags full of wet clothes. I drove wondering where I had gone wrong in life. What were the turns that lead to me this place - the land of coin operated spinning machinery on a lovely Sunday morning. What, exactly, brought me here... other than the "power surge" to the basement dryers, of course.

Too many are the turns that landed me at Coin Laundry in Oakley, I decided.

The only reason I even knew where a laundry mat was is because it's right across from Domino's Pizza (er, the healthfood restaurant) and I remember seeing it one afternoon while picking up my to-go order of tofu/granola/flax seed stir-fry. (Read: the Pacific Vege pizza at Domino's is kick-ass, y'all.)

This joint must be new, I thought, as I walked into Coin Laundry and marveled at the rows of brushed steel front loaders shouting - EXPRESS! 50 lb capacity! 30 lb capacity! 20 lb capacity!

It was all just numbers to me, so I ignored them and started shoving quarters into the closest machine after carefully reading the directions on the front of a dryer.

Never does it occur to me that my measly bags of sheets and t-shirts probably don't belong in a 50 pound capacity express dryer for 60 minutes.

And that's how I nearly burnt the joint down.

"Those get up to 112 degrees," said the young Coin-Laundry Worker-Girl, as she wiped detergent off a washer and handed out change. "You better check on that stuff after about 12 minutes or your clothes are gonna burn-up."

She was sweet, helpful and smartly intervened again as I started shoving money into the 50 pound capacity washer that was way too big for the three rugs I was going to wash while I was there.

"You should move those to the lowest capacity we have, on the other side," she said. "It's cheaper," and she handed me back the 50 cents I already squandered.

I loved her, I decided. I imagined us being best friends and sharing the cigarette she had behind her ear.

But I wasn't the only newby at the Coin Laundry. As I shoved my rugs into the 20 pound capacity washer I commented to the woman sitting behind me that I was the dumbest person at the laundry mat.

"Girl, I had to read the directions!" she said to me.

"Me too!" I confessed.

Dirty clothes were bringing us together. She and her husband were having their basement redone and she hadn't been to a laundry mat in 20 years, she said.

It's been about 6 for me, I told her.

We agreed that it was a damn fine laundry mat. Clean, new and the staff was very helpful. We bragged about the super-duper burn your clothes up express washers and dryers like they were ours.

I commenced to folding t-shirts as she went back to her magazine and envisioning her new basement, and the Coin-Laundry Worker-Girl went outside to smoke.

I could totally work here, I thought as I folded. You know, if I had to. If the shiz, God forbid, ever went down. I mean, there are worse things than working at the laundry mat. Plus, I'm pretty much an expert on these fancy washers and dryers now, I told myself. I can dutifully wipe fabric softener off of stuff, and I'm great at making change and pushing around wheeled laundry baskets. In my daydream I was an Olympic Folder. No washrag was safe.

Four loads of fresh laundry later, I walked out and told Coin Landry Worker-Girl, who was still outside smoking, that I appreciated her help. Then I told the other woman that I hoped her basement turned out great.

We all hugged and said a teary goodbye. Ok, that part didn't happen. But still. I totally made friends at the laundry mat.

Put-In-Bay Is A Real Place

Or so I'm told. I don't remember much about it, but my clothes smell like booze, bacon and campfire, so I must have had fun.

When my schmoyfriend first invited me for a weekend on the island paradise that is Put-In-Bay I envisioned walks on a rocky beach with the wind whipping my hair and a hoodie comforting me as I read fiction in a chaise lounge... by a lighthouse.

Instead I was trapped on an island that looked distressingly like Alcatraz with his booze-hound friends.

Obviously it turned out far better than I imagined. And I didn't have to read any fiction. Jackpot.

Vitamin P... For Poison

I don't know how to tell you guys this so I'm just gonna come out and say it: Flintstone's changed their vitamin formula to poison!

Remember when you were a kid and Flintstone's chewables were delicious, and so taking your vitamin was exciting because they tasted like Pez and you hid under the kitchen table and gobbled down as many as you could?

Well, not anymore my friends.

Last week I excitedly bought a bottle of Flintstone's Complete ("now more complete with choline!" whatever that is) and eagerly handed them out to my coworkers in an effort to boost their immune systems and make them owe me for life. As we chomped down on the red and orange and purple Bam-Bams and Barney's we smiled at how delicious and fun it was to take our vitamins.

YUM! We. Are. So. Healthy!

But then, OMG... The horror! Our smiles quickly turned into poison yuck faces, y'all. It tasted like Fred Flintstone pooped in our mouths. Wtf?! We cursed the bottle - why has thou forsaken us, Flinstone's vitamins?! - and spent the next 20 minutes scrunching up our faces in disgust and attempting to extract the awful, iron-tasting chalky grit from our tongues. All to no avail.

Thanks for ruining our childhoods, Flintstone's. These things are little torture pills now. Give them to your kids (or coworkers) only if you want them to hate you.

UC Has... Fans? Buh-lieve It!

Saturday the University of Cincinnati played Oklahoma at Paul Brown Stadium. I was pretty excited to be one of the nine people there cheering.

Short beer line. Stadium at sunset. Some dudes playing college football. What's not to appreciate.

I think I went to one game during the time I spent at UC in grad school, and I'm pretty sure I only went because several of my classmates were athletic trainers and I thought it would be cool to wave at them.

So we roll up to Paul Brown on Saturday and, What the what?! The joint is packed with people sporting black Bearcats t-shirts and doing some weird UC chant... kinda like the YMCA dance only more tribal-y sounding.

*whoooaaaaa... *whooooooaaaaa... *whooooooaaaaa.... clap-clap-clap-clap... UC!!

The whole time I am fascinated and stunned. I went to UC - hell, I even taught there - and I don't know anybody who went there who was really pumped about it or super excited they exited its dilapidated buildings with a diploma.

But what the hell do I know - nothing apparently - because Paul Brown was filled with all manner of super-fans. Kids and women with little Bearcat logos fake tattooed on their faces and dudes with C-paws on their shirts and hats.

There was even a student section, y'all. A HUGE student section. When it was time for the YMCA, er, UC dance party chant, it was freakin' ON. A whole end-zone of arms shaping the letters "U" and "C."

I was there with an alum who is also a legitimate fan. Like, went to games even when they really sucked. (I am told this was mostly to drink beer. But still.) The whole thing somehow swelled me with a surprising alumni pride.

I might even buy a Bearcats t-shirt now. Or get some C-paw temporary tattoos. 'Cause that's how we fans roll.

Anyway, UC lost by two. At least this is what I'm told... I was busy eating nachos... because that's also how we fans roll.

He Nags Because He Cares, Right?*

Me: Sign my PTO slip

Boss Man: I just one signed for you!

Me: This is important.

Boss Man: Is this girl stuff?! Then I don't want to hear it.

Me: I have to have the hole in my bladder cauterized.

Boss Man: I didn't hear that.

Me: CAUTERIZED, I said. BLADDER HOLE!

Boss Man: You should be healed by now.

Me: I had radiation.

Boss Man: Stop playing the cancer card! You should be healed by now. You need Vitamins D and K. And probably some B vitamins.

Me: Why, so I can pee them out? Show me the data on vitamins having any value.

Pa-pow, NOW who's asking for the data, Mr. Scientist?!

Boss Man: Your diet sucks. All you eat is fast food and frozen meals.

Ooh... busted.

Me: And cookies! You just gave me a chocolate chip cookie!

Boss Man: Google Vitamin D, you're capable of doing that, right?!

Wow... nutrition advice coming from the man who puts fake chicken broth through his coffee maker and calls it a hot "lunch."

*No, he nags because he's emotionally exhausting.

Dreaming Is Free

When I grow up I want to be Deborah Harry.

Tgif!

What Hemingway Also Probably Said During A Bender

A few beers, some wine, a few pink lemonades with vodka and I said:

"Let's say you live to be 80. You read a book a month. That leaves you only what... (drunken fuzzy math pause) not that many books! There are so many great books you could never read all the perfect, enchanting, heart-wrenching and lovely stories out there. Then someone you like, who you trust and think highly of, and who supposedly should know you, recommends a crappy book. They've totally screwed you out of something spectacular you could have been reading instead. Then what?!"

So he said: "Then they're an a-hole! How $hitty!"

"Exactly!"

"I would never steer you wrong like that!"

"God I hope not because then I would probably have to really hate you!"

Booze: Fueling great thoughts on litch-rah-cha since... forever.

Summer, Wait! Please, I Can Change!

I spent more time at the pool this summer than I have in years. In that way, the summer turned out exactly as I'd anticipated. But in every other way, no.

If someone would have told me in May that things would turn out as they have, I wouldn't have believed them. In fact, I might well have punched that person in the face. (Unless it was you, then I wouldn't have, because I adore you.)

The events, people, friendships, everything, has been... unexpected. Just when you think you have it all mapped out, life decides to go off-roading with your deliberate self.

There have been some Main Events - peach crisps, hospital visits, old friends, fireworks, lakes. But my favorites are the little moments over the big ones. The small things that added up to it feeling like a real summer, the long kind from when you were a kid, when the days and nights and seemed endless and enduring.

Summer 2010 was all iced-tea, grilled vegetables, sunscreen and surprising new partners-in-crime. I got to know better people I thought I already knew. And I watched twilight spread across the sky from many a vantage, always in generous company... and often with someone else doing the grilling. And that, my friends, is foam finger, summer pennant worthy.

So, Happy Labor Day, y'all. I guess.

Wait, it's Labor Day... Wtf?!

Getting There

Earlier this summer my doctor informed me of her deep desire to put me under anesthesia and poke around on me a bit. And so I needed a ride to the hospital. I lined it up accordingly - a friend to drop me off, a friend to pick me up. The procedure wasn't a big deal and I figured I'd be trying on shoes at DSW by 3 p.m.

Anesthesia usually has minimal residual effects on me.

Hell yeah I want some more crackers! and When are you gonna wheel me out of this staph-infested hell-hole! is typically my attitude post such procedures.

And such was the case this time around. I was talking all kinds of smug smack in the recovery room, rolling my eyes at weaker, lesser minded patients, eating graham crackers and sucking down corn-syrupy Sprite like it was my job, scoffing at the suggestion I might want to nap later.

Hahaha, weaklings. Apparently you don't know who I am!

But anesthesia had different plans for me when they wheeled me out. Sinister, evil and totally bitchy plans, which consisted of handing me my ass for about 36 hours for my recovery room hubris.

Even though we weren't really there yet, my schmoyfriend was all, "I'll take you to the hospital... I guess." I believe his thought process went something like, "Well damn, she needs a ride to Christ. If I take her and act all nice then I'll get super duper schmoyfriend brownie points. But if she gets sick in my car, it's freakin' on."

Because the thought of him seeing me in a backless hospital gown (sexxxy!) and an operating room hair net was exactly what I thought we needed, I took him up on the offer and let my friends off the hook.

Hey, you guys, want to know a real quick way to get there with your schmoyfriend?! Nearly throw up in his fancy European car. Better still, nearly throw up in it about 5 times. Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! And demand he pull over each time you feel sick on the 1.6 mile drive from the hospital to downtown so you can puke… in the 'hood, y'all!

As I heaved alongside the car I thought, I am going to be so PISSED if I get shot just trying to vomit on Sycamore Street.

Suddenly, we were there.

What is the blue book value on vomiting in someone's car? What do you owe them for letting you suffer all their couch all night and move the rug around in the bathroom so you can more comfortably puke in their toilet?

Outside of the influence of being vomity, vulnerable and in a post-anesthesia death wish, I don't know what that price is. But under those influences I offered "something nice... how about dinner at Jeff Ruby's."

This sounds self-less, but it wasn't. I happen to love well-done filet mignon (don't hate), potatoes made with heavy cream (read, crack) and fancy wine. And for the generosity of letting me vomit at his place, the price tag was worth every penny.

I think we toasted to hospital gowns.

Sometimes you just need a ride. Like to the airport.

But sometimes you need more than a ride, sometimes you need someone to be there... to help you out of the car and to put the trash can beside the couch so you can throw up.

The Weddings I Attend Are Boring...

compared to this one. TGIF!