“So poop or parasite?” That’s what I was asked by a blog-reading friend when we met up Saturday night.
The answer? Both. Last week was a horrendous, truly gut-wrenching lesson in cramps and bloating. I think I may have earned a Master’s degree in the stuff, my thesis consisting equally of prunes and my waning will to live.
It was also a crazy week anyway, bowels aside. Barfing on Wall Street outside a fancy restaurant that used to be a bank vault aside. I’ll break down the week for you in just a few inches, but let me expand more on my new graduate degree.
Never, ever, ever take a multivitamin and an extra iron supplement. It will not make you run faster or jump higher. It will freak your intestines out into a Britney Spears-level breakdown. You will eat an acre of whole grains and drink gallons of water and your colon will act more like a period. (I’m feeling well enough now to make punctuation jokes). Shit ain’t goin’ nowhere for about a week. (Also feeling well enough to allude to menstruation).
Here’s what you missed last week while I was clutching my sides, fielding questions from my parents about my last bowel movements for the first time since they regularly saw them…in my own pants…in seventh grade. Part of that is a joke - I wish it all were.
Monday: I blog that I’m “furiously freelancing” instead of the truth, which is more like the less attractive alliteration “ponderously procrastinating.” I know what I want to write about, but I can’t get started. I second-guess myself and decide to just be brilliant tomorrow. That’s a plaque I need above my desk: “Be brilliant tomorrow.” With a post-it note under it that reads, “You very well may die in your sleep, you uninspired slob.”
Tuesday: I’m sitting at my desk after lunch, and I suddenly want to cry. I feel like my abdomen is going to explode all over some work I’m trying to do. I curl up a few different ways and realize I have to leave early so the Ebola doesn’t spread to the rest of the office. I cancel the kid I’m supposed to tutor, hobble to the subway, vomit, black out on the ride uptown, and collapse. That piece I was working on is due before midnight, but I have forgotten it. When I get a phone call at 10, it all comes back to me. I somehow manage to “Be brilliant enough on a deadline.”
Wednesday: Excruciating pain. Everything hurts - lower back, tailbone area, basically anything below my navel. My stomach is visibly swollen. I Twitter, “I feel like Bristol Palin up in here.”
Thursday: Jeffrey’s sister is extremely upset that I cannot tutor her after him on Thursdays. I can’t afford the time ever, but I really can’t afford it when I just want to lie down in the bathtub and fall asleep and peacefully drown with minimal soap in my eyes. I stifle my revelation that tutoring is not that fun, that I will teach her wrong stuff on purpose just because I can.
Friday: I’m feeling a little lighter. This doesn’t discourage me from talking about inappropriate waste-related matters with a co-worker over instant messenger. I even coin the word “poopsonality.” Don’t tell me you invented it first! Life Coach says he doesn’t feel well and that he might give me tickets to see Chris Rock at the Apollo. This doesn’t cure me, but it doesn’t hurt.
Saturday: I go to the premier dollar store in Manhattan and see these awesome tweezers I bought for half-price. What a deal! Then I buy mailing envelopes and tealights. I’m still weak and a bit achy, but I go to the Chris Rock show and act coy when asked, “So poop or parasite?” Look for my face when the Kill The Messenger special airs on HBO soon. I will look very relaxed and regular, but you know the truth.
I totally get the “be brilliant tomorrow.” As a freelance writer, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to actually write anything that’s not on a desperate deadline.