Oh happy day

Happy 30^th birthday to me! I’m ringing in the new year of me…in pain! Awesome! I finished the course of corticosteroids on Monday morning, and since Monday night, my face, neck, shoulders, and upper back have been sore and tender, to the touch, even. Are there any doctors in the house? Could this be a side effect of coming off a short course (one week) of prednisone? Because: fucking OW.

But my face seems to be working again, for the most part. I still get the twitchies, but my left dimple has reappeared and I can smile almost normally again. Most importantly, though, my left nostril is in fine flaring form again.

I had a most excellent birthday weekend. Stella came up from L.A. to hang out and we spent two days eating amazing food and trying to pass time between meals (favorite between-meal activity: napping). Saturday night, a whole posse of friends joined us for tapas and drinks in the Mission. My big 30^th birthday revelation of the night was that I need sparkly red walls in my apartment, much like the ones in Beauty Bar. That and I have lots of shiny, sparkly people in my life who make me laugh till I pee my pants and for that I am grateful. We spent part of Sunday driving down Rte. 1 to Pescadero for the incomparable cream of artichoke/cream of green chile soup and ollalieberry pie at Duarte’s Tavern. The day was perfect: slight breeze, sunshine, tons of people out at a plane/car show in Half Moon Bay…we opened the sunroof and soaked up the heat. Heaven.

And now, I am knocking off work early to go lie on Mae’s couch, watch cheesy romantic comedies, and eat cupcakes. Bliss.

ow, ow, ow! and yum!

As if to tease me, my under-functioning muscles keep spazzing out, randomly. In particular, the one behind my left eyelid keeps twitchtwitchtwitching, and it's making me psypsypsycho! For the last hour, I've been fantasizing about gouging my eyeball out with a spork and punching the offending muscle. I might also be suffering from 'roid rage.

But then I had some of the delicious Humboldt Fog blue cheese that I bought from Cowgirl Creamery and things are looking up again.

So there's always something funny

Mae and I discovered over lunch today that when I try to flare my nostrils, only one nostril goes! And I drool a little out of the left corner of my mouth. Fun!

Hell's Bell's

It's weird how things can change so quickly in life. Today, an ER doctor diagnosed me with Bell's palsy, a facial paralysis condition caused by damage to the facial nerve. About four days ago, I noticed that the front of my tongue felt ever-so-slightly numb--as if I'd burned it drinking something just a tiny bit too hot. But I couldn't remember doing that. Then there was the chronic ache that started in my neck and the back of my skull, then wrapped around to my left ear. On top of that was the weird sensitivity to sounds. Everything sounded just a tiny bit too loud in my left ear. Then this morning, I woke up to find that the left side of my face felt slack and the muscles were all stiff and difficult to move (except for when they were freaking out and twitching like heroin junkie in withdrawal).

Chris took me to the ER in the mid-afternoon, and pretty soon, I was hearing the words "Bell's palsy," "corticosteroids and anti-virals," and "partial paralysis." It's a little scary. Of course, there's no definitive cause of Bell's palsy, just as there's no sure-fire cure. And if you're like me, you will Google the hell out of Bell's palsy and freak yourself out by reading phrases like "80% cured within 3 months" next to phrases like "facial nerve repair" and "muscle transposition" for the other 20%. And there's a theory that it's something that runs in families, which makes the fact that my dad was diagnosed with the same thing less than 2 years ago less weird.

The things to be most worried about in the short term, apparently, is my left eye. Since the lid is suffering from partial paralysis, there's the possibility that my eye could get dried out and the cornea damaged. So I have a regimen of artificial tears to go along with the corticosteroids and the anti-virals. At night, I even have to tape the lid shut to make sure it doesn't dry out. One Web site even mentioned the possibility of an eye patch, which makes the whole deal more pirate-y. Which is good, I suppose, but any funny is effectively cancelled by the potential for drooling. Well, maybe drooling makes it funnier for everyone else.

And so we are pronounced... (photo courtesy of Michael Huang) 

Story the third

Remember how I said the wedding knocked my socks off? It really did! Well, one sock. See, I'm generally opposed to pantyhose, especially the full length ones, because they're difficult to get on straight so you end up feeling all twisted up and out of sorts. And then if you make the mistake of getting the hideous control-top ones, you feel like a sausage, stuffed and encased, and, weirdly enough, bulgy, which seems to defeat the whole control-top point. And then they make you all hot and sweaty in places where you'd prefer not to be (though don't buy into the Summer's Eve commercials that try to convince you that you should smell like roses down there). Point being, panythose? Suck.

But I wore closed-toe shoes at my wedding and I just knew my feet would be unhappy and blistery and the end of the night if I passed on nylons. So, my options: full-length pantyhose, knee-highs, or thigh-highs. You know how I feel about the full-length ones, I think. The knee-highs, while practical, make me feel too grandmotherly. Not that anyone would even KNOW I was wearing them, but I would know and that's enough for me. So thigh-highs, right? They sounds perfect: they don't bind your mid-section, they give your feet the necessary protection from your shoes, and hot damn, thigh highs are sexy. Heh.

So I got 'em. I checked out the band that's supposed to hug your thighs and noticed they had a nice wide elastic band that negates the need for garters. Awesome, right? Well, if you pay $18 for a single pair of thigh-high stockings, they'd better be awesome. And they were. I pulled them on and I felt like I was in one of those Hanes commercials, where every step is bouncy and I feel like I'm walking on clouds! Get dressed, get in the car with the girls, get to the Queen Mary for pictures. We're walking through the parking lot and suddenly...uh-oh. I feel this telltale...tug. "Um...hold on. One of my stockings is starting to slip." I discreetly hitched my skirt up a little, reached up and adjusted the stocking and kept walking. Thirty seconds later, I feel another slip, so the girls make a protective "barrier" around me so I can hike my skirt up over my knee and pull the stocking up. In the parking lot. Classy, no?

Not 10 seconds later, I feel it slip again but we're almost to the ship's entrance, so I figure I'll go inside to the bathroom to fix this. Five more steps and the entire stocking has tumbled down to my ankle, flapping with every step. Man, there is NOTHING sexier than having your pantyhose flopped around your ankle. Nothing. So I whipped it off and...handed it off to my sister, all wadded up. Yes, the pantyhose that my foot had been in. Nice, eh?* In the end, I had to go with the full length pantyhose I'd brought as back up. And guess what? I'd accidentally bought control tops! Gah!

*The girls were great about shit like that all night. I was chewing gum as we went to meet our photographer for pictures, but didn't have anywhere to spit my gum. So dear Mae, bless her heart, offered her hand and yes, sadly, I spit my chewed gum into it. I think we even did it a second time so we could get a picture of it. Friends like that make this life worthwhile.

And this is want I want to post today

I'm still too tired and discombobulated from work and life to post anything coherent and meaningful about our wedding. But I wanted to tell these two stories:

Story #1: The Electric Slide, Really!
Our wedding reception turned out to be a big party, just like we wanted. No one was shy about dancing, which warmed the cockles of my heart. I had explicity forbade a money dance, the chicken dance, and a conga line (though a conga line formed spontaneously, which...okay!), but I was powerless in the face of a veritable phalanx of Chinese parents doing the Electric Slide! I don't even know what I was doing, but I remember turning around and seeing an ARMY of middle-aged Chinese people grimly and doggedly line dancing! It was so totally weird and so totally awesome. Someone pointed out that they didn't even look like they were enjoying themselves, like doing a 70s disco move was a CHORE, but by God, they were going to do it! And do it, they did...forEVER. I think it was the longest song in the history of weddings, and they kicked and hitched and scooted for every last beat. Apparently, even our otherwise cool DJ was powerless against the pull of the Electric Slide and started doing it on stage. That, my friends, is FREAKIN' AWESOME!

Story #2: Not really a story, but it's about cake, so yay!
I loved our cake. On Rita's recommendation, we eschewed the traditional, dense cake and went for a light chiffon number from King's Hawaiian (yes, that King's Hawaiian!): chocolate cake with a filling of fresh strawberries and dobash (basically, chocolate pudding). Yum! The bakers left it basically unadorned: the square tiers had clusters of Swiss dots, but that's it. Our florist, however, waved her magic flower wand and poof! Gorgeous! Roses and gardenias on each tier, rose petals scattered around it. So, we go to do our cake cutting, pick up the knife and server, and come face to face with the reality that: we don't know how to do this. It sounds stupid, right? I mean, how many birthday cakes and such have each of us cut in our lifetimes? Plenty! And yet, faced with this beautiful confection, both of us were like, "Uhh..." So we just dove in and kind of...mauled...a corner of the bottom tier. It was kind of sad...this beautiful creation and we're sort of grimly hacking away at it. Finally, we each gouged out a semi-respectable chunk and just kind of shoveled it in each other's mouths. Turns out, there was almost no cake in those bites: just a huge gob of icing. Sadly, neither of us thought to actually have a piece of cake, in the end. I heard it was tasty, though.

I tried to post this last night, but Blogger was being bitchy:

9:14a.m.
Someone on the Internet thinks I am interested in tents. But they are also very sorry to have bothered me, in the case that I am not interested in tents. It’s the nicest, most apologetic spam, ever.

9:22a.m.
Huh. How sorry can they be? I just received my second tent spam in 10 minutes, from the same people. Best part? The subject line: “slaapzak franch.” The hell?

Do you have secret little things you take pleasures in? Not like that, I mean. Just little things. Like, two days ago, I was wearing my turtle underwear: blue, boy-cut underwear with cute little turtles printed all over.* And today, I’m wearing stripey underwear and what seem like boring black socks, but up near the elastic, they have penguins and igloos printed on them. Most of my socks have something on them: dogs, cats, frogs, giraffes, monkeys. No one knows but me, but I can’t help grinning every time I think about the fact that my ass is nestled in turtle underpants.

*If you haven’t already guessed, I’m not a Victoria’s Secret girl. I don’t have the personality required to deal with butt floss.

2:11p.m.
Hate. Don’t need a tent. Don’t want a tent. Didn’t ask for a tent. But I do have these tent stakes. Wherever shall I shove them?

2:30p.m.
Fucking Gmail. Fuck fuck fuck!

11:15p.m.
One might go to a Pie Party and not eat any pie, because one might've decided to lie down for a bit and therefore missed all the pie. One might, then, decide to eat too much ice cream and experience an exhilarating sugar high. One might now be crashing. Zzzz...

In brief

Wedding: Abso-fucking-lutely amazing.
Honeymoon: Awesome. (Sea turtles!)
Work: Insane
Connecticut's CT1040NR/PY Part-Year resident form: Kicking my ass nine ways to Sunday.

I've been meaning to post about the wedding, but we went on our honeymoon, drove our married selves and cats back to San Francisco this past Sunday, and went back to work. Oh, and Chris got a horrific case of food poisoning on Monday (if you've never heard Chris vomit, consider yourself--and your eardrums--lucky). Neither of us has unpacked our suitcases, the apartment is in shambles, our tax returns are in various states of doneness, Carlo's getting more manic by the second, and work has taken some interesting turns that will mean spending a goodly amount of non-work time reading and learning about work stuff. Oh, and my 30th birthday is coming up, as is Mae's, though she has promised to die of alcohol poisoning on her day, so I have to add "cart Mae's drunk ass to the E.R. on the 16th" to my to-do list. Hi Mae!

But, a post-wedding recap and pictures are forthcoming. Y'all, it rocked my socks off. Literally!