apropos of anything

Empirical evidence from the last few months leads me to believe that my body responds to lack of sleep by expunging all the contents of my stomach in a violent and frequent manner. It may actually explain part of why I was sick at the end of my hajj trip; I didn’t exactly get much sleep the two days before we left.

If my theory is correct, I should start puking any minute now.

The interior of the Midtown Flying Biscuit, even though we ate outside

Sumaiya was in town this week. We went to the Midtown location of the Flying Biscuit Cafe for lunch on Wednesday because she would have to work later in the evening. I talked her into trying their fried green tomatoes, but she wouldn’t take a chance on the grits; I guess their reputation has spread even to Chicago. We sat outside, on the 10th St. side, swatting flies and feebly attempting to people-watch in a city where there are few people and many cars. When she dropped me back at work, I was sure I reeked, in a sat-outside-on-a-hot-day kind of way, but no matter how much I sniffed myself, I couldn’t exactly place the smell. I hid out in my cube the rest of the afternoon anyway, as it’s not particularly professional to spread the (possibly nonexistent) stink.

That night was the quesadilla incident, the details of which involve Drano and vomit, so I’m going to spare y’all. Let’s just say y’all have heard it before. Just imagine in the fuzzy parts and know that I was up later than I should have been.

Thursday I met her and her friend Mohasin, who I actually met ten years ago at Governor’s Honors, at the Borders on Ponce before we headed over to the Virginia Highlands for dinner. I wanted to make my way through my ever-increasing list of books to buy (the ever-increasing part courtesy of the Chicklit forums), and they needed an easily accessible place to meet me, so there you go. As we were getting into the car, a panhandler came up asking for money for his three kids and blah blah blah. I’m not fond of panhandlers, but I also have a hard time saying no to them… but I didn’t actually have anything other than twenties, so Sumaiya and Mohasin, who have no qualms at all about ignoring panhandlers, had to cover me. There are times when I could give even Joey Potter lessons in spinelessness.

	Mmmmmmmmmmm.

I picked the Highlands because it’s a fun part of town, and we could walk around until we found a restaurant to our liking. Eventually we settled on Pad Thai, where the food was not actually very good, but the atmosphere was nice and the restaurant not crowded. It’s next door to Paulo’s Gelato, and how do you skip lemon and cinnamon gelato shaped like Mickey Mouse or a sailboat? You don’t, obviously, although we opted for green apple and papaya, sans mouse ears. The waitress narrowly avoided dropping our ice cream (because she was doubled over in laughter) when I insisted on paying because Sumaiya had already bought dinner and “paid for the man.” The panhandler man, I meant. Out of context, within spitting distance of the Clarimont Hotel… yeah, I should have known better.

As we always do, Sumaiya and I were up late Thursday night, catching up. Day (or is that night?) two.

Tonight was Khurram and Ferheen’s wedding… in Greenville. Because we caught the beginnings of Friday-afternoon rush-hour traffic, the drive there took just under three hours, destroying my carefully crafted plans for a cat nap before the wedding. We had just enough time to dress and rush over to the reception hall to join the baraat as it came in. Fatima and I left around eleven so we wouldn’t get home too late. Also because we were both fading fast, and we had a two-hour drive ahead of us. We were actually fading so fast I’m a little surprised we made it back safely, particularly after I tried to make a u-turn over what I thought was a gore but actually was a grassy median.

And now here we are. Late, and I’m blogging, despite running on very little sleep over the course of three days. Very tired and also worried about the whole no sleep equals ….bad ramifications thing. If I’d any sense at all, I’d be asleep right now, but… have y’all read the Drano entries?

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