A Vomit Story.

A couple days ago I was talking to my brother about some video he has of himself, drinking a gallon of milk, followed by puking it on someone's driveway shortly before said driveway's owner had a birthday party for his child. He followed this disgusting, in-deep-detail story of vomit with, "you should watch it sometime!" Let’s not forget the joyous, toothy emoticon that he sent me that ended our vomit conversation.

Suddenly, I had a brain meltdown and acid flashbacks from the acid I never did. It felt as though my mind fell into a black hole and I ended up in some part of my brain that only remembered all the vomit I’ve ever vomited in my entire life, every single horrifying moment where I thought I’d puke my brains out and die by drowning myself in the toilet bowl.

Flash back to 1992. I'm 7 years old and a student at the Lycee Francais, a private French school where they stuck the non-French speaking American kids in a room with Muzzy tapes. Muzzy was like the cookie monster, only fatter, dumber, unpopular and was always trying to fit in one way or another and no one ever took him seriously. Muzzy pretty much started every conversation in French introducing himself to another character saying, “I am the Great Muzzy!” All I know is that if I ran around introducing myself as THE GREAT ERIKA, I would have been put into a mental institution long ago.

The most humiliating day of my life was my first Vomit Day. I call it “Vomit Day” because it was the first time I had ever seen another kid puke in school. It must have been in the fall or winter, because I was wearing heavy jeans littered with tactfully, fashionably placed bleach marks and a heavy sweatshirt that I believe was red, knitted with dumb designs and I’m pretty sure my parents hated me for making me wear it. If they did not hate me, then they might as have been really high. It sort of explains why I’ve seen Puff the Magic Dragon so many times. It’s bad enough I had the teeth of a goblin, but dressing me like Kool-Aid man didn’t help my cause.

My classroom was enormous; I vaguely remember counting the steps it took me to get from my chair to the bathroom, which was a unisex bathroom, shared by two classrooms. It made for awkward situations when I’d be peeing and a child from the other classroom would open the door because the doors never locked. I’m pretty sure that it was illegal to subject children to that type of bathroom torture but I guess the French are free-spirited - even down to bathroom privacy. I now cannot pee unless doors are locked, otherwise I hold the doors shut and scream, “THIS STALL IS NOT AVAILABLE!” when I see feet walk by. Sometimes I take extra precaution and say it when I hear the door open, before someone has the time to figure out which stall I’m in.

Vomit Day was the day that I vowed to never wear my red sweatshirt again, as it was the most horrible day of my life. Like I said, my classroom as gigantic. We had an enormous, bright-blue table shaped like a “U,” and we had cubbies on one end of the classroom and arts & craft supplies on the other. I sat in the middle of the U, far from the cubbies and the furthest from the bathroom. I can’t remember if it was Thanksgiving, Christmas or just some bull-shit card making day but it was one of those days where we were making cards for our parents. I’m in the middle of writing, “DEAR MOM & DAD” when the unthinkable happens. The fattest kid in the entire class stands up and projectile vomits all over his clothes, his arts and crafts, his table buddies and everything around him, including at least 20 letters to mom and dad. It turned into a puke-fest because everyone started gagging and puking right along with him. I remember seeing the vomit slowly flowing like lava to the end of the table, dripping onto the floor, taking out pencils, crayons and anything that got caught in it’s path. Big chunks of probably croissants and cheese were everywhere, and everyone was stepping in them. It felt like I was in slow motion, seeing every single chunk and string of mouth-goo take out an entire half a room. It was like a war movie but instead of bullets there was chunks of undigested food and instead of blood there was yellow bile. The room smelled like death within 30 seconds and that’s when it hit me.

My stomach started to turn instantly. My nose was pinching itself shut, my eyes were closing and suddenly I was running towards the bathroom and I don’t think my feet have ever hit the floor at such fast speeds since. What I’ll never understand is how I ended up being the only one in the bathroom, how all the kids that were literally a foot away from the toilet never managed to make it - but I guess having to shred some humility was the power being holding it for so long, but I made it. I did, however, make it straight to the toilet and did not have enough time to close the door from the other classroom that shared the bathroom. They were older children, meaner children and after what seemed like an eternity the teacher from the other class just shut the door behind me. I’m pretty sure she pretended like nothing happened and didn’t bother to see if I was going to die; clearly I didn’t. I literally wept as I vomited my little guts out. I ended up getting snot and voms all over my damn red sweatshirt. I waited until MY teacher knocked on the door to ask if I was okay before I came out. I had enough time to try to wash off my damn red sweatshirt, but it never took away the puke smell. I spent the entire rest of the week being completely humiliated, as if I was the one that started the puke-fest.

To this day, I hate puke. I hate puke to the point where if I smell it, even if it’s mine, I scream in horror like I’m being stabbed to death. I even have an aversion to wearing the color red. I only own one dress in red and I still feel like I can smell the vomit when I wear it, which is rarely. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that if you have a puke video for me to watch, just know that I never will. If you’re ever drunk and puking, I will be unavailable to help you. If you’re sick, dying and puking - I cannot be there by your side. I am horrified by puke. But at a minimum, this story of my hatred of puke came from it.

Inspiration.

Sometimes I don't understand why I don't have a nice bed. I literally spend all my time in bed. If I'm not cooking, I'm in bed. I literally have turned into a pile of wet shit because I cannot seem to NOT HURT SOMEWHERE which prevents me from doing anything other than living in my bed. Obviously I sleep and fuck in bed. But it's more than that. It's my writing. It's my tv watching. It's my (un)comfortable table when I don't want to eat downstairs. I literally can do everything other than take a piss/shit on my bed but i guess i can do that too if i lined my bed with plastic wrap. I'm considering custom ordering a 6 foot wide roll of plastic wrap and put it on the head of my bed and pull down when needed. I suppose this could be rather disgusting, but when you're as nuts as I am, I guess sitting in your own feces on your bed could possibly be an option in life.

Anyway, I'm back to being an invalid. Not INVALID as in YOUR CREDIT CARD IS INVALID but IN-VAH-LID. As in, cripple. I donlt know what I did but I can barely walk and I'm a miserable fucking bitch. I bitch, whine, cry, whimper, screech, scream, growl, bite and anything short of having rabies. Rabies will come along sometime later this week when I'm still miserable and I'm found laying in the middle of a park at night being bitten by raccoons and squirrels. I bet that would be more pleasurable than laying in my God damn uncomfortable bed that makes me want to jab myself with blunt and rusty objects.

My point is that my bed is a piece of shit. It's been a piece of shit since I got it and I've done nothing but complain about having a shitty bed and have done nothing about it for nearly 10 years and now I'm suffering. I think beds should come with a counter and count how many times the best has been rocked back and forth during tantric sexy times and after X amount of uses it either releases biological weapons of mass destruction or it blows up. I guess that would be a tactical move for a fascist president, a career I'm strongly considering.

You and me - we're two peas from the same pod, only to be torn apart and sold in different cans.

Sometimes an opening line on a blog can be really, really difficult. I just found myself sitting here at a pause. literally. like a 20 second pause, staring at that damn can picture and trying to figure out what the Hell to write. I opened this blog with certain things to write about, certain things to rant about, certain things to lie (or not) about.

Suddenly I start writing and every thought in my head I had literally disappeared. Imagine when you're at the beach and there's like 60 fucking seagulls and every time you see the flock of seagulls you need to run into them to see if maybe THIS will be the day where you either catch one or get close enough to touch one? Well, I am just that. I am chasing my own brain, for it only to break apart into a million seagulls and fly off into distance. I smile, I giggle - and then I realize that I am left with no seagulls to play with, I certainly didn't close enough to touch one and now I just looked like a damn fool running to them thinking I'd get one for once. I guess if I caught one I'd probably try to eat it because that's what I do with everything else.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that I am incapable of writing what I wanted to. It's probably because I'm either too deep in thought or because I'm not deep enough. You know sometimes when you're so deep into whatever you're thinking about you can't put it into words because no matter how you say it, or write it, it just doesn't make sense because they're just jumbled thoughts that are barely lucid in your own mind? Or maybe I am crazy. More than likely the latter, which is nothing surprising.

I should probably smoke a bowl, relax, get in my writing zone to get these thoughts out of my head but i will probably start having paranoia over my itching foot or i will have closed eye hallucinations of form interrogatories. the last thing i want to think about is lawyer work when i'm in la la writer's land.

i'll get back to this blog when i'm either really pissed off or just back to being plain ol' crazy.

Blood Thirsty.

The past week has been challenging. I feel like this is a week-long rite of passage test and if i do not argue with everyone in my path than i am not a fully-fledged Cuban woman.

In the past week I have argued with nearly everyone and now I'm on the path for pure blood. I might as well take up murder as a hobby because clearly arguing with idiots is not solving any problems. Lately I've been arguing about everything from politics (extremism/radicalism and lack of compromise and alternative answers), eating habits/choices (animal rights and tasty dishes), children (no thanks), marriage (no thanks), life (mine's great, thanks) and bullshit (literally).

See, I do not do well with people telling me what to do with my life. I've had more people in the past week telling me to do things in my life, all of which make ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE that I'm just at the point where the next person that tells me what to do I am probably going to put a bullet between their eyes and eat their brains with hot sauce. if currently no such thing as "mad human disease" exists, there will be by the time I am done. Cows will not be the only subjects of foaming madness.

The most ludicrous shit I've heard this week is that i need to get married and have babies because i'm not getting any younger. if someone could tolerate me for life that would be a devil's dream come true. i am like horny Satan; i need my dildo carrying, dirty-talking Saddam as my abusive partner. sometimes i need to get slapped in the face with rubbery red dildos and chained up in a ring of fire. I need to be told to "relax... guy" and be verbally and physically raped. The only difference is that since I'm a dirty Satan I'll tolerate it and eat it up rather than to banish him from Hell. And of all things, if i was pregnant, the baby would probably come out feverishly angry and try to eat me for subjecting it to my madness for 9 months. i wouldn't be surprised if i somehow had a glock 17 in my womb and when the fetus had fully formed hands it decided that suicide would be its best way out than to have to deal with me until i die and then incurr the costs of getting rid of me. i feel sorry for the bastard child i will have one day. that poor kid will need a lot of therapy.

Insatiability.

Chardonnay... The end-all of boundaries, internal filters and the barely measurable iota of sanity.

I'm considering a career in drunk blogging. Fuck sobriety and any ounce of hope I had in owning a Cuban restaurant. What i really need is a world-famous drunk blog. See, what I need to share with the world is that being a sloppy drunk can be a GREAT thing. What I've learned through Big-Bird and a couple of idiots that I know is that drunken honesty is the key to life. It will help you tell a person you love them. It will also help you tell a person that you want to fuck his/her brains out and when you're done you'd like to eat his/her body like a praying mantis would but only to be half-eaten and left alive with rabies. Honesty is infectious. It's necrosis of the mind. It's incurable, untouchable and painstakingly difficult to battle. Don't bother even trying to fight it because you will be left with scars so deep that all the laser treatment in the would could not erase away the memories.

Drips.

I want a caffeine drip. Caffeine keeps me going when I don't want to be - or have to be. Sometimes I wonder how caffeine is legal because I swear nothing can be worse (i say this with love) than a pseudo drug that is available everywhere: markets; gas stations; STARBUCKS; restaurants; movie theatres and probably public bathrooms and when I find that public bathroom I will never leave it. I'll be the creep in the corner stall with my pants down, glued to my seat ordering a venti latte to be delivered under the stall door. i'll keep buckets of quarters around me at all times for tips.

I just wanted to say that caffeine is the greatest thing in the world. I'm not trying to deflect the negatives of caffeine, but rather, support the goodness of the 'evil' world of arabica and robusto. to support my argument - here are a few 'unknown' facts about caffeine:

1) When you're wanting to diet and dieting isn't working, caffeine will curb your cravings for everything.

2) When you're tired, grumpy, hungover or in a comatose, caffeine will energize you without the side effects of a major drug habit. plus, it's not as costly.

3) Did i mention caffeine is cheap drug?

4) When you're stressed, hate life, want to kill everything and everyone around you and think your world is going to shit, caffeine will give you the biggest anxiety attack in the world to prove to you that YOU ARE NOT DYING and to worry/care a Hell of a lot less.

5) It makes conversation a lot easier. You'll become chatty, thus, taking over any awkward silence between people and allowing limitless banter to flow from your lips, drowning out any BS that may come from another person you'd rather not be talking to. and;

6) it's tasty. and i mean - sincerely. it makes everything taste good. it would make dog shit taste good if you dipped it in a latte or something.

For now, that will suffice as my argument to be pro-caffeine. Be prepared for a much more indepth, obnoxiously written post about caffeine. but i do ask that in the meantime, you support your local coffee shop (corporate or otherwise) and indulge in legal crack.

Filters.

I have disappointed myself. My mind has been flaccid and I'm not sure what I need to stimulate it. Clearly not drugs, not alcohol - food is always stimulating but it's just enough to get me by without falling asleep. I've had a couple of good highs being head deep in farmer's market bins with legumes and rice but I haven't had a major mind orgasm in a while and I guess that's why I have not blogged. Or maybe another reason is that I am just lazy and have chosen to occupy my free time by reading books revolving around nutritional anthropology, therefore making me just 1 step up above awesome because it just shows that I take my food seriously. The incessant need to know absolutely everything about food is just as bad as people with OCD washing their hands 100 times a day. I wash my brain so much with information that every once in a while it gets jumbled in my mind as one fatty, grizzled thought and then I sit there blank-faced trying to remember what I just read, with all my dates and names and miscellaneous mental notes i've taken. Sometimes it feels like someone crammed a ton of newspapers in my head, got frustrated with trying to find a certain article and then said FUCK THIS and lit it all on fire. Of course I feel like my head is made out of something flamable (is crazy flamable? is it even an element? can it be put on the table of elements?) and said fire just completely blows my mind off. Well, whatever chemical reaction it is in my brain, the outcome pisses me off. I just know that I know why British food sucks a fat one and although I get the reason, it does not mean that TODAY it should still suck. My theory is that what the English believe is "aint broke" they "aint fixin' it." Well, someone get a loud speaker and park me on Big Ben because I would like to proclaim to all of London that I can fix their shitty food problem with a bit of history and a plan to NOT keep repeating it. It's really that simple. I will fix the world, one shitty dish at a time.