Before I get into the subject matter of the title, let me just say I’ve decided to go with the flow.

In general, I am NOT a ‘go with the flow’ person. I am a ‘battle upstream and crush the will of anyone trying to oppose my agenda’ person…not that I’m proud of that.

At the same time, I am a true believer in nature/nurture, and – as near as I can tell – it’s all nature, baby.

My mother tells a story that I was 18 months old and playpen-bound, when my father and she started some minor remodeling. Apparently they were repainting the living room, and put me (in said playpen) in the room while they worked. (And Dad, feel free to chime in if this is nonsense, as this is not a story where I come out looking like Ms. Awesome Toddler 1974.)

And by day two I was throwing every toy in the pen at them and screaming at the top of my lungs.

This may or may not be true.

However, when I imagine having to sit in a small, enclosed space and watch two people paint and ignore me, the thought of having stuff to throw at them is strangely calming. So I don’t rule it out.

What I’m saying is that I am wired to be HIGHLY STRESSED by the current f-ed up state of the blog (appearance -wise. I am, in fact, cogently aware and grateful that it’s up and visible and more or less intact despite it all, and I’m willfully focusing on that fact. Actually, the last time the blog went nuts I suggested moving to a ‘generic’ format: Black on white, non-de-script font, and UPC codes here and there . Zen and non-committed blog, if you will).

Anyway, nature aside, I’ve decided to embrace the chaos and go with it and trust that it will work out (via the excellent feedback of my genius readers or some other measure) one way or another.

Make it so.

MEANWHILE…the oysters of the world are onto me.

Word has spread.

So if you have an oyster serial killer streak, I suggest that you do not start a blog and commence bragging about it. Never mention the words ‘oyster’ and ‘it puts the cocktail sauce in the basket’ in the same sentence.

‘So, what’s happened?,’ you ask.

Well, I discovered that the even more local grocery store will sell you SIX monster great-great-grandfather oysters for $.20 each (six for $1.25…whatever that works out to) and those oysters are trying to kill me.

Seriously, I am skilled and I am determine, but those bastards will not budge.

So I was working on a dandy that was at least 2″ by 7″ (a monster! The oysters inside border on unmanageable and – this coming from me – unappetizing. Ron Jeremy is fascinating in theory, but not on the half-shell), and I had my typical towel/oyster knife/hand protection stance going, and I got in under the joint and wedged the knife deep and twisted…and felt the cold spray of mud and the hard impact of calcium as the shell shattered and hit me like a bullet.

Seriously.

It split my lip.

And covered my face in mud, but that was secondary.

In short, egg on your face is nothing next to oyster in your lip.

And watch your back, fellow oyster killers.

They’re reading the blogs, and they’re pissed.

You know, a low-level sense of worry ran through me late last night shortly after finishing my post. I was drinking a glass of water before heading to bed, and realized that my stomach was a little upset. And it kind of tasted like oysters.

On the other hand, I’d eaten them over eight hours earlier. And followed them up with a rice and chicken dinner. What could possibly go wrong???

Well, it turns out a lot. 

As I lay there in the wee hours tossing and turning and watching my five hours of sleep tick away to four, three, two, and then one, I realized I didn’t feel right. And I started doing the math on the probable timeline for food poisoning. And it wasn’t a slam dunk that my ocean snack was the culprit, but it wasn’t looking good.

First I was too hot and then too cold. I had the chills. I couldn’t get comfortable. My head hurt. My stomach felt super bloated. And there were some unfortunate gurgling sounds coming from it. And the words to The Real Slim Shady would not stop running through my mind, “And would the real Shady please stand up. And put one of the fingers on each hand up. And be proud to be out of your mind and out of control and one more time as loud as you can and how does it go….”

Around 2:30 am, (“Feminist women love Eminem. ‘Slim Shady, I’m sick of him…’”) a low grade panic set in.

And at 3:00 am (And there’s a million of us just like me, who dress like me, walk, talk, and act like me) I took an antacid (wishful thinking) and a melatonin (hoping to sleep at least a little bit – probably more wishful thinking).

And by 3:30 am (“Cause I’m Slim Shady, yes I’m the real Shady. All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating…”), I caved and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. It could be a flu or a 24-hour bug, but it also could be something I ate. So I went and took some activated charcoal (which is amazing stuff that sucks up everything in your intestines. Including prescriptions and the pills I’d just taken, which is why I hesitated at first).

And then I lay there watching a mental ‘bad trip montage’ like in a movie, with the word “OY-STERS” repeating to the tune of Slim Shady and images of them on the half shell and the startling memory of the one that had the small hole in the shell that didn’t go all the way through, but honestly only had a thin mother of pearl-esque barrier between it and the outside world, and a growing concern that the day ahead was going to be very long and very lame indeed.

Food poisoning sucks.

Food poisoning while on three separate flights to get to the other side of the country would probably really, really, REALLY suck.

So, to move the story along, things were wild and wooly for a few hours there, including some lengthy and violent bouts of the infamous “I’m about to toss my cookies” cough.

And I took another dose of activated charcoal before leaving for the airport.

And then I almost barfed in the car on the way to the airport.

But I didn’t.

And now it’s 8:00 am, and I’m on my first flight, and I’ve (so far) kept down the bowl of Cheerios they’ve given me and the charcoal has been confirmed as having made it completely through my system, and gratefully I am en route to a state where it’s probably going to be hard to get my hands on any oysters, and I honestly will not be looking.

At least until the memory fades a little bit.

Crisis seemingly averted.

Presence of barf bag in seat pocket in front of me confirmed.

Pants re-buttoned and no longer causing boa constrictor-like crushing pain.

I think I’m going to make it through this one unscathed.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Lesson learned.

For the moment, anyway.

In less than a week.

A really frigging expensive Mac, if that counts for anything.

And a brand new aluminum MacBook, as well (which is somewhat redundant to the sentence above, but not so much if you’ve never looked into the pricing).

It lasted five days before the hard drive screeched to a grinding, crunchy halt.

I’m not happy about it, and I don’t get it, but apparently I’m some kind of Kiss of the Spiderwoman curse for laptops of any make, creed, origin, or operating system.

A friend suggested that the problem is electromagnetic in nature. Like I’m electromagnetic, that is, and have some freaky brain waves that fry the poor, helpless mechanical gears to tiny bits. If there ever is a rising of the machines, I may be our secret weapon.

Basically, I’m like Powder without the albinism. And with eyebrows. And with a whole big pile of broken computer parts.

In other news, and probably not related (but maybe related??? You be the judge), I have been on an osyter bender.

It all started on Wednesday when I discovered that a grocery store near my home was selling fresh oysters for $.50 each. Fifty cents!!! Fiddy cents!!!!

So I bought a dozen.

And when I discovered that they were fresh and non-poisoning, I asked a friend (who lives a mere two blocks from said grocery store) to bring two dozen when she came over for dinner that night.

And then Friday, tragedy struck. They only had five left.

But the five were good, and I enjoyed them and tried not to think about the fact that I was seven short of a healthy dozen. Life is hard sometimes. Especially if you’re an oyster within a five-mile radius of my mouth.

Then on Saturday, tragedy became ecstasy when I discovered that they had three dozen baby oysters and they were selling them for only $.25 each!!!!

Here’s where I made a bad call: I only took two of the three dozen. I didn’t want to seem greedy. Or obsessed. Or addicted.

But I’ll tell you what, as I was eighteen into my delicious stash, I lamented passing on the last dozen. I thought of them there  lying on the cold ice with no one to eat them, and if the grocery store weren’t currently overly difficult to reach due to some road construction in between our two locations, I would have gone back.

And if I could have coerced someone to go for me, I would have.

But alas, it was not to be.

On Sunday, as you know, I rest. And that includes the murderous slaughter of raw oysters. It’s a god thing.

Lastly – and you can probably see this coming – this morning I stopped by a different store location of the same chain and discovered some super huge mamas for $.79 each. Due to the unexpected price hike, I elected to purchase just 12.

Somehow during the chitchat process of getting my oysters from the guy behind the counter, I somehow let it slip that I was psychotically obsessed with the obtaining and eating of oysters. And that I eat them raw.

“You’re going to eat a dozen oysters?”

“Um. No. Maybe. Um. Yes. Yes, I am.”

“You can eat a dozen oysters?”

“Um. No.  Probably not. Well, yeah. I can. I have a good metabolism…”

“You eat them raw!?”

“Yep.”

“I’m afraid to eat them raw.”

“Yep.”

“I ate ten once.”

He grilled them. And poured tequila on them to make sure they were dead, or at least knocked out. And I was very sweet and pretended to be interested, but in my head another voice was talking and it said, “Buddy, ten oysters is for amateurs. I could do ten in my sleep. And, in fact, just two days ago I ate TWENTY-FOUR standing at my counter, shucking and pouring them down my pie hole. How ya like me now?”

But I didn’t. I took my bounty, and I left, and I ate them all for lunch.

This brings me to another thought: Does anybody know if there’s an oyster eating contest, because I think I could sweep the thing?

I’m in hand-to-hand combat with an abysmal internet connection.

This is only  marginally preferable to no internet connection (i.e. my status for the last couple days).

To catch you up, I’m staying in a little cabin right off the water and shirking all of my primary responsibilities. I’ve come to appreciate that responsibility shirking may be what I was put on this earth to do. That or sleep and have crazy dreams, a skill I possess to a degree that can only be called a gift.

What I was NOT put on this earth to do includes (in no particular order):

• Downhill ski
• Salsa dance
• Keep African Violets alive
• Anything involving staring into people’s open mouths and touching their teeth.
• Work on a chain gang
• Mule drugs across the Mexican border
• Ultimate fight
• Snowboard
• Put false eyelashes on other people
• Raise pigeons/squab/any other secret code for ‘pigeon’
• Belly dance
• Teach at clown school
• Wrestle midgets in pudding (learned THAT the hard way!)
• Impersonate Madonna
• Stalk Madonna
• Forge checks drawn on any of Madonna’s bank accounts
• Name hurricanes (although I do feel it’s time we dug into the more ethnic names: Huricanes Beyonce, Cheech, and Plaxico already!)
• Skateboard professionally
• Build a rocket ship that actually works
• Swallow swords
• Swallow fire
• Swallow swallows
• Strip dance

I could go on, but it will get boring, and I care about you too much to do that to you.

However, on the topic of strip dancing, I do have something to share: You see, I remembered something yesterday while I was running in the woods. I’m doing a 12K race on Sunday, and I’ve been running a longer distance than usual – and doing so faster than usual – in the hopes of finishing in under an hour. Thus, I have additional time on my hands with which to think worthless thoughts.

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