I know, I know...

It's been forEVER. I'm horrible. I'm bad.

I've had a rough week.

A week ago, I was stupidly drunk and broke my elbow. Again. I don't have to have a cast this time (it was very small and there's some tissue and fluid that had kind of built itself around my elbow from the last time that protected it a little), but it still hurts. I will write more on it later, but put it this way - I have learned that shopping carts may be fun, but their power needs to be RESPECTED.

My brother Parker came to visit for the weekend, whereupon 2 Harringtons and a few others consumed two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I was already on this train after the elbow incident, but I am laying off the sauce for a WHILE.

I've been working my butt off.

And I had a bit of a scare. Wednesday night, I was on the phone with my friend Beth and suddenly felt a little...odd. I got off the phone with her, and about ten minutes later, my entire body was CONSUMED with a severe allergic reaction to SOMEthing. I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, but even then, there was nothing I had never eaten before. I'm telling you, it was BAD. Like those kids you get warned about with peanut butter bad. My whole body swelled, I got hives like you read about, had labored and shallow breathing, and my throat started to narrow significantly. After tearing the house apart, I took THREE Benadryl tablets. I almost called my roommate, but decided against it because by the time she got home from work, it would probably die down or I'd be dead anyway. I called Cara, who seems to know protocol for stuff like that given the fact that she's had minimal first aid training in flight attendant school. She yelled at me a little bit for not having an EpiPen, and then she told me to go smoke a cigarette or find a nicotine patch. Before you yell at me for smoking, it WAS kind of good advice. Cigarettes, in a pinch, are minor broncho-dialators, and it calms nerves in a chemical way. Since an allergic reaction is basically your body over-reacting to whatever allergen you've encountered (not the actual allergen itself), I complied. After about 30 minutes, the Benadryl and nicotine kicked in and my skin settled down. A little bit. Now I'm left with about 15-20 HUGE welts all over my arms and legs. Have no idea what caused it. I've only had anything like that in two different situations - whenever I get stung by a bee (which is why I should have had an EpiPen - and in case anyone ever is with me and I get stung by one, YES, I am very allergic), and ONCE when I was in Venice, Italy and got bitten by some rare but insanely allergic-reaction-inducing mosquito. Since I couldn't recall being stung, the doctor surmised that it was some sort of mosquito.

So that's kind of it, it's been a LONG week!

Cleaned the house from top to bottom this weekend (my roommate and I decided that if there's any sort of bug in the house that caused the reaction, it might be good to wash EVERYTHING in ultra-hot water and get some Borax out), and other than that, I've been taking it somewhat easy. Sorry, no hugely fun stories from the single life. After all, I look like I've got a big old case of leprosy due to this bug-bite saga.