No mini cheeses ready-to-go, so I order a single-topping mushroom medium and loiter. This is nowhere in a fancy-to-be patch of southwest Las Vegas, but you still get all types. I peoplewatch a little, but I don't want to make eye contact. The last thing I want is to be that banged up chick in the Tigger shirt caught staring at the customers. Instead, I notice a Hostess product called Chocodiles and, knowing I've got some Johnny Depp version of myself framing this scene, I think about the wine. Big, purple bottles of it. Bigger and colder than plastic cream sodas. If I stop thinking these things, my skin will notice, and I don't want that.
You got to drink a lot of fluids in the desert. Stay healthy. Take good care of yourself. The same thing they tell you in Boston boardrooms. Vancouver or Sydney, everyone's supposed to be hydrated and get plenty of rest.
I got enough rest today. I stayed up too late, messing with my newly arrived boxes (only two lost! a coup in thirty-plus years of moving!), which means I didn't get to sleep 'til nearly noon. Jumped up at six, spidey senses tingling, and ran out the door to my night class. Not too unusual. Better than all those days teaching high school without a sip or bite or tinkle between 6 am and 6 pm. Ah, summer. It may be 100 degrees at midnight here, but it's all just jumping from one air conditioned pod to the next.
So there I was at school, and it's warm as bloody Giza outside the classroom, but we're all inside soon enough and watching the IMAX movie about the '96 Everest expedition. (I thought grad school was going to be all about twenty-page papers and my academic inadequacy finally being revealed. Ah, summer, indeed.)
An hour passes and we're watching Beck Weathers talk about how rotten it is to be left for dead on a mountain. Hard choices. Good job reconstructing the parts of his face lost to frostbite, though. I idly notice one of my classmates leave for the restroom or a drink, something. What I don't expect is my brain to say MAYBE YOU OUGHT TO GET UP AND LEAVE TOO.
What? Why?
I'm not sure whether my brain was actually speaking in capital letters. Maybe it was more like italics. Like this: Go on. You don't feel quite right. Other people leave the class. Go ahead and leave class. Maybe bring your notebook. No? Well, just leave, then.
And because I didn't have a good counter-argument, and because I didn't feel quite right -- a little snuffly from sleeping with the A/C too high? -- I'm out the door.
Whoa. Whooooooa. This is....
...*&#%
(I know this.)
My head is swimmy and drowning fast. There goes my hearing. Not ringing, more like... stuffing. The world is pulling out and soon I will be left on the vector grid alone here. Got to sit down. No. Got to... bathroom? Cold... water? tile? Near? Sure... just...
...hug the wall... stucco, lots of grip... gee, this is really going to happen -- not getting better. Maybe sit right here? Bathroom? Around a corner? No, not this corner but, you know, why not? I guess, I guess...
THUD.
...
...
"...or a cold towel?"
swim, swim
"...something?"
bobbing, catch breath
When I was 18, 19, I used to walk six miles a day. I wore Capezio street soled jazz shoes and never had a blister. I walked three miles to Kroger, past two other grocery stores, then turned around and came home. I was young, super fit, and if I got thirsty, strip malls abounded.
I didn't get thirsty. I got sick.
I'd pop into a TCBY for a juice. The girl behind the counter would ask me something. I'd see lips move, but the world was swimming away. No clue what she said, but I'd follow the usual script and order my drink. Ten, twenty minutes later, cooled down and with some sugar in me, I'd be back home.
It got worse, though. Thirty minutes into an outdoor concert, ten minutes into a stroll around the park, a day into hanging around the house eating normally and drinking water... and I'd be floating away from shore.
Heat issues? Sugar issues? I went to the doctor. Shrug. She said she couldn't pinpoint anything without a CAT scan, and since I didn't have insurance...
Life became more indoors, more sedentary. I have the tush to prove it. I hated the fear. I hated the thought of going out somewhere and then perhaps causing a scene by passing out. Not that I ever passed out, but this was too close. I only fainted once in my life, actually, and it's another story.
I called it being "spellish." As in, "I feel spellish, so I don't want to go out in public today."
And, eventually, my lifestyle changed many times over, and I forgot why it ever changed in the first place, and sometimes I wondered if a nice bottle of Dasani wouldn't have solved all of my problems (or even "problems") back then. (This was after Perrier but before Evian hit the middle class, you see.)
And then tonight... not thirsty... not even hot... it was 8 pm! I was watching a movie in a mini-auditorium! I've sat in there much thirstier, much hotter. I've trekked around parks and casinos and the desert with no problem.
Luckily a classmate found me, stayed with me, brought me wet and dry paper towels to clean up the blood. I must have slid down the rough wall before hitting the concrete -- how else are there so many scrapes in so many different places? He sat with me until the tides receded and I could hear and focus away from all those golden flecks. Nice guy.
My brow was liquid, but I felt better, like a fever'd broken. Made clumsy excuses to my baffled professor. Left. Stopped by the convenience store for this fast pizza with all of the food groups and some icy ginger ale. Came home. All bandaged up now. Hurts somewhat to type, but also feels good the way some things like that do.
And suddenly I remember what it was like to be afraid to go out in public -- hot or cold, in or out -- if there wasn't a clear escape route. THUD. So I'll cut my 19-year-old self some slack now, if that was the big spiritual point.
As for my thirty-five-year-old self, I guess I'll follow the "usual" advice a little harder. Heh. I used to find it interesting that I almost never sweat, no matter how hot it is. Now it just seems disturbing.
I still don't feel quite right. The colours are still a little trippy. No more unboxing tonight. Welcome to the desert -- now I've truly arrived.
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