I Literally Actually Can't: the Big Dumb Truth About Migraines (Part One)

The first migraine I remember happened when I was in kindergarten. I'd spent all afternoon trudging through reading Go, Dog. Go! (incidentally Go, Dog. Go! is actually the longest book in the the world) aloud to my mother, and I wanted to die. The pain was intense--I was unbelievably frustrated and wanted nothing more than to be left alone in silence, but when I was five, I had no way of articulating that. What I was able to articulate was "I don't want to read to Daddy." It was true--I didn't want to read to Daddy, but not out some desire to deprive him of father/daughter bonding time, but because I was a five year old in indescribable pain with no way to convince anyone that it existed. Kids don't get headaches, especially not migraines. Those are for adults with jobs and stress and shit. So I sat on the floor by my father and suffered through every last word of Go, Dog. Go!, ruining both my previous love of that literary classic and my will to read altogether. If reading was going to hurt like this, the written word could fuck off.

I was aware there was a problem, but it was exceptionally hard to explain. I didn't have more specific words than "my head hurts," and in general, no one believes kids. Teachers and nurses didn't believe me. I spent more and more time in the nurse's office with a cold pack on my head, and was only allowed to stay for ten minutes at a time, tops. The school couldn't give me medicine without a letter from my parents, and Tylenol did nothing anyway. They would put down a paper towel and make me stay on the cot. They could do nothing. I could do nothing. The paper towel could do nothing.

As I got a little older, the headaches got worse, and included more symptoms of migraine. I would be destroyed by nausea when I had a headache, which would leave me fearing that I had some sort of stomach virus. When I would throw up, I would break all the blood vessels in my face. Usually this meant I would be kept out of school the next day, because we still didn't know that it wasn't contagious. When it was suggested that I might be getting migraines, doctors and teachers and people that thought they new better told us "Kids don't get migraines!" again and again. At some point in second grade, my pediatrician mentioned something about migraines, but without a solid diagnosis, I was still shit outta luck. For years, the routine would be this:

Step one: Notice Pain

Were you working on that ditto? Not anymore, asshole.

Step Two: Ignore Pain

You can tough it out. You can tough it out. You can tough it out. You're strong. You're determined. It'll stop hurting if you don't think about it.

Step Three: Seek Help

You weakling.  Hmm. Well, actually, you don't look so good. What's wrong with your eyes? Your cheeks are bright red. You know what, go to the nurse.

Step Four: The Cot

You're going to spend a lot of time on this cot. You're going to get to know the ceiling above this cot very well. You're going to start seeing waves of color pass in front of your eyes while the nurses listen to light FM.   In high school you will finally be given the code words to medication and freedom: "Call My Mother."

Step Five: Vomit

You have reached the point where the pain is so unbearable, your eyes no longer want to open and waves of nausea beat you until you are nothing more than a loosely-tied garbage bag filled with 300 pounds of puke. You have not taken any medication, because you are at school and even one little advil would break the school's drug policy.  The only place to go from here is up?

Step Six: Sleep it Off

Yeah, you tried. I'm sorry. Just shut the lights off and try to sleep. Fuck man, just...let me know if you need anything.

This catches you up to about...2005. This was before I got diagnosed with chronic migraine and started getting actual treatment for it. This was before I was allowed to carry advil in my purse without risking getting suspended from school. Stay tuned for part two, which is likely going to be just one big love letter to ibuprofen. For now, I'm going to sleep. I've got a headache.

Buhchichala Reviews - Applebee's

Applebee's really doesn't have a lot going for it, but we always end up there for half-price appetizers anyway.  We went last night, and it was way more of a train wreck than usual. As such, the only way I could see to express my feelings about things was to do a few reviews of the people and events of the night. The people Elyse and I went with will get more proper reviews another time, but for now I'll be focusing on reviewing their roles in this Applebee's experience.

Vicki and Mark were delightful as ever. Vicki had just completed some form of big deal exam involving chickens, for which Mark had helped her prepare. Since the restaurant was loud and crowded, sometimes only Vicki and Mark could hear what I was saying, and sometimes I couldn't hear what they were saying. It doesn't really matter, though, since the things I could hear were all pretty much gold anyway.  They ordered mozzarella sticks and waited for half an hour after we all got our food before finally pulling the server aside and telling him to cancel them because it was clear they weren't going to get them, anyway. The waiter DID however manage to always get their drink orders. Hmm.
Rating: Five out of five bloody thumb print napkins. If you're going to Applebee's, you're going to want to bring Vicki and Mark.

Greg and Christine were uncharacteristically quiet at Applebee's! Christine had the best view of the bar and did her best to communicate to us what she was seeing without giving us away. Greg was oddly attached to his phone, which is rare for him. Greg was also very much not wearing his doopy fedora at Applebee's, but since I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell his hair is doing, it's hats for him.  Center part? Vaguely fuzzy? Is that even a color? I don't know and facebook can't help me. Everything and everyone was having an off night at Applebee's, so I won't hold it against them.
Rating: Four out of five bloody thumb print napkins. Greg was simply not bringing his a-game this week. However, his performance was not bad enough to place him in the bottom two. Congratulations, you are still in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model.
*this fedora is forgivable only because it is imaginary.

I usually bring the entertainment. Elyse doesn't always intentionally entertain, but she certainly is a joy to have around, especially when she accidentally assumes you are talking about her boobs and proudly explains her newly enacted safety-pin breast security system. Highlights of my night included attractive moose sounds, "Neil Kickoff," and being repeatedly kicked by the server.  Elyse and I both had boneless wings and our back was to the server and the crowd the whole time, but that certainly didn't stop anyone from flailing and smacking us or making hideous noises behind us. Our photo was very obviously taken by some European tourists who all ordered Sizzlin' Entrees. Their food smelled horrible and they should feel bad about it.
Rating: Five out of five bloody thumbrpint napkins. We're the only reason we go anywhere these days. It's alright if I laugh at my own jokes, because everyone else is laughing, too. And they start before I do. A+ humans.

Charles was not our server's real name, but I don't want to get this guy in any trouble. I just want to bitch about how crappy a time I had at Applebee's and explain his role in the whole thing.  I do this for me. I am sure that every other night of the week, Charles is a fantastic server. I am sure there are times when he isn't markedly ruder after you tell him you're not buying expensive entrees and are just there for the cheap microwaved chicken bits. I am sure there are times when he remembers everyone's food and doesn't leave a single order of mozzarella sticks in the kitchen for half an hour. I am sure that there are times when he doesn't kick a single guest. However, he managed to kick me 9 times over the course of the evening. I was willing to ignore this until he finally brought our desserts to the table and planted his arm firmly down on mine. Instead of offering to replace the dessert that was now full of sleeve seasonings, dust, and scuzz, he muttered "oh, I'm okay," and walked away. It was remarkably confusing, and I had to throw out the top of my dessert. I didn't feel like complaining because at this point we all just wanted the get the crap out of Applebee's.
Rating: One out of five bloody thumbprint napkins. This man is likely the worst Applebee I have ever encountered. The one napkin he gets is a symbol of my faith that he is otherwise a very good server and was simply having an off night, because he honestly deserved a negative three for sleevin' up my food.

The Very Drunk Girls standing at the bar were definitely the worst thing about the evening. They weren't even drunk to the point of entertainment, but rather drunk to the point of racism, flailing and hitting my sister, and making hideous noises whenever they attempted to laugh. I first noticed the Very Drunk Girls after I heard someone laughing and hollering about a fat girl. I was instantly afraid they were talking about me, but I was relieved to find out it was actually just someone that one of their ex-boyfriends was talking to on facebook. The chunky girl then proceeded to go on a five minute rant about how fat and ugly that girl was, and how she needed to "fix her rolls and her ugly fat ass." Okay. After a little while, the same girl started talking about an Asian girl in her workplace that she found annoying. She started making "ching-chong" noises and squinting her eyes. She then erupted in hideous laughter and said "I don't even care if that's racist, I'm totally doing that the next time I see her!!" They each made a few very horrible barfing-snorting noises. Then the two girls started frantically thrust-dancing in the middle of the walk way, flailing enough to actually hit my sister. At this point, we left our money on the table and left. We had had enough. Applebee's was too much for us.
Rating: ZERO out of five bloody thumbprint napkins. These girls were absolutely awful and need to return to the house, pack their bags, and go home.

Neil Kickoff was the winner of the night, I assure you. Appearing on a muted TV screen, he came into our lives to discuss the NFL Kickoff, but left a star. The human equivalent of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, all I could hear him saying whenever the camera showed him was "oh, d-d-d-dear!" He was small, old, and nervous, and came off like a tiny grandpa nervously running for eighth grade treasurer. At one point in the night, it was posited that he might possess a funny butt. Since his real name was never announced to us, I dubbed him Neil Kickoff. Neil Kickoff would never drunkenly make racist comments or hit you or leave secret sleeve flavorings in your food. Neil Kickoff would certainly never follow horrible service by drawing a smiley face on your check in an effort to get you to forget he kicked you nine times.
Rating: Five out of five bloody thumbprint napkins, with an additional bonus of three nervous forehead wipes! Invite Neil Kickoff to your next meal!

I wish I could say I expected more of Applebee's, but this is the same restaurant where we found a dollar bill stuck to the window with dog shit.

Oog-Oog, Space Monster

I have long been interested in art. Since I was fresh-baked tater tot in the late 80s, I've loved drawing. In the mid 90s, when I started elementary school, I was already pretty aware of the fact that, at least according to most adults I knew, I was a pretty good artist. It soon became clear, as I consistently turned in high-quality work, that I was more advanced in art than many of my classmates. This, and a strangely obsessive sense of right and wrong, lead to a maniacal, yet mostly secret, competitive streak in me that exists to this day.

In my third grade class, there was a girl, who for the sake of this post we'll call Peepee, that everyone thought was a more perfect version of me. She was pretty much the human embodiment of the uncanny valley.  She moved unlike anyone else, and emoted like Data from Star Trek, although with a much shorter fuse.  She was prone to snapping at people, rolling her eyes, and acting like everything she was assigned put her out so so much.  She was the other girl in my grade with long hair, though hers was course and permanently crimped, while mine was fine and wispy at the ends. She did ballet at the same studio I attended. She was very good with spelling tests. She was involved in competitive tennis. She was also decent at art.

We could have been friends, if not for the fact that her dad shaved her arms and legs every night, and she was very, very mean to me. In my head, she would be my rival until the day I died, and I would need to show her up every step of the way. She was constantly treated better by our teacher, mostly because she was as quiet as a ghost trying to sneak down stairs and I was horrendously loud. She was allowed to use brand names like Xerox and Kleenex on her spelling lists, but I wasn't allowed to use the names of characters from our Weekly Reader, though we actually had to do assignments about them regularly. (Peanut and Jocko. Peanut is even a REAL WORD and I wasn't allowed to use it.)

In the spring, we were allowed to use ceramic clay for the very first time. Each kid was doled out a lump of it, informed that if we breathed a single particle of the dust in that we would immediately get cancer and die within hours, and were told to get to work. I immediately hatched an incredible idea that would get me very far. I was going to make a space monster. It started with a coil that made a circle about two inches wide. Then, the rest of the clay would be a gloppy base to hold up the totally awesome spiral. I then dug out clay to be a terrifying mouth for my space beast.  I was so excited. Clay was amazing. Ceramics was amazing. I was using really mature materials and using them to the best of my abilities. I was stoked.

Until I noticed that little snotass Peepee was copying me. She copied me exactly, aside from our coils going in opposite directions, so that the end of her coil faced upwards, while mine was hidden skillfully by the base. I was beyond pissed, but there was nothing I could do about it but carve my name really blatantly on the bottom so that they would never get mixed up.  We finished sculpting our pieces, and they went into the kiln to be fired. When they came out, they'd transformed from soft, grey blobs into hard, white objects that would shatter if you so much as winked at them. I went to grab my space monster out of the box the projects were being kept in, and she was nowhere to be found.  Oog-Oog, as I'd named her, was missing. I looked over to find Peepee smearing MY SCULPTURE with baby pastel colors! She'd stolen my piece, because it was sculpted better than her jankity-ass failed attempt at a snail, and she was RUINING it.

I was outraged. The teacher came over and Peepee admitted that she had taken my sculpture, which clearly had my name carved into the bottom, because she liked it better than the one she'd made, and was hoping I wouldn't notice. She quickly pushed it at me and said "Here, you can have your stupid monster. I don't even want it." Unfortunately, the damage was done. The teacher told me that no matter what glaze I put on Oog-Oog, the pastels Peepee had brushed on would push through. That, and we only had 20 minutes left to paint them before they had to be collected to be put back in the kiln.  Oog-Oog would have to go in with some of the paint Peepee had used on her.

While my sculpture may have been permanently damaged, Peepee's credibility had been ruined in the eyes of the class and our teachers. From that point on, they had little patience for Peepee's attitude, reluctance to participate in classroom activities, and entitled, icy nastiness. Not even bringing her accordion from home, teaching the other girls how to french-braid, and making a "glacier" in a tupperwear container could repair the damage she'd done to her own reputation by stealing and ruining my art project. I had trumped my rival by letting her own bad behavior speak for itself. Oog-Oog was a testament to my virtue; a trophy for my victory over the dishonest, rotten Peepee and her ugly dumpy baby-diaper-looking snail. Oog-Oog stayed on my dresser for years, until she was tucked away in a box in the cellar. She floated around our living room for a while, and I'm sure we still have her somewhere, although I'm not exactly sure where she might be. She was a fearsome looking thing, and might have been banished to the garbage by my parents.

The best I can offer at this time is a drawing of what the thing actually looked like. It wasn't any real prize, in the long run, but for a third grader who'd never so much as slapped real clay before, Oog-Oog was a masterpiece. LONG LIVE OOG-OOG. LONG LIVE ME.

Buhchichala Reviews - People I Know

Sometimes you look around your crowded, busy life and wonder "is there any way I can communicate how I feel about certain people to a wider audience?" The answer is yes. Since there is no yelp for people, I will be reviewing some of my favorites here.

Elyse is my sister. She is 25 years old. She has at times been quite rotten. When we were little, she stabbed me in the head with the point of a drafting compass. She has her MS in geoscience, and is really into science on the whole. She doesn't wash her hands enough. She had pink hair for about two years and it was really very pink indeed.  She likes to make pasta with chicken and cheese, and is quite invested in cheese in general. She has an entire pokemon game filled with pokemon named after foods.  Recently, she watched a show about breakfast burritos because our mother thought it would interest her.  Daddy says she's using up all the bandwidth. Onions make her very sick. She makes really good faces in pictures and her butt is hilarious. Over the course of our childhood, I have racked up 35 free hits at her, based on times she hit me that went unanswered. She used to tell me I came from "Planet Mommy's Bellybutton." Her first word was He-man. She was an early reader which made it really easy for her to tell me things were hers alone when they were addressed to both of us. 
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 cheez-its. Generally a very good person. I would recommend Elyse to anyone.

Carl is Elyse's romantic interest. He is very, very easy to draw. He is the closest thing you will find to a real-life version of Doug Funnie on this or any planet. He far out-ranks several fictional Carls, including Carl, Carl, and Carl, but is sadly out-done by Carl. Carl is very active. He enjoys hiking, biking, skiing, and swimming. Whenever Carl takes part in athletic activity, he wears the appropriate safety equipment. As safety-conscious as he is, Carl manages to get hurt on a pretty regular basis. Carl totally shreds on guitar and is in a metal band called "Hear No Whisper." I have no idea what they sound like, but there's probably a lot of sweet licks and kickin' riffs.  Carl struggles to understand his place in the universe. Carl thinks about the Big Questions. When he was little, he was frightened by some monster trucks. The other day, Carl handily used a splash bomb from our pool to make it look like his brother had wet his pants, and we were all very impressed. One time Elyse accidentally pulled Carl's pants down while we were playing a game of "Everyone Hit Carl Now" and I saw his butt :( 
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 Antarcticas. Sometimes Carl is very frustrated, and it can make him hard to communicate with. Generally understandable and very easy to draw.

Irene is my mother. She likes UFO and Ghost programs. She is an author published in Women's Fiction. She went to three different proms when she was younger. She was very successful with the fellas and didn't settle down with my dad until she was in her late 20s. Her default mode of communication is shouting, which can be a bit of a shock for some people. She is absolutely useless when it comes to computers, but manages to maintain two blogs, a personal and professional facebook page, and participates in several email loops. Having battled serious medical problems non-stop over the past few years, my mother has a bunch of worries and fears and scars and every time she gets behind the wheel of a car or takes a step without her cane, she is performing an incredible act of bravery. She is peculiarly afraid of buttons and allergic to cats. She likes to come in my room to see if I have any snacks, which I usually share with her. I have some peanut butter cups now but that's it, ma. She wishes I would draw prettier things. She can't reach anything in the kitchen, but makes incredible smothered pork chops.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 flying saucers. Has trouble with modern life. Not recommended for households with cats or small children. 

Herb is my father. He has really shiny, healthy hair and a very well-groomed mustache and beard. He has invisible eyebrows and wears Hawaiian shirts pretty much full-time. He is retired but spent decades working for the county in traffic and safety services. His retirment party had really good food. He is currently the finance officer of our local American Legion post, and no one ever believes he's as old as he is. He has spent the last 40 or so years with a lot of hearing loss, and is having trouble adjusting to how loud the world is when his hearing aids are in. He looks remarkably like the Muppet Sweetums, especially when he takes his teeth out.  He is very inconsistent as to whether he thinks farts are funny or not. Whenever he farts, they're hilarious, but whenever I fart, suddenly it's a problem. He has had several pairs of aviator-styled glasses over time, and when home can usually be found with a toothpick in his mouth. Sometimes my breath smells like him and it startles me. He has a song, or at least a line of a song, for every occasion, and the look of bewildered disgust that came across his face when he heard the Kid Rock song that sampled both "Werewolves of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama" was staggeringly beautiful.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 traffic lights. Unpredictable in the kitchen and sometimes difficult to read. Enjoys TV court shows. Impressive-looking and highly sought-after.

Anne is my grandmother on my mother's side. She is 91 years old and quite good with the computer. If you're lucky, she'll be your facebook friend--as long as you don't say "fuck". She likes to play solitaire with tiny playing cards, enjoys jigsaw and crossword puzzles, and loves to eat fried chicken with the skin picked off.  She will eat pretty much anything, and knows how to make a meal stretch. I don't get why she calls fanta "lanta" every time, but whatever she calls it, she makes sure to have plenty of it in her house so I always have something nice to drink.  Once you enter her home, you are going to be offered food. Sometimes, that food is potted meat, and you try it because your sneaky grandmother wanted to see if anyone would eat that crap.  She has the same hairstyle and glasses as the Queen of England, although her wardrobe is much less extensive. When I was really young, she inherited some unopened packages of underwear from another old lady who had died. She gave them to me. They never felt right. She paid a scalper fifty bucks to get the Beanie Baby "Princess" for my sister and me. We kept them in little clear acrylic cases. She knows a lot about how to be an adult. She can always open the produce bags at the grocery store, and can get deodorant off of a shirt with a balled-up stocking. She likes to go to the dollar store and the chinese buffet.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 folksy stuffed-potato crafts. Gramma has adapted well to the digital age and is very enjoyable company. I would definitely recommend her to all of my friends. 

Alistaire is a tiny-mouthed tough-guy I met on the internet. We first bonded over a mutual appreciation for making Oscar Wilde look absolutely horrible, and became immediate friends. When I say immediate, I mean immediate. Never before in my life had I met someone I instantly wanted to spend all of my time with and tell all of my embarrassing stories to before Alistaire. The very first time we talked on instant messenger, I told him about the time when I was a toddler that I puked in the Wizard of Oz popcorn tin and crapped myself simultaneously (note: the puking and crapping were simultaneous, not the telling and crapping.) We operate rather well as a single unit, and have co-owned a sweater. We have taken some spectacularly hideous photographs together, and have smelled some of the worst smells in the world in each other's company. Alistaire has a tattoo of old-timey Pete from "Steamboat Willie" on his arm, and I watched while he got it. It looked like it hurt, but he was really good about it. We like to sit on the same side of the table and make up people that could conceivably exist. We like to sit in general. One time, we were hanging out near a Duane Reade and someone was disgusted by the sight of us.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 spooky bats. Great customer service and convenient business hours. If you're in the neighborhood, DEFINITELY check this one out!

Nancy is Alistaire's mother. She is incredibly glamorous. Her decorating sense is impeccable and her bile fascination with clowns has lead to many a strange drawing. Always down for a fart joke, "Pantz" is a very good sport for allowing me as a guest in her home. She has a knack for photographing the hoverounds and weirdos she finds in front of her house. Living across the street from a National Historic Site, she gets plenty of chances to snap pictures of bizarre shit. She is extremely well-organized and is equipped with a fantastic memory. She has a way of making things work that is absolutely uncanny. She's met influential people. Has worked at an amusement park, Lego land, and an aquarium. No matter what the style, she always has perfect hair. I cannot fathom how one person becomes so glamorous, but she is really working it. If I seem hung up on how glamorous she is, it's only because she is exceptionally glamorous and only a fool wouldn't notice. She does an eerily good impression of a witch.  She is a cat person, and her one of her current cats, Charz, is likely one of the best animals on the planet. I once mailed a horrible thing to their house and she took pictures, posing it with a Mountie. She has a lot of parents.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 Barbie shoes. Very professional, with a relaxed atmosphere. Stylish and chic, a definite must-see!

Remy is actually named Nora! That's the first surprise! I met Remy on Neopets in my first week of college. She recruited me to join her guild, which was a bustling group of kids from all sorts of different places who likes to be weird on the internet. She totally told me she was 15 when we started talking but as we got to be friends, she confessed to actually being 12, which is the second surprise. I have seen her go through some really tough crap, like what to do when you're stuck in a failing school system and how scary it can be when your parents are behaving badly. Remy has made smart decisions to get her life in the right direction, even as she moves all the way from California to Rhode Island TWICE in the past year. Remy has been remarkably brave and super mature for a long time, and has been as good a friend and support to me as any. Remy has also drawn the single funniest Machoke in history. Remy is always up for watching bizarre nostalgic crap with me, and really likes shows with cars in them.  Her hair is currently pink, which looks really cool and in these reviews you get a lot of points for cool hair. Remy had a snake named Lemmie and he was really neat but I have no idea what happened to him. Recently, Remy has been back in California, keeping some baby skunks company and making soap. 
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 :/ emoticons. Clean, easy-to-use, with great online-support. Out of the nearly 7 billion people on this planet, this one is Remy.

The Classiest Possible Thing

When I was a kid, they made a special, fancy, grown-up Lunchable with special, fancy, grown-up foods in it, like wet, floppy, turkey discs, mustard, and whole-wheat crackers. This was food for mature adults with mature adult palates. These Lunchables had napkins in them. These Lunchables were deluxe. These Lunchables came with an Andes Mint.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Andes Mints, they are dark chocolate pieces with a sliver of creme de menthe in the center. They are the classiest, most grown-up candy imaginable. Adults, who have outgrown the taste for overly sugary desserts, who read chapter books and are allowed to write in pen, adults who vote and drive and order soda at a restaurant--they are the lucky few who can partake of Andes Mints. Due to their hallowed place as a palate-cleansing, breath-freshening treat in the Deluxe Lunchables for Very Important Adults, they cemented themselves as the single most mature, special, luxury food in my mind. Andes Mints were for the jet-setters, the VIPs, real high society folks. They were not for me.

I would legitimately pray to be given an Andes Mint. If I were to be trusted with an Andes Mint, I would be welcomed to the world of culture with open arms, acknowledged as a true sophisticate. Every time my mother or grandmother got one in their Lunchable, I would stare it down, hoping to someday obtain one for myself. Meanwhile, I didn't like mint, and was having a hard time dealing with it on a day-to-day basis.

Mint is in nearly every gum, toothpaste, and dental product.  Mint is the go-to flavor for things to sweeten the breath and things to denote Christmas is in fact on the way.  Mint was everywhere, and everywhere that mint went, my vomit was sure to follow. Just the smell of mint lingering in the bathroom or on someone's breath after a morning brushing of the teeth forces me to gag. When I gag, I vomit. When I vomit, I break the blood vessels in my face and both look and feel miserable. It has been like this since I was a wee tater tot, and it remains this way still. The bright, cool smell of mint will send me sailing straight for the toilets the second it wafts my way. The taste of mint, if I'm unlucky enough to experience it, leaves me feeling something I can only describe as "nauseous in the international space station." In the middle of all this, I never forgot the holy appeal of the Andes Mint.

This brings me to modern day. I'm in college. I'm an opera singer. I've been in performance art pieces at the Guggenheim. I am classy and grown-up as fuck. I am surely qualified to eat Andes Mints. A couple of years ago, at Christmas time, our local Target offered a huge box of Andes Mints in their holiday section. I saw them. I could not resist. I was going to buy those Andes Mints and hop on a one-way train to Cool Grownupsburgh to become the popular, unanimously-elected Mayor. I was going to take control of my own destiny and become a god.

I got the package home and carefully opened the green cellophane wrappings. This was it. I was going to obtain all the sophistication and culture that had once eluded me. I was going to eat an Andes Mint, on my own, as an adult.

Instead of any of that happening, I ate the entire box in one sitting, like a hungry dog with a death-wish that just got into a Whitman's Sampler. I didn't even taste them, really. I just inhaled the whole box like a vacuum set to "suck up all them Andes Mints." I looked at my desk, covered in shiny green wrappers, and felt the first signs of regret. Oh, oh no, I had eaten the whole box. Oh god, I had eaten a whole box of Andes Mints that is not what a Mayor of Cool Grownupsburgh does. That is what a disobedient pet does five minutes before it dies of chocolate poisoning. And then the wave of inescapable nausea hit me. Andes Mints were, after all, mints. I was going to die. These mints were my Icarus Wings. I had gotten too bold, and flown too close to the sun on my quest to become a cultured adult. I had tested fate, and fate was going to win. Andes Mints were going to kill me, and it was all my fault.

I shivered on my floor, waiting to die for a good 20 minutes before getting up and hurling. I certainly learned my lesson. Mint is mint, no matter how glamourous you perceive the package to be. The powers of Andes Mints were clearly too strong for me. You'd think that would be the last time, but no. I still cannot resist an Andes Mint. I especially cannot resist eating 20 or so Andes Mints at a time, getting hideously ill, and rolling around on the floor wishing for death while my sister looks on and says "you ate the whole box again." Every time I see one, whether tucked in with the check at a restaurant or in the holiday section at target, I remember that they are the divine treat, the exalted confection suitable only for the most mature adults, those who dine on Deluxe Lunchables.

I want a Deluxe Lunchable life. I want Andes Mints, even if they kill me.

The Souvenir

My parents have been married for decades.  They might appear normal on the outside, but considering they are my parents, you know they're probably not. My mother has glamorous hair and eyebrows that stand straight out, and my father wears Hawaiian shirts and aviator glasses.

This is how they always look, and how, for the most part, they have always looked. For a brief time a few years ago, however, they looked different. My mother was sporting the short, mousy regrowth of hair after chemotherapy, and my father had grown his down to the middle of his back.

This story begins during that strange time. My father, newly retired, and my mother, recently in remission from lymphoma, chose to celebrate by taking a trip down south. They went to a bunch of museums and nice restaurants, but my mom pretty much goes away just to go to gift shops. She collects miniature tea sets, and just about the best place in the world from which to procure one of those babies is a well-stocked gift shop. Apparently one of the gift shops down there was so wild, my parents picked up souvenirs for both Elyse and me while they were there. My sister got a gorgeous, silky, blue robe. I got something completely different.

I got Dave.

Dave is a puppet about the size of a three year old child. He wears pepper-printed pants. He is a fantastic chef, I assure you, and has touched the lives of many.  My parents insisted he looked like the Swedish Chef, who had previously been my favorite chef of all time. It's important to note here that though two men may indeed both be puppets, chefs, and make similar facial hair choices, they can in fact be incredibly dissimilar. Something happened the minute Dave Puppet entered our house, and nothing's ever been the same. It started with Dave himself.

Dave began to look terrified.

His face slowly stopped making the goofy smile he came with.  I don't know exactly how, but whatever was keeping his mouth operational was deforming into a horrible shape and simply wouldn't bend back.  This endeared him to me tenfold. Some of my friends have gotten to know Dave pretty well, too. Dave is so beloved by my friend Sarah that he has been known to stay at her house for weeks at a time, on long, luxurious davecations.  Dave has been hung from doorways, tucked into beds, and shed on by cats. Dave also makes quite a good snuggling toy, in case I need to spend a night away from home myself. That's how he lost his stick.

It may look, to the untrained eye, that Dave spends most of the time in abject terror, but trust, he is a fearless traveler and big-time overnight trips enthusiast.  Dave usually rides in the car, belted into a seat, but when he needs to be transported in a car without room for a puppet passenger, he needs to travel as luggage. It breaks my heart to put him in a suitcase, and I do try to pack as lightly as possible, so most of the time, Dave ends up crammed in on top of my fresh pairs of underwear in my backpack.

Dave is a great man, a great chef, and a great friend. Dave is the single greatest souvenir ever purchased. Dave has changed my life and the lives of all those around me. Dave wears the pepper pants. 

a moon star is born - the buhchichala

In the 90s, I was a little fat girl living in New Jersey. Growing up a little fat girl was hard enough, but on top of that, I was weird. I was the kind of weird that got stuck in the cargo net and got sent back to preschool for hitting a kid and perfected the art of paper ripping when I lost my privilege to use scissors one Halloween. I had no play-dates. I got no invitations. Not having friends didn't really bother me, though, because at home, I had an audience that couldn't escape.

My mother and sister, who were home with me all day, were basically just there to look at me, I was pretty sure. My sister was older, INCREDIBLY smart, and could read easily, while I struggled through Go Dog Go.  My mother encouraged my creativity because she had no choice. My father was at work all day and other places after work, so he missed out on a lot of my primo material. One such effort, known simply as "Buhchichala," will forever be my masterwork and has given the name to this very blog.

My sister and I took baths together every night, because we were routinely washed by a mother who wanted to make sure we never smelled bad. It is easy to fit multiple children in a bathtub, and it does wonders to conserve water. One such evening, my mother left the bathroom for a minute while we soaked. I'm not sure what she went off to do, but I sure wanted to find her and impress her somehow. I devised a plan. Almost a plan. It wasn't really a plan so much as an instinctive response to my mother being in a different room.

I ran down the hallway as fast as my drenched, bare legs would carry me. I yelled "MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY" as I bounded, sure to get her attention. I then performed the most incredible feat ever seen on earth.

Buhchichalaaaaa! THAT'S WHAT I SAID! Buhchichalaaaaa! THAT'S WHAT I SAID! Stick your elbows in the air, shake your derriere! Buhchichalaaaaa!

 On the spot, I had made an instructional dance song that really showcased all of my talents in one brilliant act.

I turned my naked, dripping heiner to my mother, shook it back and forth, and bellowed "BUCHICHALAAAAAAAA."
I whipped my head around and informed her "THAT'S WHAT I SAID!"
I repeated this. I then told her how to do the dance, first shoving my elbows in the air, then shaking my derriere. I then reiterated that this was, in fact, "BUHCHICHALAAAAAA."

I didn't know what I thought my mother was going to do with this, but I sure as shit wanted to make sure she saw it.  She liked it. She liked it so much that she made me show my father and grandmother and neighbors.

I was a star.

*I may remember my mother's hair more glamourously than it really was.
**My sister is totally hot now and doesn't smile like this anymore.