Face Plant

My friend Cindy is a wildlife biologist. She’s done all kinds of interesting things, traveled to Peru researching birds, spent time on a field assignment in the Galapagos Islands, and had many other awesome experiences I’d never really thought of as possibilities in a career. She also has a history of fainting when she gets sick, particularly when she throws up, and I’d describe her as “not graceful,” (she’s clumsy as fuck.)

Her brother is a doctor and they believe the problem is related to a combination of low blood pressure and some type of low sodium level in her blood. It seems the only real solution, though, is for Cindy to pray she doesn’t ever get sick to her stomach, and in the meantime just buckle up and hope for the best.

One day a few years ago, Cindy called me while I was at work, she was running errands at Target, and had somehow blacked out and came to sitting on the ground near her car. She had eaten something earlier in the day that made her sick, threw up, and as usual in that situation after passing out, the rest was a blur. I told her not to drive, to stay put and left work early to go pick her up. We left her car there in the parking lot, and I planned to drive her back to my apartment and nurse her back to health. As is often the case, things didn’t go according to plan.

While driving over the causeway near my house, Cindy instructed me to pull over so she could throw up.  I pulled over on a small stretch of pavement adjacent to the water. I suppose you don’t really plan ahead in these situations, and I figured she’d just open the window and let it out.  What actually happened, however, was much worse.

Thoughtful and considerate as she is, Cindy opened the car door as not to make a mess. At some point she unbuckled her seatbelt, and when she threw up, she fainted, and when she fainted, her unbuckled self fell face first from my car, directly onto the pavement.

I’d heard of the fight or flight response, and though I’d lived in a version of it my entire life, this was the first time I experienced it fully. There was one of my closest friends, lying face down in a pool of blood on the pavement, and I was fucking terrified. But I leaped into action-jumped out of the car, and ran over to her. She came to, and I pulled her back into the car.

She was conscious and aware, but bleeding from the face and the mouth and I calmly said, “Okay, Cindy, I think it’s probably a good idea for me to drive you to the hospital.” I considered calling 911, but we were in a pretty remote area, and the hospital was just a few miles away, and I knew it would be faster to get her there myself.

Experiencing fight or flight is the only time I’ve ever felt like a superhero. It’s such an odd sensation. I felt myself become a calm, reasonable person fully capable of handling the situation, while simultaneously experiencing sheer terror and doubting every move. I talked to Cindy the whole way, level headed, slowly, and steadily, “Okay, we’re almost there.” “It’s going to be fine.”

And thankfully, it was. She was pretty banged up, but the blood and initial swelling made things appear much worse than they were. Her teeth were fine, and except for one gash, most of the abrasions on her face were superficial.  After several hours of testing, hydration, and getting her scrapes cleaned up, we were free to go.  To follow up, she had a minor plastic surgery procedure that ended up costing a lot of money and may not have been necessary. But after that, she was back to herself. Today, there’s no physical evidence that the whole incident even happened.

Cindy’s a badass. She’s also incredibly kind and genuine and one of the most loyal friends I’ve ever known. She’s on to more unique experiences and adventures, and I’m sure I’ll get to accompany her on one of them sometime soon. But when I do, you can bet your ass I’m making that bitch wear a seatbelt…and a helmet.

Hetero-“flexible”

I maintain a few online dating profiles mostly for entertainment purposes at this point. After the painful ending of a relationship that I thought would last forever, and some other major life changes over the last few years, dating requires energy that I haven’t been able to access. I normally have more determination, but a few disappointing dating experiences and failed attempts have been enough for me to throw in the towel for awhile.

I do, however, get a lot of messages that keep me entertained. My profiles include sarcastic descriptions about loving both food and mama’s boys (these are both true), so there’s an above average amount of attempts at getting my attention that include information about pie, recipes, and knitting. Guys also seem very impressed by my cheeks, which I find somewhat surprising, because who knew they cared about that?

I sometimes go weeks without reading any, then log-in, read a bunch and get my fill, laugh, then sign out and move on with my life. I went on a message reading binge a few days ago, and received one of my favorites to date: “Holy hell, Ms. D, I must say…Your eyebrow game is positively fierce!”

I’m friends with enough gay men to know that any male using the word “fierce” and complimenting my eyebrows is unlikely to be one-hundred percent heterosexual. Upon further research, I proved this point correct when I read the guy’s profile, which described him as “heteroflexible.” Yet another reason I don’t dive in to online dating head-first is that I prefer to live outside “the loop.” Previously, I had no idea what heteroflexible meant, and I preferred it that way.

But curiosity prevailed, so I googled heteroflexible, which means something along the lines of: a sexual orientation or situational sexual behavior characterized by minimal homosexual activity in an otherwise primarily heterosexual orientation that is considered to distinguish it from bisexuality. It has been characterized as “mostly straight.”

So as far as I can tell, this guy is gay enough to comment on my fierce eyebrows, but straight enough to want to see them in person sometime. Perhaps I’ll read more dating messages later, but right now I’m off to tend to my eyebrow game.

“Oh, I remember him!”

I love food, it’s a known fact among those who know me well, and I’m often the butt of several well-meaning (and highly accurate) food jokes. It’s been this way as long as I can remember, a friend in kindergarten once said, “Doria, you’re going to eat us out of house and home!” on a play date. The FedEx guy at one of my previous jobs once said to me, “Wow, I must come at the same time every day, huh? Because you’re always eating.” He didn’t, in fact, come at the same time every day, but I WAS, in fact, always eating.

My ex-boyfriend asked for a high-five the first time he saw me eat a sub, and a chef I used to work with told me, “Not only is it the speed with which you consume the food, but also the volume of food consumed that’s impressive.” Why, thank you! I suppose what people also find impressive, after witnessing my eating habits, is that I’m not a very large person. I’m far from skinny, but the fact I’ve managed to stay relatively petite while simultaneously feeding the appetite of a 350 lb. man is perhaps enviable.

When I worked for a food company, I was heavily involved in a new product they launched  (food being called a “product” and being “developed” is pretty disturbing to me, as I prefer all natural food, but that’s a story for another time) and I spent a significant amount of time in a Research & Development kitchen with professional chefs and research scientists; I had absolutely no idea what was happening from a scientific standpoint, but I was an excellent taste taster and kitchen companion.

And when I traveled all over the place for this job, (and when I travel anywhere in general), what I remember most about a place is not necessarily its’ history or geography, but rather its culinary offerings. “Oh, yeah, I remember that time I went to Nebraska, that was the best steak I’ve ever had!” or “Minneapolis, right, I remember that, Punch Pizza is the most amazing pizza I’ve ever had in my life.” “St. Augustine, yes, isn’t there something about Fort Castillo de San Marcos being one of the first places for the United States to allocate funding for a National Park…but remember that BAKERY there!?”

This is often the way I remember people in the professional realm as well, because I was never really good at understanding profit margins, how a company actually makes money, or really anything else in the corporate world. Aside from turning jumbled paragraphs of writing into coherent thoughts and writing, deciding which pictures looked nice, and telling people “No” when they asked for ridiculous things, I didn’t have a whole lot to offer. But I was adroit at attaching people to specific food memories. “Oh, I remember them, they took us to that amazing restaurant, remember?” “Oh yeah, that guy, I remember him, he doesn’t eat bread….WHO DOESN’T EAT BREAD…GIVE ME A BREAK!”

A sushi product we sold at this company involved a close partnership with a sushi rice manufacturer in California, outside of LA. I had to work closely with a guy there named Hajime, or (“Jimmy” in the United States), he was always helpful and accommodating, and just recently sent me a request to connect on LinkedIn. I suppose what I should’ve remembered was how he got things to us for a certain cost, increased productivity, profit margins, yada, yada (I don’t actually know if he did, because I don’t really know how that works) but naturally, that’s not what I remembered.

As soon as I saw his name pop up, my brain immediately screamed, “CUPCAKES!” Because when Hajime came to visit our office once, he brought gourmet cupcakes from a bakery in the Atlanta airport. And that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge, “He was really nice and helpful, and he brought delicious cupcakes.” And honestly, what could be more memorable than that?

Hands Off!

Sexual harassment happens to women in the workplace with such regularity it’s frightening. It’s common, inappropriate, and alarming that it’s so often overlooked and accepted. When I worked at a family owned restaurant, owned by creepy brothers, I was regularly subjected to comments about my body, outfits, and given unwanted shoulder “massages” on occasion. Every time I walked into the kitchen to retrieve a take-out order, (I was a hostess), the cooks liked to tell each other what they’d do to me if they had the chance.

One time the owner of the restaurant came up behind me, rubbed my shoulders, and told me “you should wear your hair down, it’s pretty and looks better like that.”  Strange, I thought, since this is a restaurant, so you’d think wearing my hair up would be more sanitary and keep it away from the food, you creepy bastard. I remember smiling and saying, “It’s easier for me to keep it like this, thanks.” By the way, I was in high school and 17 years old at the time.

At one job I had, where our office was comprised mostly of women, we hired a male, and another male, someone in a position of power, rode in an elevator with me and said, “It will be nice to have a little male influence in the office, won’t it, now?”, winked, and then grazed what I thought was maybe the small of my back, but really was more like my ass. I remember thinking, “He must have just meant to touch my back, but maybe his hand slipped…right!?” Because surely he doesn’t think that’s okay…RIGHT!? We were in an elevator though, so nobody saw anything. Well played, dude.

At another job a wildly inappropriate comment was made about my body, and I guess me being in another office RIGHT NEXT to where it was said made it okay, and I mean, nobody actually touched me that time, so….”YOU KNOW I CAN FUCKING HEAR YOU RIGHT?” It almost always happens by men who are in powerful positions, to women who are not, but all the recent news from Hollywood shows no woman is off-limits.

This happens to women EVERY.DAY. These are minor examples of a culture where this is normal, acceptable, more common than not; it’s actually surprising to be in an environment where this doesn’t happen. The Harvey Weinstein allegations are terrifying. Kudos to those brave women who spoke out to share their stories.

NO. This is not okay. It’s NOT okay that this has become an accepted cultural norm. Don’t use your position of power to play grab-ass. Don’t prey on who you feel is the inferior sex. Women are bad-ass, they push humans out of their OWN BODIES. We’re brave. We’re tough. And we’ll call you out on that bullshit.  Do yourself a favor- men who might think this is acceptable- watch this PSA and keep your fucking hands (and your dirty thoughts) to yourselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeWpX-ypSls

 

Scoop Up This…

Delta might be my least favorite airline. My experiences flying with Delta include them losing my luggage in frigid North Dakota, sitting on the runway for several hours in Minneapolis on a hot day with no A/C or water for anyone- including young children- sitting on the runway for several hours while they figured out how to de-ice the plane, (to their credit, not entirely their fault), and a series of other incidents that often stranded me in the Atlanta airport for most of the day, taking deep breaths and trying not to push anyone.

They have a stronghold in the South though, and most likely some strong ties to both Coca-Cola and Jesus, as most conglomerates in the South do. I traveled a lot for work when I lived there, and discovered a small, regional airport in Brunswick, GA that became one of my favorite places. The airport has one runway in use, gate attendants greet you by name, parking was free…(that’s right…FREE, I once left my car there for almost two weeks and it cost $0 dollars), you could show up about 40 minutes before your flight, and on your return trip, be in your car and on your way 20 minutes after landing.  The only drawback was, of course, Delta being the only airline that operated there. So, for the convenience and ease of using that airport when someone inevitably decided at the last minute to send me somewhere amazing, like Michigan in the middle of February or Nebraska, I gave Delta the benefit of the doubt. Eventually I got a Delta Sky Miles reward credit card because I traveled often, and I did end up accruing some decent airline credit and earned a few free trips.

Of course, this did come with some headaches, like at least a 50% chance that Delta would majorly screw up and ruin most of the trip. A few trips I came near cancelling, as they were short, and after 7-8 hour delays, I realized I’d be cutting it close, and it might not be worth it. I learned to plan around the “fuck up factor,” and most times made it where I needed to be…eventually. I’m not sure if it’s airlines in general, or Delta’s Southern roots, but while they were usually polite, nobody ever seemed OVERLY concerned that kids were screaming and hungry, people had been waiting for 8 hours, or that you now didn’t have any clothes to wear. Sometimes, in extreme circumstances, they’d throw $50 at the problem and hope it would go away. What with the Coca-Cola and Jesus ties and all, I’m sure they don’t have much to worry about.

If you don’t live near a Delta hub or fly them frequently, the Sky Miles card really makes no sense and provides limited benefits, which makes sense, really. I held on to my credit card for some foolish reason, thinking somehow if I used it surely I’d earn some miles and get back that part of my life that Delta owes me.  But, no matter the balance, if you’re not flying Delta regularly, at any given time, you’ll have about $50 in airline credit. Whether you charge a tomato or buy a new car, the reward stays about the same.

Today Delta sent me an email urging me to “Scoop up this,” and offering me a free ice cream. I laughed out loud, “Scoop up THIS, Delta,” I said to myself. I texted my friend Robert, who flies them frequently, “Look, Delta’s giving away FREE ICE CREAM!” Like most people, he said, “I mean, I like ice cream!” “F that, I want two months of my life back and a trip to Tahiti, DELTA,” I exclaimed. “I see your point,” Robert said.

“Delta sucks,” I replied. “Also, what flavor should I get?”