cashing in on the IOU

i have the bionic cold. somehow, i contracted a different strain than the one that's afflicted my entire office(s) and barn. mine began on friday, got increasingly worse for six days to the point where i thought it might be pneumonia again, lessened in intensity for a day, and is now back with a vengeance. kill me.

regardless, i am sitting in the cohasset office encased in my green nylon vest and a few layers of technologically-engineered fabrics. it's gotten suddenly chilly, and it's lovely. a week ago, however, i was draped by a pool in winston, so perhaps we'd better recap homecoming.

jill and i decided, much to the surprise of our classmates, that we'd descend upon the forest early on wednesday night and do nothing important for four full days. the prodigal massholes. i buzzed my way through work on monday and tuesday, and trotted cheerily out of the westwood office at 2:00 on wednesday. i was meeting my boss in the city to do a walk-through of a proposed event venue, so i parked my car at the quincy adams T stop for the weekend and jumped on the red line, beskirted and dragging my little orange suitcase. as a general rule, the t has always struck me as pretty harmless, but i do have some inbred paranoia from being the only daughter of an italian faux mafioso, so when the drunken, shirtless construction worker stumbled onto the train and sat so close to be that he was on top of my skirt, i began plotting my switch to the next car down. despite my obvious headphones and dark sunglasses, he began leaning in front of me, slurring loudly and waving his hands. "why are you so beautiful, so plush?" he yelled. everyone on the train stopped to watch. i feigned indifference, which didn't go over well. "so beautiful, like a picture," he continued on. the train lurched, and he slid his hand up under my skirt, so i leapt up, aiming for the open seat between two large guys who appeared to be about my age. the guy grabbed my wrist and skirt, and said, "no vacation for you, you're coming with me!" (reference to the suitcase, i suppose.) the huge guy across the aisle at this moment stood up, grabbed the much smaller construction worker told him to get his fucking hands off me, and physically threw him from the train as the doors opened at andrew (oh the timing...). his friend grabbed my suitcase and invited me to sit down. thank you, thank you, thank you whomever you are. they offered to walk me to meet my boss, but i politely declined. arrived to meet mara rather shaken, but intact. stupid t.

post-walkthrough, mara took me to the airport to meet jill. we flew through charlotte and then to gboro pretty uneventfully where we reunited with a bouncy, squealing, tail-wagging duo. alli and steph got us back to wake and took us to the foothills brewery where we downed a heavy harvest beer of some sort and ate calamari all the while attacting the attention of the bored band, life in general. we continued to see these guys everywhere for the rest of the weekend.

thursday involved a great brunch at midtown with sara wobker. wonderful to see her and get to sit out in the sunshine with pancakes. the rest of the weekend was generally a blur. a happy blur, but a blur all the same. at some point, bionic cold popped up and we tried to kill it with eggs and vodka shots. highlights of the rest of the weekend include hanging with joe box, the pre-tailgate brunch, the tailgates themselves (we just hopped around), and sixth and vine, winston's wine bar. i feel very, very loved when i meander down to winston, and even managed to make new friends. :)

i am running out of steam and must blow my nose again (sidenote: i am going nuts because i ran out of q-tips yesterday and forgot to buy more last night...i am a daily ear digger and now they feel upsetingly unclean. anyone else this neurotic about aural potatoes?). sigh.