i'm reminded of the scene in fear and loathing... where duke manages to escape from the madness of his trip to vegas and sit down at his typewriter for the first time in days and record the details of his journey before they relegate themselves to the vast storage bin of his uncertain long term memory.

things are going at a hundred miles per hour right now.  yesterday morning, lindsay was lying in my bed across the hall, with a fever of one hundred and three degrees fahrenheit, her body burning.  she slept over in my bed, and when we awoke, she was shivering.  then she got the chills, even though her body was literally hot to the touch. i spent the morning getting her tylonel, water, thermometers, tissues and the other likely instruments for warding off a fever.  she called off work saturday, and just ended up lying around my room all day.

now i know why my mother always worries so much when i'm sick with a cold or the flu or a fever:

it hurts to see something you consider beautiful, something you love, in pain.

___

ocean city friday with lou, lisa and the afore-mentioned lindsay.  we left thursday night around 9:40 pm or so, three of us packed into lindsay's convertible.  it wasn't uncomfortable in the least.  it's three hours from bowmansville to the atlantic ocean, and we made good time.  conversation runs the gamet:  personal utopias (lou:  "everyone would speak haiku"), the perfect government, friends who populate our lives, kim and the rest of the bob's staff, and any number of other things which have slipped my mind.  we had one cd along between the four of us, so it was sublime the whole way down, "caress me down" playing four times - not that that's a bad thing.

we cross the maryland border around 12:45 am friday morning or so, and immediately run into problems.  the hotel lindsay had called earlier in the day had closed up their office for the evening, and we couldn't get a room there.  so, we drive around a little, eventually find a place call the monte carlo where we get a two-bed room for $49.  fifteen dollars more expensive than the other place, but what are you gonna do?  the guy at the desk is a big russian or romanian guy in a cabana shirt, so at quarter of one in the morning, you can imagine how surreal that seemed.

we get into our room around one.  in the lobby as we were unloading lindsay's car, we saw a domino's delivery guy pulling in with pizza, so we figured we'd call them for dinner.  unfortunately, when we called, they said they closed at one.  so, we spent the next forty minutes or so calling various businesses in the phone book and looking out over the dark city from our balcony.  we can't find an open pizza place, so we eventually pull clothing back on and take to the streets.  an open 7-11 awaits us.

we pick out an assortment of frozen treats (burritos - mine, macaroni and cheese - lindsay's, lasagna - lou's, slurpies all around, and lisa just got a few bagged snacks).  when we go to check out, this guy ahead of us asks for four cases of heinikin.  the cashier is a little mexican girl who can barely speak english.  she gets him the four cases, then attempts to ring him up and realizes that the cares aren't yet marked for sale - she can't get their value into the register.

ten minutes worth of trying to figure out the register breed much contempt amongst the other citizens in line.  eventually, she works the problem out, and the guy behind guy-with-four-cases-of-beer places two bottles of wine on the counter (so much alcohol needed at two in the morning).  the cash girl mistakes the wine for the same order as the guy with the four cases, and adds it to his credit card bill.  the guy's paid, then we checks his receipt and realizes that the girl added two bottles of wine.  so it's ten more minutes until they figure that one out.

we finally get back to the hotel room around 2:30 or so, cook our food, consume it, then fall into bed.  we joke around about the deskboy, termed "cabana boy" by lou, sneaking into our room by way of the balcony door and stealing our women away from us under cover of night.  then we fall asleep.

check out time is eleven am, so we've gotta get up at ten.  somehow, i manage to awaken at seven am and just toss and turn for the next three hours, never really getting into any sort of deep sleep.  we get out of the room by eleven, then hit the road again, looking for breakfast.  it presents itself in the form of the dough roller.  i avoid meat once again, eating eggs and home fries.  i think i'm going total vegetarian again.  we'll see how long it lasts this time.

from there, it's back to the 7-11, where i get batteries for my digital camera.  i've got a ton of pictures to fix up in photoshop and then upload, and that'll take a few days to weed through.  anyway, we get the batteries and then head for the boardwalk.  somehow, i manage to spend like seventy dollars all told.  i got a james dean poster and a painting of a lighthouse for mother's day at the ocean gallery (where we also snapped off pics of the world famous "bat mobile," i got a dead milkmen sticker from the one shop, books from atlantic bookstores (two fitzgeralds; this side of paradise and a short story collection - plus a cheap books detailing social change, as well as an anthology edited by nick hornby.  linds bought me that, which i mostly wanted for the irvine welsh story.  the robert harris one i'm on right now is great, though, too).  i found another sticker for the olds ("impeach the republicans") at a cheap sunsations type shop on the boardwalk.  linds and i got our pictures taken at one of those old style photo booths.  the first shot is of our chests, since we weren't ready, and the last one didn't develop properly, but the middle two are super-cool shots of me and the girl i adore.

we eventually got to actually go down on the sand, which was lovely.  i snapped a few pictures of lou and lisa, as well as the hyper cool shot of linds, the atlantic ocean and myself.  i love that pic.

we paid our fee to park on the ocean city pier, and then used a grotto pizza gift certificate i had to get a pizza.  lou rode the children's mechanical horse outside the restaurant.  after dinner, it was another three hour drive back to pennsylvania.

lindsay slept over night, side by side with me all night, and when we woke up on saturday, she was sick.  i told you all about that already.  i felt powerless to help her, and being powerless to help a person you care so deeply about is a terrible thing.

she rested, ate some food, puked the food back up, but by night, she was doing better.  we watched the big lebowski and then she felt sick again.  i didn't want her driving, so she just slept over in my room again.  this time i was relegated to the living room couch.

sunday, i wake up and go to sunday school where i teach kindergardeners.  i do that for an hour, then skip out on church to go see my baby and how she's doing.  much better, her fever's back down from last night, but she has to get going.  she showers, and after much pouting on my part ("no, please, don't go.  don't leave me.  i'll miss you," etc.  christ, i'm such a bitch), she leaves me in bed alone again.  she's been gone ten minutes, and all of a sudden, i think about the fact that she's been gone ten minutes, and i smile.

after that, i can't sleep, so i stop and think and then realize that i haven't typed anything in here for days now.  so, i sat right down, and did just that.

i also uploaded that awesome pic of linds and i after adding an artistic border to the edges.  aren't we cute?

so, yeah.  work today at three, then i come home and pass out.  i got my psych paper done, i gave my acting presentation on thursday, and got an extension on my journalism articles until next week sometime, so i'm sitting pretty right now.  i have to help steph with her calc homework on monday as well as bounce my answers off of her, but i copied it all from jeff, so i don't have to worry about finishing it this time.  i think tomorrow after school, andrew, shane, kumpp and i are going to shoot andrew and mine's commerical for graphics.  other than that, tomorrow's wide open.  hopefully, it'll include a liberal dose of just lying around with lindsay all day.

tuesday is the show i've waited five years for man!  reel big fish.  i cannot wait.  i cannot wait.  i cannot wait.  rinse and repeat.

this has been my weekend, recorded entirely in here.  i'm such a geek.