I’m not a nurse!

Happy Halloween!!!

(and happy 5th anniversary, Annida and Dan!)

The verdict’s in: I’ve got conjunctivitis in both eyes. I took off work yesterday because my eyes looked horrific. I called my GP’s office and was told that she’d try to squeeze me in at 5:30pm. So I spent the day watching stuff I’d taped the night before, reading (although it was a bit difficult, because of my swollen, blurry eyes), and chatting with Angela. At my doctor’s office I kept my eyes downcast so the other people in the waiting room wouldn’t see my deformed-looking eyes. The nurse actually flinched when she saw me!! And my doctor took all of five seconds to diagnose severe conjunctivitis. She gave me a prescription and I promptly went to CVS to fill it, and while waiting for it to be ready, I browsed through the store, eyes trained on the floor, praying that nobody would notice them. I’m far from vain (I have no qualms with going out in public in my pajamas with unwashed hair, for example), but this was ridiculous—I looked like a monster!

I’m still infectious but I came to work anyway—mostly because the medicine is helping to make my eyes look more normal. I’m trying to be careful, washing my hands repeatedly and avoiding touching too much beyond my cubicle walls so I don’t infect my coworkers. It’s selfish, I s’pose, but I’d rather save my sick days for times when I really feel sick. And aside from my eyes, I do feel fine. Plus Tuesdays are when my upstairs neighbors watch their grandchild (the one who does nothing except run endless laps on their hardwood floors and periodically shriek), and the thought of spending the entire day listening to those endless thumping footfalls kind of roiled my stomach.

On Saturday night my conjunctivitis went into remission long enough to allow me to go to Georgetown in costume (I was a Soviet prostitute) with my coworker Susan. For my costume I wore my knee-high platform boots; fishnets; a red miniskirt (I bought a skirt at the Salvation Army and chopped it short); a white shirt, unbuttoned halfway, with a black pushup bra beneath it; a military cap covered in Russian badges and merit pins, which I bought in St. Petersburg; my neon pink wig; the Soviet watch I bought at an army-navy store in high school (when the Soviet Union still existed!); a Lenin pin commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Soviet revolution, which I bought at a Helsinki flea market; and a red tie made out of old fabric, with a hand-drawn hammer and sickle on it.

Nobody knew what I was supposed to be—not that I can blame them! One dude thought I was La Femme Nikita, and a few people thought I was a nurse. Still, despite their confusion, the costume was a hit with all the drunken frat boys roaming the streets! A couple of them even snapped my picture!








me in Georgetown,
looking drunk, even
though
I wasn’t

trying the prostitute-
with-glasses
angle

song heard most recently before posting: Night on Bald Mountain—Modest Mussorgsky