everyone should have a LBD

Me: I realized when I was doing laundry yesterday that I'm 2 for 2 on the little black cotton dress I bought for New Year's.

Peter: Whadaya mean?

Me: I've gotten lucky both times I've worn it. I'm going to have to save it for special occasions!

Peter: Can I borrow it?

what happened to the good 'ol flu?

Saturday I woke up not feeling so well, and by Monday I was sick enough to decide I needed to see a doctor. She said it was probably the flu, but if I didn't get better or got worse I should come back.

Well, I got worse - a lot worse. Tuesday I was too sick to watch t.v. (yeah, try and wrap you're head around that one). Wednesday is was back to the doctors. She gave me a bag of saline to start getting me rehydrated and was going to send me packing with some antibiotics, but felt some more tests were needed. Jane, a real hospital vet, was nice enough to come with me to the ER, where I spent 5 1/2 hrs getting 2 more litres of saline, IV antibiotics, a CT scan, and ended up leaving with the exact same drugs the first doctor was going to prescribe. Those saline bags are liquid magic! (And I'm sure my insurance company will reflect that in their billing.)

The final diagnosis I was handed down? Colitis. Totally non-specific, just a general inflammation of the large intestine, probably caused by something I picked up in my travels (although no one else got anything and I was eating and drinking the exact same things, so I'm a little confused). So after feeling like shit since Saturday, I'm finally on the mend. The symptoms aren't disappearing quite as quickly as I'd hope, but I just need to be a little more patient.

Here's a list of foods I should avoid:

• alcohol
• caffeine
• carbonated beverages
• dairy products, if lactose intolerant
• dried beans, peas, and legumes
• dried fruits, berries, fruits with pulp or seeds
• foods containing sulfur or sulfate
• foods high in fiber, including whole-grain products
• hot sauce, pepper
• meats
• nuts, crunchy nut butters
• popcorn
• products containing sorbitol (sugar-free gum and candies)
• raw vegetables
• refined sugar
• seeds
• spicy foods, sauces

Wouldn't it be easier to just list what I can eat? It's the BRAT diet - bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. I remember it well from my childhood. Although I think it's weird that greasy foods aren't mentioned. Going by this list, you'd think french fries were perfectly okay. It's all the healthy stuff that'll shred your intestines, which made me think that maybe all those morbidly obese people I saw on Oprah today just have colitis.

Today's menu has been pretty exciting:

breakfast - 1 piece of toast, 1/2 a Vitamin Water
snack - water
lunch - unsweetened applesauce with cinnamon
snack - water
dinner - white rice made with chicken broth, ginger ale
snack - 1/2 a banana, water

I know, I know, I got a little gourmet with dinner. I couldn't help myself. Honestly, I'm just so surprised at feeling something akin to hunger for the first time in 5 days. Bring on the rice.

'cui bono'

Been a tad under the weather this week (all those exciting travels catching up with me), so Monday night I sent out an e-mail to my students canceling class Tuesday morning. I got this response, and it put such a smile on my face. Keep in mind that I teach a statistics lab.

Amy,

Thank you so much! I hope that everything is alright with you, and want you to know that I love hanging out with you every Tuesday morning, but I want to thank you for canceling lab tomorrow. I turn 21 today, and now I can celebrate guilt-free.

You've made my day, Amy.

S

Glad I could make someone's birthday dreams come true, just by feeling like crap.

Barcelona is...

Barcelona is amazing. It's sunny and open. Barcelona feels much less hectic than, say, London or New York. It's a sangria and tapas wonderland.

Barcelona is also under construction.

Luckily the fountain was still pretty.

I think the drape in the front showing what the cathedral is supposed to look like is a nice touch.

La Sagrada Familia has been under construction for over 100 years. It's not like they're redoing it, it's never been finished. I'm all for splendor, but at what point do you just say "screw it" and move on to something else. Gaudi wanted this to be a tribute a Jesus - a dude that hung out in sandals. Don't you think he'd rather the money be used to build a community center or couple hundred soup kitchens? Tapas kitchens?

international eats

I'm back, I'm jet-lagged, and I'm wondering how long I can milk that excuse. I haven't left my apartment in 2 days, but I did manage to shower today and even have some dinner on the stove. Anything I eat, however, is a fantastic disappointment from Barcelona. Once my brain solidifies again I hope to have something witty, or at the very least intelligible, to say but until then, I present you with some Spanish food porn.

jet setting academic?

Disclaimer: Please accept that my current travel plans are not statistically representative of a) my life or b) grad students more generally (in the humanities and social sciences at least, I've no idea what goes on in those buildings with lab coats and latex gloves and safety goggles).

I'm barely back from Mexico - I've stopped peeling, but I still have "tan lines" (a.k.a. extra freckles) - and we clearly went at a good time. The State Department has issued a travel advisory for south of the border. Apparently the war on drugs isn't going so well down there. Fortunately there were no shoot-outs in sight during my trip, just postcard vistas:

I've barely mentioned Mexico, I know, but there's not much to say. It was gorgeous. I didn't check e-mail or turn on my cell phone for 5 days. Everyday my only responsibility was deciding whether I wanted a Miami Vice or Banana Monkey during happy hour (the latter consistently won out - it was a blended beverage that incorporated coconut, banana, chocolate, and rum - yum!). There was a lovely woman named Teddy in a nearby condo who would come by everyday around 2pm and ask if we needed an "attitude adjustment," by which she meant joining her to smoke a blunt. Speaking of which, on the cab ride home the guys were "fake" bargaining with the driver to see what they could get for selling the ladies on the black market, and drugs got mentioned, and he whipped out a small baggie and was like, "coca?!" Why thank you, Paco, but no. Even though Cancun is basically Florida with less old people and more Mexicans, and even if I was interested in drugs, I've seen Broke Down Palace - I don't even go near people that look like they're on drugs when I travel abroad (back home is a different story - they're my friends!). We stuck with the booze. Here I am with my darling Peter - our host for the trip - enjoying one last Corona (draft!) at the aeropuerto:

Peter's goal was to have his ethnicity challenged when he presented his passport on the way home. I think he achieved his goal.

Now I'm off again! I'm returning to my old stomping grounds of Cambridge, UK - home of many good times and an equal number of bad decisions (they're not mutually exclusive categories afterall). We've got a grad student conference over the weekend that's paid for by school, so my friends and I decided to take advantage of cheap European travel fares and hop over to the continent for 3 days in Barcelona, Spain.

I'm making grad school sounds way too good.

she's bAAAAAaaack

Who saw Idol last night? I think we can say with some certainty that Paula is officially off the wagon. Woo hoo!



And holy Botox batman - nothing above her nose was moving. She was looking awfully "taught" in the eye region.

annoying riddle

What's annoying?

A student who never comes to class

What's more annoying?

A student who never comes to class, and then e-mails you to say she's having trouble with the class

What's more annoying than that?

A student who never comes to class, and then e-mails you to say she's having trouble with the class, so you set up a meeting with her, and she's 25 minutes late, with no apology or anything.

And what's even more annoying than that?

A student who never comes to class, and then e-mails you to say she's having trouble with the class, so you set up a meeting with her, and she's 25 minutes late, with no apology or anything, and then when you go to tell your friend about it (because you'd been complaining to her earlier), she says, "Oh yeah, I met your student. She was hanging by the front desk and the admin wasn't there, so I asked her if she needed any help, and she said, 'Yeah, I'm looking for Amy Michel*.' And I said, 'Who?', and he said, 'The girl that teaches the stats lab.' So I said, 'oh, you mean Amy LeClair?' And she said, 'Yeah, her.'"

*There's a slight possibility that, because my middle name is Michelle, it gets chopped off on some forms and comes up as 'Amy Michel.' But not on my syllabus. Or the course website.

season 8 Idol chatter

Don't worry, no spoilers in this post b/c I found out last night my sister is still on Hollywood Week!! Catch up, yo!

So I've been silent on the Idol issue so far this season, but last night was too much. As a general comment on this season, I'm seriously underwhelmed. (Speaking of, when does the new season of Project Runway start? I need me a Michael Kors fix, and my one Marshall's shirt isn't cutting it.) These first few rounds have been more boring than last season's spring line at the Gap. Seriously, the contestants open their mouths to start signing, and I'm falling asleep before they hit a key change.

Then there are the judges. I love Simon - he can do no wrong (except, maybe, for the thinly veiled homophobic jokes). Randy, dawg, we've got to talk. Now Stacey and Clinton always tell us that patterns and accessories to should be proportional to the size of the women wearing them - big lady, big purse; small lady, small print. I try to remember this everyday. But I'm not sure this maxim holds true for men, Mr. Jackson, so just cause you're a bigger dude with a body-by-Grimace does not mean that you should or can wear over-sized accessories. You know exactly what I'm talking about - that watch is the size of the actual sun. It's ridiculous.

Paula should be congratulated on her sobriety - she's been remarkably unremarkable this season. Although last night she kept demonstrating her steal trap memory, which makes me think she might be snorting Ritalin. But even if she is, that's the least of the show's problems. She might also want a new make-up artist as last night I think her blush actually started inside her nostrils before creeping up her cheekbones.

And for the love of GOD we've got to get rid of this kid:

He looks like he got caught in the middle of a bitch fight at Forever 21. There's no other way to explain his "style".

Clearly I will be glued to the TV tonight for the results. Anyone know how they're running the wild card round?