Barfing in NYC

Allison and I were in New York City looking at apartments on Saturday. All was going well and we were enjoying the very hot and humid day. We went to Brooklyn to look at another place and had some time to kill so we were sitting in the park reading. I fell asleep with a mild headache and when I woke up, my head was pounding with a terrible migraine. Not only that, but I was feeling somewhat queasy.
We decided to go get a bite to eat before seeing the apartment and we found a cute little cafe. While sitting there, I suddenly felt as though I was going to throw up and I bolted for the bathroom. I did in fact barf for a while in the bathroom. When I returned, I took a sip of my smoothie to get the taste out of my mouth, but that made me feel sick again. I ran to the bathroom, but someone was in it so I quickly turned and ran out to the street. I sat on a bench outside the restaurant and barfed some more. Quite a bit more actually. And people kept staring at me and asking me if they should get me help. When I finished barfing out there, a man asked me if I needed help and I stammered, "My friend...she's inside...someone was in the bathroom...I had to come out here...I'm really sorry..."
After I sat with my head down on the table in the restaurant for a while (while Allison read a book), we left to go see the apartment. It was really nice and I managed not to barf while we were in it. Then we left to catch the F train back to Chinatown so we could get back to Philly ASAP. But while waiting for the subway, the lovely subway smell triggered another round of barfing. It was coming out of my nose and mouth and splattering all over my feet and legs. Disgusting!!! The people around were lovely and offered me some tissues and body spray. Then, we moved a few seats over and away from the barf. A mom with a few kids came down and they were standing right near it. Then she saw it and quickly moved her kids away while all of them were saying, "Ewwwww, that's sooooo gross!!!" (they weren't around to see the barfing episode so they didn't know it was mine).
I managed to keep it under control on the subway and didn't barf on the bus either. But I had an eventful day of awkward barfing in the city. Now that I feel better, I find the situation quite funny.

3 awkward airport moments

1. El aeropuerto de los Cabos, Mexico: I was in line waiting to board my airplane to go back to the US today. In my hand was my passport and my boarding pass. Then I heard a voice from behind me say, "Excuse me, where did you get that?" The voice belonged to a middle-aged, American woman. Initially, I thought she was referring to the bag in my hand which had a bottle of Mexican tequila. But, no. She was referring to my passport. I stared at her for about 3 full minutes unsure of how to answer that question. My train of thought was something like, "Hmm...my passport? Well, it was mailed to me. But it's not like I just went to a store and bought it. Where did I get it? I remember where I got my passport photo..." Finally, I answered her and told her that you can get them at the post office. I mean, what did she think--you can just buy them at your local Wal-Mart?
2. International Airport of Ontario, CA: I had finished going through US customs and had to catch a free shuttle to another terminal for my connecting flight. I boarded the shuttle with my large backpack bag, but was unsure about where it was going exactly since some people on it were going to their cars in the parking lot. I only had 30 minutes to recheck in with the new airline, recheck my bag and go through security, so I was a litte nervous about catching my flight. As the driver began to slow down the bus, he started yelling out which airlines were at that stop. I wasn't sure if it was one of those things where you had to pull a chord and let them know that you wanted off. So I just waved my hand and yelled, "yeah!" Well, apparently he stops at every stop anyway and everyone on the shuttle was looking at me like I was crazy. I jumped off the shuttle when it stopped to get away from all the people who thought I was a moron.
3. On the flight from Ontario to Denver: I was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as I sat down on the plane. All of a sudden, I awoke as my seat came crashing back to the reclining position. I thought that either a) my plane was crashing or b) something was wrong and my seat was broken. But as I opened my eyes, I discovered that the woman next to me had pressed my button. Keep in mind that she had to lean over to my side of the arm rest to push the button. Flash forward to midway through the flight. She missed the announcement of when we were landing so I repeated it to her. She proceeded to take out her cell phone, turn it on, and attempt to make phone calls. I wasn't sure whether to tell her that you can't use cell phones or whether I should just watch and see what happened. I opted for the latter and watched as she dialed, didn't get a signal, and redialed several times all the while trying to hold back my laughter. Finally, she got frustrated with the phone and put it away.

All in all, it was an eventful day of travels. I'm glad to be home now and glad to be free of awkward travel moments until I leave again in three days...

The Flirtatious X

So I was at camp making camper calls with this new counselor, new to the USA as of Saturday, that I will be working with during the summer. As I am making my last camper call, the X walks in and the new girl and him start having a conversation. As I finish up my camper call the new girl and the X are flirting by my exit door. Inside I panic because I'm not sure what to do. Should I pull a Marla and go out the back door? Or pretend I'm doing something really important and hope they move on so I can leave "normally". Well after pretending to reorganize my folder for the umpteenth time, I realize there is not a way out and I also had a question pertaining to the X's job that I needed to clarify before the day was done, so I walk into their flirtatious convo (clearly super-cool and natural) to ask the X my question. It was the funniest thing ever. The convo flowed fine and it didn't seem awkward...at least from my end, but the moments before were super awkward and made me laugh. OK love yallz! Peace.

a convo turn that none follow...

Back at home in Arizona, where people aren't as used to the randomness...
>I was out to dinner with 5 friends from high school on Monday, and we were enjoying some pleasant conversation about sights to see in Arizona.
>My friend Zhinus commented something like "the city of Gerome is really weird. I was in this store there and they had all these doll heads everywhere..."
>at that point I piped in
>"that's like where I worked this year!"
>all eyes turned to Marla for further explanation
>"yeah, in my lab we were building these dolls I mean these dummies and we had to use real ones and stuff... you know, we had to cut off their heads and arms and stuff…and….it was really weird. looking.”
>still, high school friends did not quite seem to follow. The comment apparently didn’t really fit and wasn’t one that could be cavalierly added to a conversation. (remember, I am prone to add things that I don’t mean for anyone to pay attention to) So I casually changed the subject back to Zhinus’s store…
>Lesson learned: some things shouldn’t be explained or for that matter even used as commentary.