I'm Cooked

There is this woman on the Food Network named Contessa something. She's barefoot for some reason. And, obviously, she's really good at cooking. She chops things. Mixes them. Bakes them. Flambes them. The woman makes a chicken salad sandwich look gourmet.

Last night, I microwaved two already-cooked hot dogs and hamburgers. That was my dinner.

It's worth saying because first off, I didn't come down with salmonella like everyone thought I would. Second, my cooking abilities pale in comparison to, oh, anybody. I'm a very good microwave jockey, and I also specialize in the Foreman grill. Want me to show off? Ask me to heat up a piece of meat while I nuke some mashed potatoes.

If this is genetic, it has to come from my grandfather. He once microwaved two eggs. One exploded before he opened the door. The other blew up in his hand. After that, he limited his cooking to the relatively safe preparation of a peanut butter sandwich.

I once used to brag that I was great at cooking spaghetti. I'm not talking about hand-making the pasta or the sauce, rather the act of boiling water and putting linguine in it. I stopped bragging when I realized everybody is good at making spaghetti.

Someday, I will be a better chef. Like anything it will take work. For now, I've just got to make do. I think I'll have steak tonight. I just have to remember how long to take to cook it in the microwave.

I'm Your Huckleberry

I've been sick since Sunday with a nagging cough and a persistent sore throat. Rather than use my mental capacities on writing something new, here's something I wrote four years ago this month.
--
So, Monday I went to the doctor and he told me maybe, just maybe, I had tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is, as diseases go, moderately chic.  After all, this was the disease that brought down Doc Holliday, and how many cool lines did he have in Tombstone?   I thought of myself, at work, dying of TB, sweating, pale and still amazingly glib.  "The photog says the transmitter in the live truck is dead?" I’d say, in between fits of coughing up blood. “It would appear that the strain was more than he could bear.”

The reality is: I had pneumonia, and a really bad case of it.  Somehow the disease had slipped incognito into my left lung and taken up residence sometime on Friday or Saturday, when I went from moderately tired to flattened by fever.  I suddenly found myself burning up, rosy-cheeked, sweating and highly confused as I laid down on my couch.  Ten hours later, without having moved, I decided that trying to sit in an upright position would be a waste of my time. So, I lurched myself up, took some Goody’s Headache Powder, crawled into bed, and proceeded to soak my sheets in sweat.

Monday, I decided that my regimen of sweating, Advil and powder was not working correctly, and I went to the doctor.  I rarely visit the Urgent Care anywhere, just because I tend to go when the worst is over.  "So, you had a bad fever," the nurse would often say, as she denoted my horrible fever of 99.3 degrees, "And your throat was hurting, and you were seeing spots."

Then the doctor would come in, see that I had symptoms that even a six-year-old child wouldn’t complain about, say I was probably going to be ok, and give me a prescription just to make sure the sickness would go away completely.

Translation: Get the hell out of my office, wuss.  There are people out in the waiting room with severed fingers and ruptured spleens.  Your 99.3 was probably caused by looking at that six-month old People magazine with Carmen Electra on the cover.  Here.  Take this prescription for seven days worth of sugar pills, jackass, and come back when one of your kidneys stops working.

So, as I sat on that weird half-bed on the exam room, on top of that crinkly paper, I was taken by surprise when I took a deep breath, and the doctor said, "Huh.  Do that again.

"Well," he said, pulling his stethoscope out from his ears.  "There’s definitely something going on inside your left lung.  Tell me again what your symptoms are?"

Once again, I repeated what I’d told him earlier: fever, coughing, acute laziness, desire to watch infomercials.

He seemed perplexed by the problems I wasn’t having.  Perhaps he’d talked to all the other doctors I’d seen at all the other urgent cares.  This time, they all conspired, we’re gonna get this guy.  We’re gonna run so many tests on him, he’ll think twice about coming in again, complaining about slight pain under his fingernails.

That was the only reason why I thought he’d ordered up a chest X-ray, phlegm test and throat swab.  Let’s give him three random overpriced procedures to prove to him that, yes, he’s perfectly capable of beating his fake ailment on his own.

After the X-ray, though, the doctor got somber.  "Close the door," he said, as he sat suspiciously far away from me, rested his elbows on his legs and started to tell me that he had absolutely no explanation for what was in my lung.

Actually, that’s not true.  He did.  "I’m looking at your x-ray here, and, well, this thing you’ve got at the top of your left lung here isn’t what we normally see in folks that have pneumonia, and well—hey, quick question… have you ever been to prison?"

Apparently, serving prison time was a precursor to whatever deadly disease had decided to strike me down in the prime of my life.  "It’s just that, well, what you have is, and I don’t want you to be nervous or anything," he said, making me nervous, "but, I just don’t know where you would have gotten this from.  I mean, do you hang out in nursing homes?"

Then he busted out the big TB.

Things got a lot more serious after that.  The same nurse who hadn’t even flinched through my coughing fits five minutes ago came back in wearing a full-fledged Michael Jackson SARS mask.

"Oh, it’s just a precaution," she said as she avoided eye contact.  Of course, if I actually had tuberculosis, she’d be the carrier.  After all, I’d already filled up the room with my horrible death spores when she’d come in the first time.  "It's true, you are a good woman," I wanted to say in my best Holliday.  "Then again, you may be the Antichrist."

Apparently, tuberculosis is a very dangerous disease that I’d thought was eradicated years ago.  Maybe all this time it’d been hanging out with polio and scurvy, plotting a comeback that, in some twisted way, involved showing up in my lung and causing me to sweat through all the nice things I owned.  The doctor explained to me that if I had it, I’d probably get over it, after six months of treatment and registration with the health department.  This worried me.  Not so much the half-year of medical attention, but the mandatory journeys to the Hippocratic equivalent of the DMV.

I went back home and waited, and while I waited, took enough prescription antibiotics to stop the Ebola virus in its tracks.  I prayed somebody would call me to ask me how I was doing.  I’d then cough and reply, "I’m dying, how are you."

I sat around for the better part of three days, coming up with tuberculosis stories.  "This one time I had tuberculosis," I saw myself telling my grandkids one day.  "I remember it well.  My fingernails turned green and my hair melted and my blood transmogrified itself into motor oil.  That was a rough time.  They cast me down to live with the folks who had the measles.  They figured that wussy disease might be destroyed whole by the power of my TB."

It turns out, I didn’t have TB, which was a disappointment.  It was like telling Doc Holliday that what he really had was just a bad case of the sniffles.  Your sweating, Doc?  That’s just from the humidity.

Still, every brush with a health problem should make you realize how lucky you have it when you’re not sick.  Sure, I’m looking forward to fully taking advantage of a tuberculosis-free life in a few days, but once I’m there I’ll probably just go back to drinking beer, obeying the 5 second rule and forgetting to wash my hands again.  That’s just me.  It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

In the meantime, I’m just coming up with some cool lines to say if I ever come down with Lupus.  Do you know any good movies about Lupus?
--
From May 19, 2006

Explaining Meck Dec Day in 45 seconds

Here's a hastily thrown together blog I wrote for wcnc.com today on Meck Dec Day, something we keep calling a big deal here in Charlotte even though most people, when asked, can't explain what it is off the tops of their heads. Something to do with this guy who did this, uh, thing with a declaration that, well, it's like Paul Revere when, uh, yeah.

In reality, I took a 45 second script I wrote a year ago, got rid of the all-caps TV format, then wrote a set-up that's probably longer than the script. It's meh. Anyway, here it is.

Riding West On Bus No. 57

Consider this: If you get off of the light rail at Archdale Station and hop on Bus No. 57, there's a 50-50 chance you'll end up at either Charlotte's most upscale mall, or the scene of a quadruple murder.

That's what always pops in to my head whenever I bike to work, and the ride home goes wrong somehow. Sometimes it's a nasty thunderstorm. Yesterday it was a busted derailleur. I limped over to the closest LYNX stop and caught the next southbound train to Archdale.

The bus was there, but I didn't get on. This one was headed to the Tree Top Condominiums. Four people were found dead there in an apartment two years ago. Police still haven't solved the crime.

Sometimes when it's pouring, I'll just hop on the bus to get out of the rain. Yesterday it was warm and dry, so I waited fifteen minutes for the bus to come around and take me toward SouthPark. I live a mile away. At least six people got on to go west toward Tree Top. I was one of only three heading east.

It's easy to think that what happens a few neighborhoods away isn't your problem. A year ago, my parents were in town and my mom and I were walking their dog. Just up the street from my condo, a man jumped out of the car ahead of us. He was holding a Jack Russell Terrier, just like ours. The conversation started out innocently enough; we talked about what maniacs they are and how impervious they seem to be to any sort of training.

Then the man started talking about where he got the dog. There had been a woman in our condo complex that owned it. She had problems. She was short on money and heavy into drugs. Her problems became the dog's problems.

The man offered to take the dog. At first she said no. But then she realized that getting rid of the terrier would put more money in her pocket. She relented. She gave up the dog. Soon after, she moved out. Or she was kicked out. Probably the latter.

She was one of the four people found dead at Tree Top.

Charlotte can seem like such a cliquey place to live. You can be in a nice place one moment and a not-so-nice one the next. You think you can escape your neighbors' troubles simply by not driving down their street. In reality, this isn't your city, it's our city. And if you can't see that, head over to Archdale, get on the bus, and head west.

Coolio's Fish Takes Fantastic Voyage Through My Bowels

Here's the story: Coolio appears on Charlotte Today. Coolio raps. Coolio cooks fish. Jeremy eats fish. Jeremy gets sick.

I'm not saying there's a cause-effect thing going on here. I, as a rule, get really hungry, like, always. My stomach growls so much, it's usually hoarse.

That's what lured me to Coolio's (not making this up) Tricked-Out Westside Tilapia. Somebody from the show put a plate of it on my desk. Right in front of me. Come on. That's not fair.

A co-worker told me I probably shouldn't eat it, but since I already had half of it in my mouth, I chose to ignore him. Three hours later, he shook his head at me when I lurched over to his desk and asked for Tums. Later, I found out why he had been so concerned: Coolio threw most of the ingredients into the dish with his bare hands. He also used what he referred to as a half-dimebag of pepper.

By 3:30, my stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself, and I fought back a Tricked-Out Southside Eruption. The same co-worker who warned me not to eat Coolio's tilapia took great delight in telling me that yes, this is what it must be like livin' in a Gangsta's Paradise. Another asked me if my lunch was going to slide, slide, slippedy slide out, uh, somewhere.

I was doing what I could. Just to survive. And I did. Whatever I had ended up passing in a quite non-violent manner a few hours later.

I did get a chance to meet Coolio right afterward eating his lunch, and I thanked him for it. Coolio, to use a bad pun, is a really cool guy. He sat in a side room behind the studio, signing copies of his new album and posing for pictures with all of us. He talked about one of his new songs, "Change," and in a moment of sober introspection, explained that the song's deep meaning was a battle between being who you were and being who you are when your life changes. "And guys," he said. "You've gotta see the video. It's got three women in it so fine, they make Charlie's Angels look like shit."

Fine. I'll concede that point, Coolio. But the next time you cook me lunch, use a spoon.

You Got Me

Folks, the hardest thing to do while guiding a raft is to admit defeat.

The Big Drop is the only Class IV rapid at the U.S. National Whitewater Center, and it's a test in moderation. All of the water from the top pond rushes straight down a channel, only to abruptly turn left. Before it does, though, it pillows up on a rock. Usually as a guide, your mission is to drive your raft toward that rock with a lot of momentum, then let the water turn you and push you through an opening about fifteen feet wide.

Speed is always the key. Go too slow and you'll hit the left wall. Go too fast and you'll hit the one on the right.

At least that's the way it usually works. Yesterday was my first time running the Big Drop this year, and instead of having a straight line to run, a row of bollards on either side funneled the water into an S-turn. We all had trouble with it. I hit the right wall. Hard. Several times (see above).

In short, it got me. Not as bad as some others, who lost entire boatloads of guests or who hit the bottom of the drop and flipped, but still, it got me.

After the first run or two I figured it out. Then on my last run of the day, I hit the right wall again.

I laughed it off. You have to. Otherwise you'd go crazy.

Today, I'm headed out again to give the Big Drop another try. I'm sure I'll get it. But if I were you, I'd brace for impact.

Non-Sequitur Of The Week

In the midst of some craziness in the newsroom earlier this week, one of my bosses kept asking who lives at 609 Palm Canyon Road.  Nobody had an answer. We all thought this had something to do with, well, the news.

After a while, he turned to me and said "Victor Maitland."

Top that.

Two Weeks Ago Today

Two weeks ago, my family and I spent a weekend at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville. Here was the view from my room:

Here's the view today from the next atrium over:

It's a strange sight to see something that familiar look so completely wrecked. like if an airplane crashed into Cinderella's Castle at Disney World or something. Two weeks ago today, my family and I sat at that bar and had coffee. Then we walked under that arch, checked out and headed home. If we'd been there this weekend, there's a good chance we would have all spent the night at the high school nearby. We might not have our luggage. I'm not sure what would have happened to our cars.

In short, there are a lot of what-ifs.

This sort of thing seems to happen frighteningly often to me. In 2005, we took a trip to Europe and flew home from London. Less than a week later, four men blew up bombs in the Underground. Fifty-two people died. Last summer, I visited a friend in Washington, DC and got around town on the Metro Red Line. A week after I went home, two Red Line subway trains collided. The crash killed nine people.

Statistically, I'm not sure if all of that is significant. Personally, it is. And once again, it's got me staring at a picture, feeling awfully lucky.

I Underestimated You, Winston-Salem

Do the math: Winston-Salem is smaller than Charlotte. A 5K is shorter than most other types of road races. Five miles is not that far to drive. An hour is plenty of time to get there.

My math was wrong on Saturday morning, and long line of cars waiting to find a parking space for the Race For The Cure proved it. They snaked around bends in the road for at least a mile. I am not very familiar with Winston-Salem, insomuch as I've never driven a car there before and have no working knowledge of the roads.

When I don't know something, I join the herd. I didn't know a back way to the parking lot so I waited for twenty minutes to creep toward what I thought was a parking lot. When my girlfriend and I saw a horde of people bypassing the line for the shuttle and instead walking across a field, we followed them, thinking the starting line for the race had to be right beyond the next stand of trees.

Nope. The starting line was about a mile's walk along a greenway that took us through a swamp. Everybody along the path was sauntering along, making us think we had plenty of time. Nope. We had a quarter-mile to walk with five minutes to go before the starting gun. Some guy hustling along behind us said he was going to miss the race. I told him that we hadn't even registered. Suddenly he felt better. Us? Nope. We felt worse.

We missed the deadline to register for the timed portion of the race. We got there too late to get any shirt size smaller than XL (My girlfriend worse it as a t-shirt dress). We didn't have the time to weave our way toward the starting line and instead had to hang out in the back of a pack of ten-thousand people.

Because we were late, I got to run with my girlfriend, which I probably wouldn't have done had we actually shown up on time. She forgot her iPod, so I sang to her. Badly. I think it made her run faster, just to get away from my voice.

Because we were late and so far back, we had no choice but to weave in and out of hundreds, maybe thousands of pink-shirted cancer survivors, all of whom I probably wouldn't have noticed nearly as much had we arrived a half-hour earlier. Many others wore the names of survivors on their backs. Their Race For The Cure was never about the time.

I showed up, selfishly, to run my race on my terms. Instead, I had to stop looking inward and turn my attention outward. Next time, I'll do the math. We'll show up for the next 5K early. This time, I'm glad we were late.