Some people

Since I've lived at the Marlborough, a beautiful pre-WW II brick building with 110 units, I've been stealing Internet access. With a hefty mortgage and monthly condo fee of more than $500 a month (that inexplicably includes cable but not Internet) I couldn't take one more bill.

For the past five years that I've lived here, I've always been able to get online through an unsecured network. But throughout the years, the network I was using would suddenly disappear from the list of "open networks" that show up whenever I turn on my AirPort.

For a few days, I'd consider getting my own account and have actually called Comcast a few times to do it. But they're such assholes, saying that it will cost $125 just to set up the line, then $65+ a month, I always hang up. Then suddenly, beautifully, another unsecured network will pop up and I'm in business again.

Yet about a month ago our trusty network connection disappeared again and Dave and I have been struggling to get online ever since. Dave found that if you sat on the edge of our bed and held your laptop slightly above your lap, you could get a faint connection. But who wants to live like that?

Dave then followed the connection out our front door, much like a man tracking a metal detector across the beach, and found that if he walked up the stairs outside our door to the ninth floor landing, you could get a strong signal. We've been going up to the ninth floor and sitting in the hallway with our laptops to write email, check the address of a restaurant, or buy something on Amazon ever since. (Yes, I am sitting in the hallway as I write this blog post.)

This is slightly inconvenient, no doubt, but not terrible considering we both have iPhones now and full-time jobs with access to the Internet Monday through Friday at our desks. But the other day I found out just how inconvenient it was for one of our neighbors who berated me for being in her space.

Yesterday I was sitting in the hallway looking up news stories for an international news website I've been moonlighting for when a neighbor came out of her front door, scowled on her way past me to drop her garbage into the trash shoot, muttering that I could get free Internet connection at the Starbucks down the street.

I looked up from my laptop, saw she was the same older woman who had demanded to see my key before letting me follow her into our building even though I had recognized her for years, and shrugged. I went back to my work. I quickly cut and pasted the latest news on the debt ceiling debates into a word document and went back into our apartment to work.

A few hours later after I had written the stories, I went back up to the ninth floor landing to post them to the site. Again, her door opened.

"Oh you again," she said. She paused, glaring at me. "You know, this isn't an office."

I looked up at her unneighborly face, studied her round physique, short cropped hair and guessed she was in her late 50s. A shot of hot anger filled my chest.

"I know," I said. "But our Internet connection isn't working and the only place I can get a signal is up here."

"Well don't you think you should get that fixed?" she said. What a bitch!

"We're working on it," I lied. "Jesus, I didn't think it would be such a big deal."

"There are plenty of other landings where you could work," she said, going back into her apartment and slamming the door.

I finished posting my stories and went back into our apartment to recount the story to Dave. His take? "She's probably one of those bitter divorced women," he said. "Some people get really sensitive about their privacy."

That I understood. But the thing is our carpeted hallways are really long and wide. It's not like I'm blocking the walkway or I'm some riff raff being loud and leaving my trash everywhere for her to pick up. I don't have children who are bouncing balls and yelling down the hall. It's just me and my MacBook sitting cross-legged in the hall for 30 minutes stretches at a time. Geesh, what's the big deal?

Which got me thinking about how we all choose how to react when confronted with a situation that may be a little unusual. Whenever our building manager sees me sitting in the hallway with my laptop, he teases me that Dave has kicked me out. Another neighbor who lives in that hallway struck up a conversation and ended up showing me the new windows she had installed. Yet another has invited me inside her apartment to use her connection from the comfort of her couch.

It doesn't have to be this way! I want to scream to the crabby one who no doubt is going to report me to the front office. Then we'll all get a letter from the office manager saying we aren't allowed to sit in the halls, much like the one we got this winter saying we couldn't leave our snow boots outside our front doors.

Ah, communal living. Some of us embrace it better than others. For now, I've found a pocket in the eighth floor hallway that gets a signal. Just don't tell the woman on the ninth floor. She's sure to call the police.

Sip, don't gulp

On Saturday I woke up with a splitting headache. It was no surprise, considering Dave and I had spent the night before drinking with some of his law school friends. I'll admit, I had six to seven glasses of wine within five hours of lively conversation and Thai food. When I went to bed and closed my eyes, the room was spinning  — much like the night in college when I drank too much cheap vodka and cranberry juice and kept tripping out on my friend's lava lamp as I tried to sleep it off on her futon.

I thought it was something to endure with liters of water and a fistful of Aleve, but when I still couldn't keep food down three days later and felt nauseous every time I tried to sit up, I knew I was dying. At least, that's what I told Dave to evoke more sympathy, which was more of a joke than anything considering he would sit behind me and rub my back every time I ran to the bathroom and threw up the yogurt, bananas and water crackers he tried to feed me.

I kept thinking I'd wake up and feel better, I mean how long can a hangover last? But by Monday, when I lay on the couch whimpering and sweating, my stomach burning and my head pounding, I called my doctor, who told me to go to the ER. The ER? Was that really necessary? Yes, she said. I needed fluids and tests.

I eased myself off the couch, took my first shower in three days and gingerly pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I called Dave at work to tell him where I was going and hailed a cab to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. For two and a half hours I sat in the packed waiting room with all of humanity.

An elderly man in a wheelchair had a gash on the top of his balding head. Another woman sat moaning over a plastic bucket she clutched in her lap. But my favorite was the drunk panhandler they had strapped to a wheelchair and parked near the flat screen TV. "Turn that down!" he yelled."I told you, turn that down," he said over and over. Apparently he hated "Everybody Loves Raymond" as much as I did.

An ER nurse finally called my name and took me back to a cold examining room (why are hospitals always freezing?), handed me a backless gown and told me to undress. She took my blood pressure, a vial of blood and hooked me up to a bag of saline. She was 30ish and slender, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was also eight months pregnant.

"Please tell me this isn't what pregnancy feels like," I told her.

"Oh yeah," she said. "I was sick as a dog from 5 weeks to 15 weeks." (Pregnant ladies always talk in weeks, which always throws me off because I have to mentally divide by four to convert them to months for the time frame to mean anything.)

"Oh my God," I said. "And you were working here?"

In the waiting room, I'd had to move seats twice, once when a guy who reeked of smoke sat down next to me and the second time when they parked another drunk next to me who had a tube of urine peaking out from under the blanket on his lap. The smells made me even more nauseous, and I feared I would lose it right there in the waiting room. Why would anyone want to work here? I thought, as I watched the haggard hospital staff rush around attending to the sick and wounded. 

"Oh yeah," the nurse said. "It was awful. I had to run out of the room constantly to throw up."

Oh God. I couldn't imagine anything worse. 

Thirty minutes later the resident doctor showed up, asked me a stream of questions, poked around on my stomach and sat down on a chair to be at eye level with me and said I probably had gastritis — inflammation of the stomach lining. It wasn't the flu, he said, because I didn't have all the symptoms (I'll spare you the symptoms that were missing). The alcohol likely irritated my stomach lining, causing acids to build up and make me nauseous. I felt like a stupid college kid. Why the hell had I drunk that much?

On the list of foods to eat to soothe an upset stomach that Dave had downloaded from the Internet shortly after I fell sick, it said to avoid fatty, greasy or spicy food and steer away from sweets. It recommended eating clear-broth soups, oatmeal, rice, toast without butter, bananas and plain pasta. That seemed straightforward enough, even though I couldn't even keep those down. But then I got to the last paragraph:

Take small sips of clear liquids, such as 7-UP, Gatorade or ginger ale. SIP, DO NOT GULP. Larger amounts of fluids may cause you to vomit again.

That, for me, was the hard part. I'm not one who likes to sit around and sip my way through life. I walk fast, talk fast and eat dinner in three bites. I have to consciously remind myself to breathe and slow down, feel the pavement under my feet as I rush to the bus stop to get to work. I don't have to do everything at once. And what's the hurry anyway? Where do I think I'm going so fast?

That's why it's challenging for me to be sick. I don't like to slow down, which is really the only thing you can do to help it pass. Slow down and wait. And in this case, go to the ER and wait.

After getting fluids, anti-nausea medicine and drinking some God awful chalky antacid, I started to feel human again. By the time Dave joined me in the hospital room in his suit and tie from work, I was chatty and craving 7-UP. We sat for another three hours waiting for the results of my urine and blood tests, which I guess in the the end, was worth it.

Diagnosis: I wasn't dying, just dehydrated.

A is for anglo

I'm pretty sure I scared my friend Alina. The other day I sent what I thought was a harmless email asking if she was going to be around in March. Alina lives in Miami and I wanted to make sure she'd be there if Dave and I booked plane tickets to visit my old tropical stomping grounds over his spring break next year.

Her answer:

I'm processing this at several levels, all of them good, but indeed, your message has filtered through several layers of understanding:

1. I have a very special dear friend Laurie, who's a lot of fun

2. My friend Laurie is Anglo

3. Like all true Anglos, Laurie is organized and plans ahead, for better results.

4. Laurie plans ahead, way ahead

5. Laurie's plans, luckily, sometimes involve me

6. Laurie plans ahead

7. She's coming to Miami, cool!!

8. She's coming to Miami next year.

9. She's planning to come to Miami next year.

10. She's planning.

11. Laurie plans, sometimes like a year in advance.

12. It's really smart to plan ahead, you do get better results.

13. I admire the way that some people plan.

14. If I planned ahead, I'd get much better results.

15. Why do I find it so difficult to plan?

16. Gosh, I have no idea what I'm doing this summer.

17. Do I really have a planning-deficit problem?

18. Probably

19. Laurie...Miami...

20. I guess so, yes, I think so, would love to see you, come to Miami!!

I laughed aloud when I read her email, immediately realizing my mistake. I had sent an email in June 2011 asking a Latina what her schedule was like the third week of March 2012. Obviously I had been away from Miami much too long. I'd forgotten that every meal must end with a cafecito, women's heels should be at least 4 inches high and vacations are supposed to be spontaneous. (Two years ago Alina called me on a Tuesday saying she was leaving for Ireland on Saturday, her husband could get me a discounted ticket and did I want to go?)

I've long known that I'm Type A (also known as "anal," "control freak," "rigid" and "high strung"). Planning is one of my favorite things to do. All those empty days of the calendar just waiting to be filled with lunch dates, movie nights, long weekends away. Years ago I vowed to visit a new country every year. Since then, I've racked up frequent flier miles traveling to the Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and yes, Ireland.

I not only make New Years Resolutions, but divide my resolutions into six categories: financial, work, family and friends, health, home projects and fun. Each category gets its own page in my notepad. Under financial you may find things like:

1. Max out 401K
2. Set up monthly automatic deposits from checking account to savings
3. Read 'Smart Women Finish Rich'

Under family and friends:

1. Visit Sarah and her new baby in Colorado
2. Attend Megan's wedding
3. Be in California for Helix's birthday

Under fun:

1. Blog once a week
2. Take a wine tasting class
3. Learn the Charleston

Then I sit down and schedule when I'm going to complete each task, my internal clock ticking loudly, telling me that life goes by fast and if I don't map out my goals, it's going to pass me by. That's why if you casually tell me, "We should do lunch sometime," I'll probably respond with, "How's Thursday at 1 p.m.?"

What this all amounts to is I get a lot of shit done. I also get tight shoulders, tension headaches and impatient in long lines. A psychologist once told me, "If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you are pissing on the present." Many days, I am guilty as charged. At least for some of those days nine months from now, I'll be on a beach in Miami, sitting under a palm tree with my friend, Alina, who taught me the true meaning of Type A.