Tag Archives: Bloody Mary

Living that Hive Life

20 Apr

It has been a rough go in Rebekah-land recenly, friends. Why? Well, the title of this blog is a dead giveaway. That’s right, I keep breaking out in hives and oh my god it is terrible. It all started on Monday, March 21st in a small place in Iceland called Geysir. Yes, Gey-sir. (Chuckle, chuckle, snort.) My constant travel companion Carrie and I had just finished walking around this super prehistoric-seeming landscape, oohing and aahing with other tourists as the earth shot a buttload of water like a hundred feet into the air every 6-8 minutes. It was a sight to behold and a smell to experience. Iceland, in case you were wondering, has a nasty case of the sulphurs.  Anyway, so there we were in Gey-Sir, (chuckle, chuckle, snort) walking through the gift store when all of a sudden my knees started itching something fierce. They were the itchiest knees I have ever had. And then my hands were itching. And I looked at my hands and I had these little red bumps all around my knuckles. I wrote a whole thing about it here that you should read if you really want all the background information. But to make a long story short, basically I broke out in hives over my entire body and Carrie and I had to race across the Icelandic tundra to this random pharmacy that was about to close and the lady there asked me if I had tried to wash the hives off. I mean, I had washed my hands a few times but obviously the hives had not gone anywhere because they were attached to my skin. Hives aren’t something akin to dirt. You can’t just wash them off. And if I’m being completely honest it did give me a little bit of pause that the only lady available to me in my moment of need was someone who thought I could wash the hives off my hands with sulphur water but whatever, I was desperate. Anyway I took some Icelandic antihistamine and they cleared up. Hooray!

But the relief was short lived. Dun dun DUUUUUUN.

Over the past 4 weeks I have broken out in hives at least a dozen times. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I can’t seem to identify any common factors. (Except for the fact that I am certain I am dying a slow and itchy death.) I haven’t changed my diet, detergent or lotion. I am beginning to think that perhaps breaking out in hives, as opposed to always getting shat on by animals in trees, is my real superhero power. Wouldn’t that be a gas? But of course as I was formulating that hypothesis I realized that I had put my cell phone down in a fresh pile of bird shit so, you know. That theory is still up for debate. It’s almost as if my other superhero power, my actual proven power, was feeling the pressure of being ousted from its position in my life and was like

Nah, I gotchu. Just put your cell phone down right…..there. That’s right, girl. See? We’re good.

I am not certain when I determined that my superhero power was actually an independent being with its own voice, personality and motives but I am just going to go with it.

So here is the thing: breaking out in hives really sucks. Like really, really. First off, they are super uncomfortable. They like morph my hands into a giant mosquito bite. Second, they look really gross. Third, they make me feel like I am this freak of a person because itchy red bumps just sprout up all over my hands and knees at random. Who wants to be friends with the girl with random itchy red bumps? No one, that’s who. And four, they are like a total mind fuck! It’s like, I know I am poisoning my body with something because my body is all,

Wait? What is that? WHAT IS IT?! SOS! SOS! TELL HER! TELL HER THERE IS SOMETHING WEIRD! MAKE HER SO ITCHY SHE WANTS TO SAW OFF HER OWN HANDS AND THROW THEM INTO THE OCEAN!

And then I’m all like

Yeah, but how am I supposed to know what it is if you don’t use your words, body? Use. Your. Words.

But my body has no words. It only has horribly itchy red bumps.

So my favorite hive experience was this past Saturday when I was out for lunch with my friends Katie and Shannon. Katie, it just so happens, is a nurse. So when I met up with her I did a very similar thing as when I encountered the Icelandic pharmacist: I put my hands in front of her face and looked meaningfully between her and them. Katie looked a little worried and proclaimed

Oh! Hives!

because she knows shit. I told her I had taken some Claritin so I was pretty sure it was going to be better any minute. She looked doubtful and concerned. Over the next 45 minutes or so, my hands got progressively itchier. So itchy, in fact, that I kept sticking them in my armpits in hopes that somehow doing an imitation of Mary Katherine Gallagher would fix everything. It did not. This was the first time this approach has ever failed me. As we were sitting down to brunch it only got worse. I looked at my hands. What had started as small, itchy bumps on my knuckles had spread to the palms of my hands and the insides of my wrists. I have learned in my month of living the hive life that when the wrists go, certain doom follows. I panicked. I jumped off my seat and said, as dramatically as I could,

Order me a coffee! I need topical cream!

and rushed to the local pharmacy where the pharmacist did not ask me whether I had washed my hands but instead said that a trip to an allergist and perhaps some Benadryl was in order. This, of course, was in response to me practically breaking out in tears in front of her because I was so itchy and also freaking about randomly having horrible allergic reactions to an unknown source when all I was trying to do was have a Bloody Mary with my girlfriends on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I couldn’t buy Benadryl because I had to bartend that night and it makes me super sleepy so instead I got this crazy topical cream which I now carry with me at all times like a weirdo. A hive producing weirdo.

So, anyway, I haven’t gotten any hives since Monday night so I am feeling pretty positive about things in general. And I have an appointment with a doctor today who helped me with my stomach problems in college by doing some shit with magnets. I feel like life is looking up, friends. I feel like although hives might be winning right now, I am going to make a late-in-the-game comeback. I am going to show them who is boss! I am going to say

Fuck you hives! You are not my superhero power!

and hopefully get shat on by a bird. Just to prove the point.

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Post-Race Recap

25 Feb

So I figured that since I wrote a blog about my Pre-Race Jitters, I might as well recap the run (I will spare you the boring details), following a similar format to the original post just for accuracy.  For those of you who didn’t read the initial blog, that’s okay, you can read it here, or where I already linked it above!  Or not at all.  Whatever, it’s your life.

1.  The training, yea, I didn’t really do a good job of it.  I ran the 13.1 miles in roughly the same time I ran it last year, plus a few minutes.  My 2013 time was 1:48:23 and my 2012 time was 1:45:15.  Not too shabby.  But my hips hurt because I stopped doing hip strengthening exercises about halfway through my training cycle.  And today my quads are sore because I don’t like to do squats at the gym because of this stupid trainer there who butted into my workout and gave me bad advice.  I wrote about that here, if you care to refresh.  But all in all, it was what I thought it would be.  Cardiovascularly* I was good to go, muscularly not so much.  But it was fun after I relaxed into it so that’s something.

2.  I decided, with the advice of my good friend C., to wear the old shoes that I had already run too many miles in instead of the new shoes that hurt my ankle bump.  I think this was the right choice although I felt like I ran the entire race with cement feet.  Also, for the second time this week my pinky toenail cut the inside of my fourth toe during the run.  Gross.  Also, ouch.

3.  My period started the day before the race which was exactly the wrong time for it to start but also exactly what I expected because my period is an asshole that wants to ruin my life.  I will spare you the gorey details on that one but suffice it to say that it was necessary for me to wait in the obscenely long port-o-potty line before the race, making me almost late for the race start, and then rush to the port-o-potty again right after the race.  For those of you who might never have used a port-o-potty either before or after a race, there is basically nothing grosser.  In short, runners are disgusting.  Also, there may not be any Purell left by the time you get there.  Not that I had that problem personally…right…okay…moving on.

4.  I know that my initial blog only had 3 worry things, but now that I am recaping I want to add something to this list that I never would have thought to worry about before the race but that then occurred during the race and made me feel really sad.  So, in my experience as a person who has run a lot of races of all different distances, I always find that runners are a good and supportive bunch.  I have seen people encourage others, help them up if they trip, support people over the finish line when they are completely out of energy, run a fallen comrade’s shoe over the final time mat so she could receive her medal.  Never have I encountered someone who was intentionally rude and disrespectful to their fellow runners.  That is until yesterday.  Yesterday I got stuck next to these two bros from miles 2-4, give or take.  One of them didn’t say much but the other…oh man was he a piece of shit.   So, there was this girl who got overheated and pulled over to the side of the course to take her long sleeved shirt off.  This is a normal thing.  And what did the asshole do?  He screamed,

“Oh yea! Take it off!”

I literally almost lost my shit.  I thought about saying something but then I was afraid I would be stuck next to them for the entire race and it would ruin my own experience so instead I sped up to get ahead of them and snarled in the dude’s ear as I passed,

“You’re a real fucking gem.”

He didn’t hear me because he was wearing headphones which he technically shouldn’t have been doing anyway but whatever.  I thought I was safe but then they caught up with me again and there was this guy wearing a tight pink running top and some capri running tights — not at all a weird outfit to see — and the fucking dude hit his friend in the arm, pointed at the guy and started quietly laughing at him.  I had half a mind to say,

“How dare you laugh at people who worked hard to get here. Who do you think you are?  Grow up.”

But I bit my tongue partially for the reason I mentioned before but also because I didn’t want the pink dude to overhear me scolding them and realize they were making fun of him and then feel self-conscious and therefore have a bad race.  I really wish I had written down his bib number so I could have written a letter to the race organizers.  Which I would have done and then shared with you all.  Oh well.  Hindsight.

And now for the good things!

1. I didn’t actually end up running with C. because she is fast and just cannot help herself from running fast.  She kicked butt in the race despite not being super well-trained for it.  What a talented jerk.

2.  There was music!  And some of it was really awesome and fun.  I loved the people who put huge stereos outside of their super cool Southern-looking houses.  What I didn’t love was the band stationed at the mile 3/7 mark who played the most unmotivating music ever.  Purple Rain?  Patience?  Really?  You need a runner friend to lend you their motivating playlist, band.

3.  C. and I did not become friends with either Kara or Shalane.  But I ran with my hands in my armpits anyway.  I am totally kidding.  Or am I?!

4.  I had a Bloody Mary (or two..).  Melvin shared this one with me:

IMG_04685.  In the afternoon, I went to a bar with my friend Carie and we had a vodka soda and then this ridiculous thing happened which made us mad.  There we were, minding our own business, sipping our insanely-strong vodka sodas with straws when some dude reaches between us where a candle was perched and goes

“I’m just gonna borrow a little light for our candle”

and proceeds to reach into my drink, grab one of my straws, and try to light it using our candle.  He took a straw with his filthy ass hands that he may or may not have washed right out of my drink!  Who the fuck does that?  When I objected by grabbing the straw out of his hand and telling him exactly how not okay it was that he did that he says, like a fucking dickwad would,

“Calm down, killer.”

Ugh!  Needless to say this sent Carie and I into “put a douche in his place” mode.  I will let you imagine how that went.

6.  I am still planning on watching the AT&T American Cup on Sunday (when will USA Gymnastics announce the competitor who is replacing Elizabeth Price for crying out loud?!) and I am still planning on writing a letter to NBC about their need to fire one or all of their commentators and replace them with Alicia Sacramone.

So, yea, that is pretty much that.  Oh, and to the person who came across my blog by searching the term “what melts dog poo” I hope that it answered your question which is nothing.  Nothing melts dog poo you stupid idiot.  Just pick it up.

*I would like to acknowledge the fact that while WordPress does recognize the word “ginormous” as being acceptable in the English language and therefore not in need of a red squiggly line underneath it, it does not feel the same way about the word “cardiovascularly” or its own company name.  Seems fishy to me.

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