I don’t know if I’ve ever posted how I met my friend and
fellow author Nicole Castle, but here’s the short version. I liked Chance Assassin so that got us
talking, and she invited me to join her on a trip to Cancun, which is where I
met her for the very first time face to face.
We’ve been going on these trips ever since, every March. This year was my third invitation, and for
once I was looking forward to it. I get
anxious about traveling but oh my god, this year…
About a month ago I was hospitalized (kidneys hooray!), my
father’s health began failing so fast that we all realized he’ll be leaving us
sooner than we thought, my husband was having anxiety for the first time in his
life because of a poor work environment and my older son was being bullied at
school (Still is. Lawyers are the next
step). My mother in law decided to
surprise me with a sudden and unwanted bathroom renovation at this precise
moment, so I ended up busier than I’d ever been while both of our bathrooms
were torn apart. My younger son began
acting up because of the stress and my mother began to leak blood like a
sieve.
I needed a vacation but because everything here in New
England was held together with hope and stubbornness, I wasn’t sure that I
should go. It was my mother who
convinced me that I should. Whether or not she
was right, I’m undecided. I think… haha nope.
Here’s the story for the entertainment of others!
Misery in Los Cabos with Nicole Castle –
The journey began when I was felt up by a Logan TSA agent
when the machine beeped on me for the very first time. Since Logan is one of those airports where
you do not fuck around, I usually end up making myself look suspicious because
I’m far too eager to do whatever they want.
Cooperate? FUCK YES I AM
COOPERATING SO HARD! I don a state of
mind where if I display anything but freakish excitement they’ll think I’m up
to some shit, so I make sure I am as enthusiastic as goddamn possible. Not only did I beep, I beeped on the upper
inside of my thigh. *Knowing smile and
slow nod* Yeaaah. A woman who sounded like Dr. Girlfriend from
Venture Brothers who smelled like peanuts and had the alluring qualities of a
treasure troll quickly approached and explained what she was planning to do:
slip her hands under the edge of my underwear and feel around, then feel my
butt and inside of my legs. How did I
react? I nodded and put my hands behind
my head and smiled at her, then invited her to go ahead. You know, I’ve never imagined an expression
like the one she gave me. She seemed
stunned when she asked if I was comfortable doing that right there in front of
everyone in the security line at 2am. I
think my response was something along the lines of it was her idea so I wasn’t
letting her back out now. So, to the
muffled chuckles of her coworkers, this poor woman groped me, and then had to
listen to me crack jokes about how if she wanted a cigarette after that I had a
spare for her.
Bonus; the seventy-three year old woman behind me also
beeped and received the same treatment!
The smile she gave this employee was even creepier than mine.
After experiencing the sexy allure of being partially
stripped in public and groped by a woman half my height with a hygiene problem,
I was tired (satisfied?) enough to sleep through most of the ride to Houston,
which for anybody who’s never been, is a massive airport. Sadly, I run funny. Add to my funny run the fact that I hadn’t
eaten since 2am, had all of my possessions strapped to my back like I was
planning on camping for the next decade and have a habit of smoking nonstop
before getting on a plane. I knew I
would have to speed walk. If I dared to
run I feared I would drop dead. I
attracted a few stares as I marched to the closest sandwich shop like a mobile
hoarder and did the unthinkable: I grabbed a sandwich from a cooler and ate it
like it needed to die violently. All of
this while scurrying poorly towards my next gate. I saw the time, risked everything and ran, only to end up at the
correct gate, doubled over and having a Duncan moment. And my plane wasn’t there. It was running behind. I had this image in my head where we went to
board and just fell off of the end of that tunnel thing onto the pavement, and
I wasn’t proud of how hard I laughed at that.
I guess the hope for me to make it there on time had come true, but so
had the hope that maybe the plane would wait for me to get there if I got
lost. Forty minutes were spent catching
my breath, during which time I called Sasha to see how my little one was
treating her. He was being good, and
that upset me because he’s always terrible for me so I spent the remainder of
my wait grumbling to myself about how bad I am at being a parent.
Bonus: was able to lose some faith in humanity! A woman who clearly had asthma was panting
as loud as me and when she went to check something at the desk a spring breaker
loudly and rudely asked her if she was sick, then spat that she can’t get sick
because it was her spring break. The
woman informed her that she was having an asthma attack brought on by stress,
since she was heading to Los Cabos to bury her brother. The young twit continued to try and
humiliate her, but was silenced by her friends before everyone else got
involved. <- this comes up again
later.
On my second solo plane ride of the day, I spent my time
talking to another person who was traveling from Boston, who – Are you ready
for this? Was a super tall and wiry
ginger who towards the end of our conversation shared a story that implied he
liked to roller skate. If you don’t
know why that had me internally rolling around giggling, let me know and I’ll
personally send you a copy of The Disassembled Life of Duncan Cole. Green eyes and if memory serves he was
eating candy to try and get his ears to pop.
Yeah, I refused to ask his name because I want to believe it was
Dan. He even looked similar to how I’d
imagined the character, ha! When
‘Probably not Dan but dear god that’s strange’ went to the airplane’s
bathroom/closet of turbulence terror, I got caught in a conversation with the young
man sitting near the window closest to me until we arrived in Mexico.
For anyone who has never gone to Mexico I love the way they
do Customs. They have you push a
button. If the light turns red, they’ll
check your bags and ask you questions to make sure you’re not dangerous. If it turns green? Well, you’re FREE TO GO!
It’s like they really can’t be bothered to give a shit if everyone is
smuggling something. My customs guy was
so busy commenting on my Captain America shirt that he actually asked me what
color I got because he wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to his national
security job thingy. I said green and
he bid me a good vacation. Sadly, I’m
honest, because this would’ve been a much better story if I’d gotten the red
light instead.
After a harrowing drive to the resort (there may have been
bodies in our wake), I was told I’d need to wait fifteen minutes for them to
finish cleaning our room. That didn’t
sound unreasonable so I left my bag with them and went to have a smoke, and
thirty minutes later was informed that it was ready, but they could no longer
locate my bag. I found that hard to
believe since the fucker weighed more than it rightfully should and was so
overstuffed that the seams were strained to their absolute limit, screaming for
merciful death every time I zipped it.
The room had coffee rings on the table and a blue pill of unknown origin
under the edge of the bed when my bodybag and I finally arrived. It makes me wonder what the hell they had to
do in there. Were there bodies? Projectile vomit? They’d been in there when I arrived and took double the estimated
time to finish. They didn’t touch the
table or the floor, so what did they do exactly? I dropped my things on a chair, opened the door to the balcony to
wave some of the frigid air out into the wild to fend for itself, made myself
pretty and promptly fell into an exhausted nap so that I could time travel to
Nicole’s arrival.
*drum roll* Nicole
woke me up when she came in and I have never been so damn happy to see
anybody! Usually on these trips we have
a eating itinerary that makes me wonder how we are so thin, so I’d waited for
her to begin.
1st breakfast
2nd breakfast
Elevensies
Brunch
Luncheon
Afternoon snack
Afternoon tea (which usually doesn’t include teas, just more
food)
Sunset mealtime
Dinner
Supper
Dessert
Nightcap meal
And whenever possible Midnight Snack.
This is why I diet before going on vacation. I will work out and eat healthy because I
plan ahead. I only had four days to eat
like the damned, and the clock was ticking.
We were heading to the buffet when we spotted the pool bar. I asked her to get a plate of nachos while I
went for a burger, because Nicole is a vegetarian but thankfully doesn’t seem
to mind if I eat as many animals as I can find, because let’s face it, it’s not
happening. I love animals and the cuter
they are the more delicious they taste.
The burger was the size of my head: it was the first to die. She’d coyly saved about three nachos from
her own massacred plate to ask if I wanted any but I wasn’t feeling up to it
after eating that burger so fast that I probably should’ve worn a smock and
offered her an umbrella. Somehow she
was able to eat my cut of the nachos.
Like that person who will eat a whole pizza but leave the last slice,
you know, in case you wanted some.
We went to our first dinner function, which went by without
too much of a hitch. My throat and ears
were burning but I don’t fly often so I figured that it was from the plane and
brushed it off. At this point I’d been
awake for almost twenty four hours with only that pitiful nap to break it up,
so we went back to the room early, and that was where I stayed. Not by choice, but necessity. Nicole went to change only to discover that
WHOOPS they’d never delivered her checked bag to the room. She went to hunt it and by the time she got
back I had a problem.
My stomach is my worst enemy. It took me almost two years to realize that my bitchy whore of a
stomach was actually what was causing my anxiety because I have a rare side
effect of acid reflux disease. So rare
that my doctor was freakishly excited that I had it and he could catalogue it
from one of his own patients (the sadist).
When I have any issue with my stomach, it causes me to have panic
attacks. I’m not talking feeling antsy,
I’m talking IMPENDING DOOM HIDE UNDER A TABLE AND CRY LIKE A BITCH panic
attacks. I’m taking ambulance rides and
EKG panic attacks.
And so began our sorry descent into what I will just bluntly
call Shit Madness. I could be coy, but
really there’s no point. Guess who
shouldn’t have eaten that sandwich at the airport? Or maybe it was the burger, I have no idea. I was sure I hadn’t come in contact with any
impure water, because Nicole taught me well when we met in Cancun. All I know is that I told Nicole I wasn’t
feeling well, and after the first fifteen or so trips to the bathroom that this
poor unfortunate woman had to share with me, the panic started. Within a few minutes I was sobbing and
weaving incoherent apologies for things and situations that I don’t even
remember. I might’ve apologized to her
because I like the color green, I have no idea. To make matters worse, she then tried to figure out how to
comfort me and when she awkwardly patted my head I snatched her hand and
dragged her into the bed with me like a vampire collecting a victim, then made
her spoon with me. Which worked out
great because that air conditioner was making both of us so cold that our noses
were running.
And so it came to pass that Nicole Castle and I huddled for
warmth in Mexico watching Storage Wars and reruns of House. She made a joke that I’d finally gotten her
to sleep with me, I told her that she had to notify my children of my love if I
was found dead in the morning, she responded that she would CPR the shit out of
me, I countered that it wouldn’t be necessary as there was nothing left to help
her achieve that goal… Good times.
I really am the best traveling companion, I don’t know why
more people don’t take me places.
By morning I was so sick that I wanted to go home because
nothing is quite as scary as being sick in another country a half day away from
your children. Turned out that I was
too poor. When I called my husband he
was too poor too, and bitch that I am I laughed at him for it, like I wasn’t
equally as impoverished as he was.
Remembering that we had an eating schedule but recognizing that I wasn’t
going to take part in it, I made sure Nicole knew she should go to breakfast,
and she was kind enough to bring me back some toast. I ate in bed and covered myself hatefully in crumbs, glowering at
Bear Grylls from Man VS Wild because we watched an episode where he got
diarrhea and halfway through climbing a waterfall dropped his pants to let
loose. Mocking me, the smug jerk. Nicole slipped back in the bed with me (it
was too cold to sleep in separate beds and we needed all blankets with both
bodies to survive) and we had a moment where we both sort of looked at the shrapnel
from my obliterated toast and then at each other. I lazily shoved as many crumbs out as I could and tried to let
her sleep because she’d watched over me through the worst of my panic. She’d been prepared to CPR the fuck out of
me with the skills she’d picked up in sixth grade. We briefly contemplated switching beds but resigned ourselves to
nap in my breadcrumbs like a narcoleptic version of Hansel and Gretel.
Nicole stole more bread to feed me lunch and we decided to
try and get out of the room. I have no
idea why. We both dislike crowds and
noise, sand, the smell of tanning lotion, we didn’t want to swim in the ocean
where we were because the beach was a 45 degree angle into the largest waves
I’d seen in awhile and I burn stupidly fast.
She mentioned that she wanted a pina colada. My friend who guarded me from my demons through the night wanted
a drink, so goddamn it, she would have one!
Or… not. We went to the bar and
after 15 minutes of waiting, often as the only people there, the bartender
didn’t serve us. More than that, he
would stare at us for a few seconds, then busy himself with cleaning glasses,
only to serve the next people that came up to the bar. It took another employee asking him why we
hadn’t been served to get a answer why: he was only serving people who were at
one specific location on the thirty foot bar and we were about five feet to his
right. I was too sick to cause a scene,
but Nicole removed my chance to try because she said she wasn’t going to give
him the pleasure of making us conform.
Feeling like a rebellious American, I agreed and we went back to the
room, but I still wished I could’ve at least gotten her drunk as thanks. That way she could puke on me and we’d be
even.
By dinner I was convinced I was well enough to try and
eat. That plan backfired when I had to
weakly stumble back to the room again, retreating from the sustenance I needed
because I wagered I needed the facilities more. Much to my surprise she returned defeated as well, since they
weren’t letting anyone take bread back from dinner. I had to get up. So, pale
as hell and looking like death, I put on the warmest clothes I had and went to
dinner with her, where I was thwarted by the all Mexican buffet. It may sound like a Mexican buffet is common
in Mexico, but at the resorts we’d been to there was always a huge variety of
choices. Never had I been faced with so
many foods that could take my personal hell and make it worse. Nicole got me a bowl of chicken broth
because I was too goddamn dizzy to do that, and I had to spit my first sip back
in the bowl because they added so much spice even to that, that I couldn’t have
it. The waiters slowed and stared at me
when I grabbed three pieces of bread, dropped them on a napkin and choked them
down with water, because my face was likely one of murder. I didn’t want to risk missing my breakfast
if I didn’t feel better by then, so we quietly devised a plan to smuggle some
more bread. I was wearing a fitted
hoodie that hid very little, but with my hands in my pocket I was sure I could
conceal some bread. But what to use as
a distraction to get past the guard at the buffet? Nicole, our fearless writer of fearless assassins, pulled a
Vincent and filled a disposable cup with popcorn, then made a show of eating it
as we walked out so that even if they did stop her, they would never catch
me. That’s right, we stole free
bread. And we got away with it by
distracting the authorities with popcorn.
Thug life.
My panic was only an occasional problem at this point, but
after panic attacks comes a brief few hours of depression. Giving in to anxiety makes me feel weak and
pathetic, and knowing that I’d ruined our vacation wasn’t helping. The only reason she and I go to Mexico and
Jamaica is to see each other, and I’d seen the toilet more than her and she’d
only seen me at my absolute worst. I
turned on the television and smiled a bit when she came to bed with me again,
because she didn’t have to do that. Not
many people would. But I appreciated
it. Somewhere around the two hundredth
ad for ‘Kilos Muertes’ she dozed off, so I turned the tv off, shimmied down the
bed and turned off the light, and I resolved not to wake her for any
reason. Then she stole all of the
blankets. Undeterred, I slithered lower
in the bed, where the blankets were tucked under the mattress and wouldn’t
move. By morning I was cuddling with
her feet, but I’d succeeded because she slept like the dead.
When asked if I wanted to take a shower I elected to refuse
general hygiene (unsure why) and grumble from bed, but I did agree that I
should probably eat something other than bread and joined her for
breakfast. That’s when I discovered
that I couldn’t breathe. She pointed
out that I was a smoker, but I hadn’t been smoking much, what with being
chained to the bathroom and bed. Not to
mention I’d been able to breathe two days before, so having such a sudden onset
of COPD seemed unlikely. I was gasping
for air like a fish out of water by the time we made it to the buffet and guess
what? Nobody would wait on us
again! We waited at least twenty
minutes in an uncrowded hall for someone to see if we wanted coffee, tea or
water, and nobody came. We could see
them waiting on everyone else, though.
I got myself a plate of honeydew melon and watermelon, then quietly
commented that I guess I wasn’t going to have any water with my breakfast since
the only fountain drinks available were juices that I wasn’t touching since
they could’ve been made with unfiltered water.
I wasn’t taking any more chances: Montezuma’s curse could go fuck itself. At that exact moment a manager happened to
be walking by the window next to us, which I hadn’t even realized was open, and
he popped his head inside of it and scared me half to death, checking to see if
he’d heard correctly. I gave him a
bewildered nod and within seconds a young man came to our table to pour us
water, shaking so badly that I felt like a jackass for saying anything at
all. Once I had fruit in me, I went for
an omelette, offered to give Nicole half of it and then proceeded to eat it all
anyway. Thankfully she didn’t seem to
care, as she’d foraged and found a plate of sweets that had her name on
them.
At this point I could no longer lift my arms over my head I
was so weak, but I’d brought iron supplements with me because I’m anemic and on
occasion it helps. I warned Nicole that
they can and often do give me anxiety because they give me energy so fast that
it startles me, and we agreed I needed one.
It was worth the risk and she
was prepared to deal with my madness if necessary. The tv in our room was fucking with me, because no more than
fifteen minutes after starting on an episode of House it turned out that the
thing that was shutting down the character’s system was that he had too much
iron in his blood and it was causing organ failure. A sign that Nicole knows me well: I only gave her one scared
glance and without uttering a word to her about my thoughts she informed me
that I was fine and I needed to shut the fuck up. This was where I started to have a bit of fun, because that got
me laughing.
I’d been trying to stay away from cigarettes since I already
couldn’t breathe but my anxiety was getting bad again and I was pretty sure it
was withdrawals, so I went on the balcony to have one, and that was probably
the most fun we had the entire trip.
Sitting on a balcony and talking about our books. I told her about my new story idea and she
told me about one of hers, we bickered about the Chance Assassin series and
Duncan and I reminded her that I wanted Miko in print so that I could cuddle
with him after a fashion. We were
having enough fun that we somehow managed to ignore one of her friends knocking
on the door for what must’ve been fifteen straight minutes, only to then
receive a passive aggressive text about it later on.
Then came the function that we were there for. I wasn’t feeling great but I was determined
to go even if I passed out, because the event we were supposed to attend was
important to her. We put on our
smashing eveningwear and heels while watching batman, then went upstairs, where
we both were exhausted by a long wait to go into the ballroom. To understand why this next part makes me so
irate, I need to explain that in Jamaica we attended an event where they brought
out four hundred steaming plates of shrimp and I learned I was extremely
allergic to it, because my throat closed up instantly and I had to run from the
ballroom and wait outside until the entire event was over. I’d had a mild allergy a few years back but
it had apparently gotten so bad that I couldn’t be around the steam from
it. Cold shrimp was fine, but I hadn’t
even known that the steam could do that to me.
I’ll give you three guesses what dinner was. Again.
So, gasping for air I left her there again and went without
dinner for awhile. When my blood sugar
tanked so hard that my vision blurred I asked someone where I could go to get
food and they directed me to one of the restaurants that was inclusive for that
evening. I changed back into my Captain
America shirt, triple checked that the ‘do not disturb sign’ was on the door,
then went downstairs and had more fruit and bread since that was the only thing
that didn’t make my body want to expel my fucking bones. When I returned to the room the sign had
been taken and slid under the door, and housekeepers had done a turndown
service. Maids broke into our room to
leave us mints, which was a bit puzzling and entertaining, since I can only
imagine what they thought. There were
two beds but we’d only been sleeping in one, where all the blankets were
piled. My underwear and bikinis
happened to be the clothes that I’d knocked to the floor when getting my
eveningwear on and there were balled up tissues and empty water bottles
surrounding the bed. If we also
consider the wounded moaning I’d uttered on that first night, I think I now
understand why everyone that attends these events assumes we’re lovers. It probably didn’t help that as soon as she
got home, she had an itchy throat, running nose, fever and the inability to
breathe. Yeah, turned out that was a
virus. GO ME! I can only hope that everyone thinks we were making out because
the truth is so embarrassing and disgusting.
Remember that lady from my flight to Los Cabos? The one who was going to bury her
brother? She was sitting next to me on
the flight back to Chicago. I was able
to tell her that if it had come to it I would’ve had her back and I made
another friend out of it. Then came my
breathless gasping dash through O’Hare, which wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d
expected. I beeped again. This time the guy who was there saw me
chuckle and listened when I explained that on this trip the machines had been
out to get me, and he had me go in again but advised me to relax. I passed fine. He concluded that I was inadvertently so tense that I was
throwing the machine off. Thighs of
steel, evidently.
Bonus: the flight attendants on both flights home also did
not wait on me, pissing off the people next to me in my row.
I went to Los Cabos weighing 124 pounds. I came home at 112. Four days.
Nicole says that nobody waited on me because I’ve become so thin that
they can’t see me anymore.
I’m not entirely sure how this post got so long, but I guess
I have some thoughts here. I mean,
going on a vacation with a friend where everything goes perfectly makes some
good memories, but not always good stories.
We’re writers, Nicole and me. We
like stories, and most of ours come from a shred of reality. Oddly this time I mirrored fiction, living a
scene that one of her characters experienced in CA3. Don’t think for a moment that I’d want to relive this trip, but
at the very least, I got a good story out of it. A friend that can take you at your best is still a friend, but a
friend that can take you at your hysterical pants-shitting worst? That’s one hell of a friend. Not that many people do this sort of thing
for me, so I guess what I’m saying is that I often jokingly tell Nicole that
she’s lucky we’re ‘bro’s.’ I never
really admit how lucky that makes me.
If it had been almost anybody else, I would’ve had an even worse
time.
Also, Los Cabos can just fall into the ocean for all I
care.
Work updates to follow after Easter ;)
S. K. <3
