Marrying George Clooney

sometimes i feel like it’s only me. i know, i know, holy narcissism. i know it’s not ALL ABOUT ME, but sometimes it just sorta feels that way.

let me take you on my 3 AM middle-of-the-night-fiasco-excursion journey.
it all started with a pain shooting straight down from the top of my neck down to the pelvic and then back again. i thought, hmmm… “could be MS” or “could be, maybe, possibly fibromyalgia,” or could be another disease i don’t know how to pronounce. and of course, of course… could be nothing. but that’s not me, that’s not where i go. i go straight to bad.

it was sharp, it was weird, and it gave me that ever so thrilling opportunity to google: NECK PAIN SHOOTING DOWN NECK TO PELVIC AREA AND BACK UP TO ARM. for the first time i realize that even google can get a bit baffled, confused, so i limit the words: “nerve pain neck shoulder arm” and after scrolling for a bit, notice that they recommend this anti-inflammatory analgesic cream that is in my drawer. the tube is in my drawer. i am ecstatic. i have the remedy. wow. and with that excitement i squeeze out a “quarter size,” which they recommend on the website, and rub it all over my neck shoulder area in an “even coat.” within approximately three minutes my skin is sizzling like a cheap piece of steak on a george foreman grill. i was literally burning to a fucking crisp. i grab the analgesic cream and there, right there on the label it reads in BOLD: “if you experience a penetrating burning sensation for longer than a minute, please, read the box it came in.” OMFGWTF????? i have news for you, that box,a long with a gazillion other boxes, is probably in a landfill somewhere turning into chicken parts. the heat, the burning – coming off my neck and shoulder – is unbearable. And so at 3:12 am, i jump into the shower – fully clothed. I take a freezing COLD shower – shivering, shaking, lips turning blue – nada. nothing. i machete and kille our “one” aloe plant to death, and squeeze the last bits of aloe juice out of it, rubbing it onto my blistered skin and when that doesn’t work – when that doesn’t produce an aloe vera miracle, i did what i swore i wouldn’t do, i wake ken yet one more time from a deep sleep.
my ken, my sweet ken, wearing his eye-mask and ear plugs, blocking out any and all light, and all noise.
ken, who was in a deep joyous sleep.
i wake him.
i shake him, and he flips up his mask, looks at me and says, “hey, what the … i was sleepin’.”
“yeah, well, i’m a burn victim and i need you to hose me down now.”
hose you down?
well, isn’t that what they say at the fire house, hose me down?
i wouldn’t know amy. I was in the film business, we only get burned psychologically and creatively.
ken, please, please… get up, i need you to hose me down. i am on fire.
now i just wanna say, i believe there was a slight twinkle in his eyes when i said i was on fire… ken is filled with great hope.
okay…
i make him get out of bed, he thinks fast on his feet, heads for the kitchen, and comes back with what looks like a dickey soaked in milk.
ughhhhhhhh.
wear it, he says, around your neck.
wear it, i ask?
yeah, it’ll get the burn out, the sting out.
how long do i wear it?
until it curdles.
wow.
until it curdles.
and with that, he hands me a bag of frozen shrimp, and says, ‘you’re gonna need like an ice pack.’
shrimp? i ask. where’s our ice pack? the nice blue one, the one I got a rite aid? I like that ice pack.
i don’t know where it is. i’m going back to bed.
and that was it.

so…

it’s now a little past 4:00 AM in the morning, i am wearing a milk dickey around my neck – the milk dripping from the paper towel onto… and the bag of quick thawing frozen shrimp (the 26 to 40 jumbo shrimp pack) is right there on my shoulder and chest. the aloe gets all gooey, and sticks to everything.

i have become a bad mexican meal.
and you know, a bad mexican meals never, ever gets the guy, especially in the morning, like say, around 8:30 AM.

“oh my god, amy, what’s that smell, it’s coming from you?”

“i’m a taco, ken.”