dog on head

so i had a terrible night with my asthma last night, and it's primarily my fault. i had a job interview (or so i thought) for which i was supposed to pick up the interviewer at his hotel and go to a dinner interview. i knew i had to clean out my car for this, but i didn't get time to do it until yesterday afternoon on my way out to the interview. so i just grabbed my backpack and my suitcase (which was still in the car from my weekend in phoenix) and threw them on the floor of my apartment and headed off to be interviewed. i was running late because i'd been detained at my day job, so i called to let the interviewer know when to expect me, and that's when we discovered further proof (as if we needed it) that I Am Not Good With The Fixed Construct The Rest Of You Call "Time". the interview is, in fact, NEXT thursday.

so, yea! i'm all dressed up with no place to go, so i called up a friend who was headed to Chick Happy Hour (CHH) in dallas and i got directions to the bar. CHH is a great concept, analogous to the Guerrilla Girl Bar they have in L.A. and austin and some of the other major metro areas around the country. it's a once-a-month grassroots bar invasion that aims to enable flirting, socializing, and networking outside the limited array of full-time gay bars. great concept, but i suspect the grassroots organizers don't adequately prepare the bars we invade. the bar chosen this time around was plenty big enough for all the people, but the parking was pathetically inadequate. anyway, i made my way over to the designated bar, found some reasonably safe-looking parking a block away, and went in search of my friends. found 'em, had some frosty libations, socialized, watched the volleyball players, discussed jumping into the pool fully clothed (the bar was called "the back yard bar" and was set up to resemble -- a BACK YARD!), and then felt the heat and the smoke and the crowd cutting off my airways.

i queried the available friends, friends' friends, and friends' friends' friends for a rescue inhaler and came up empty-handed. by this point, i was wheezing pretty badly. i got an over-the-counter inhaler at a grocery store up the road, but those things are really inadequate for a full-blown asthma attack and further, the medicine BURNS when you inhale it. that calmed things down for long enough for me to get back to my car and drive home to get my prescribed inhaler, but it was neither pretty nor fun. by the time i got home, my extremities were numb and tingly.

then, to make a bad day worse, i went out for whataburger after the medicine did its thing and i was breathing easy again. whataburger is not what made the bad day worse, despite what some of you may think. i had my mouth totally set for chicken strips dipped in gravy from whataburger, and i made the mistake of not looking into the bag when it was handed to me. i just drove home to eat it, and when i got home, discovered i'd been delivered a double-meat hamburger. bad day. worse.

even worse yet, it was storming pretty hard last night and my dadgum dog climbed on my head no fewer than five times. usually, i like storms. i like the sound and the thunder and the light and the rain and the atmosphere of the things. my dog, she does not. and she expresses her displeasure by putting her feet on my head, neck, shoulders, and face. so, dog on head, i struggled to breathe, and eventually was pulled down into sleep.