I have one simple question for you:
Have you ever vomited on your dog’s head?
I lied, I have a second question:
Have you ever vomited on a dog’s head; your own dog or the dog of another person?
If you answered no to either or both of these questions, you can be assured that you are not me, the woman who vomited on her own dog’s head not 72 hours ago.
Last week I shared about the intense level of burnout I’ve been experiencing since — oh — forever? The email was sent while I was smack in the middle of a 10-day trip to Ireland with my mother, where I discovered fairy houses in the forest and gazed at the sea and ate quite a lot of soup and started looking at real estate and visited an ancestral graveyard to look at graves with our last names on them and say, yep, that’s our last name all right.
There was an eclipse that nobody would shut up about in America. Everyone was posting about their glasses, their plan, their proximity to an ominous-sounding path of totality.
But not me. I was under heavy cloud cover, being brought to tears by the miracle of this rock resting being placed so gently and perfectly by the receding tide. You know, deep shit.
Moments after this photo was taken, I found a dead dolphin on the beach and thought, momentarily, that it might be a dead human and that I might have to adopt an entirely new personality: woman who found a dead body on the beach in Ireland. She’s not like other girls, she’s slightly more traumatized.
Then I discovered that I was born for a life of afternoon tea, and that when people asked, I did have a preference and yes, it was Barry’s.
But back to vomiting on my dog (keep reading to find out which dog!).
Near the end of our trip, my mom and I went to a fancy restaurant and the next day, she was very unwell.
I don’t blame the restaurant, really, I blame the sea. We are a landlocked people whose bodies are not accustomed to any combination of the words “pickled charred mackerel” and I didn’t even pretend to be down for that. I ate land mammals, because I don’t think we have any business eating an animal from a habitat we can’t survive in! We come from different worlds! Leave them be! It’s unnatural!
But my mom was tempted by the fruits of the sea, and she ate of the forbidden sea fruits, and she was stricken down accordingly.
My mom is 74, and I don’t ever remember seeing her be sick, so I truly thought to myself, wow, I’m going to have to go back to that ancestral graveyard and plop her in one of those space where the earth was already caving in around whatever body was buried there 150 years ago!
I can’t afford to transport a body back home on Delta Airlines!
Sorry to the haters, but my mother survived, and we flew back home together, and the minute I landed in the desert my body said to me, “I hope that you enjoyed your trip, because it’s the last one you’ll ever take. Prepare to suffer.”
You’ve been sick before: Imagine that.
Now imagine it being even worse, because it was happening to me, the biggest baby in the world who cannot handle any level of physical discomfort.
When I wasn’t exploding with liquid Satan, I was falling in and out of what looked like a sweaty sleep, but was really my body shivering with chills while my brain took me on a wild, hallucinatory ride I could not have gotten from any drug:
I spent eight hours in an orientation at a Dave & Buster’s adults-only resort where I was offered a job appraising oceanfront property in Arizona. I was at a speaking event on Malibu island (it’s a little further than Malibu and very exclusive which is why you haven’t heard of it), then on a private basketball court draining it from the 3-point line. I was meeting with my new lit agent - Joseph from this season of VPR - who was telling me my ship has sailed and to give up on writing.
I woke up from these dreams unsure of what was real. I still feel like Dave & Buster’s owes me an apology for wasting my time like that.
When I thought the worst was over, I sat out side in the desert heat in a sweatsuit, still wracked with chills.
In my hubris, I enjoyed four ounces of ginger ale.
And for this — 1/3 a can of soda — I paid the piper.
But the piper didn’t take just any form of payment. The piper wanted me to have to choose which part of my body should take the toilet, and having made my choice, the piper wanted me to know that there was no correct choice, that no matter what, someone was going to be mopping something off the bathroom floor (that someone is Matthew).
Hearing what they thought were the mating calls of small rescue dogs, Stacy and Meredith (these are dogs) ran into the bathroom and — in the case of Meredith — directly into the path of totality. I regret to inform you that they stayed in the path of totality. And they stared directly into the sun (my mouth).
Stunned? Scared? Enjoying it in a way that should make us all feel uncomfortable?
We’ll never know. The next eclipse is August 2044.
I’m sorry for writing this but I’m truly still not totally well I am pretty sure I will regret sending you this and I understand if you have to unsubscribe or even send me a mean email in reply this is bonkers nobody asked for this.
In Case You Missed It:
I published a pack of affirmation cards to get you through the hard things in life. There’s also a happyish journal, based on my own journaling practice, and created to deprogram us all from centuries of toxic positivity.
Shopping:
These include affiliate links; this never affects the price you pay for anything you choose to buy and I only link to things I actually love. I also started a section of this substack called Good Buy where I get to write lil blog posts about stuff like this.
Literally every skincare product I use is right here, including the expensive stuff I’ll never do again.
If you have pets and rugs or carpet or even furniture…this brush is going to pick up a truly disgusting, very satisfying amount of fur (and your own hair!!!)
The Nike Blazer low ‘77s are better than I imagined and now they’re under $50! Tempted by the high-tops but I don’t know if a girl with feet as long as mine can wear these without tipping into clown territory?
Speaking of high tops, you know how it’s hard to wear them because…you have to unlace them fully, put your foot in and then tie them? And even though you’re an adult that amount of work just feels like too much? These shoelaces are the answer!
These Adidas slides are SO CUTE and don’t come in my size. And 30% off with code REFRESH
- said I couldn’t buy this donut purse. It just arrived and IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN I THOUGHT!!! Many of the sprinkles are sparkly beads!
Reading:
I Cheerfully Refuse is out now; simultaneously timeless and timely. Wrenching and hopeful. A PERFECT NOVEL. I have bought it for so many people, because Leif Enger’s use of story and language is simply a treat.
This piece by Carey O’Donnell of
about the eclipse is the only thing I want to hear about the eclipse besides what I just wrote.- stunned me in it’s beauty and tenderness for our former selves.
- was my favorite vacation read. If you can’t read it during the lashing rain in an ancient luxury hotel in Western Ireland, that’s okay!
xo,
I wanted to let you know that I just became a paid subscriber due to this post. 😂 and to finally pay you back for the bunny phone case you gave me at one of your book signings in Chicago. Love this sort of post so much!!!!
Nora, I have not puked on my dog's head but I have 2 words for you: Nervous. Poops. Sometimes bodies just do what they do and we have to deal with it.