High / Low

My sojourn in Santa Barbara started off with a bang. On Thursday I had a lovely massage, and on Friday I went wine tasting. The wine tasting excursion was put together by JAL, who also happened to be out in SoCal (and you must read about her LA experience). J drove up for the day with her sister and her sister's friend. As it turns out, the friend and I had gone to the same small, private high school and graduated just two years apart, but since he was captain of the football team and I was president of the thespian club, our paths never crossed. The strange interconnectivity of our bicoastal foursome made for a confusing yet amusing introduction to our wine tasting cohorts: "Well, these two are sisters, these two live in LA, these two live in New York, but these two went to high school together." It was a busy week for my hostess with the mostest, Meredith, since her department was hosting visiting perspective PhD students, coordinating a graduate student conference, and presenting the culminating screening of a yearlong production project. But I got to tag along to all the various official and unofficial celebrations with the film & media studies posse, and that was lots of fun.

I was looking forward to an overnight visit from my mom and Matilda on Saturday, with plans of a delicious Easter brunch for close pals on Sunday. But on Saturday night, I came down with a mysterious illness that seriously harshed on my mellow. I'll spare you the details, but it wasn't pretty. I spent most of Easter drifting in and out of feverish sleep, listening to the laughter of the brunch guests playing wild games of Boggle. My diet was limited to the few foods and liquids that proved only mildly painful to swallow (hot tea, cold Gatorade, soup, and popsicles). I paid a visit to a friendly Santa Barbara doctor yesterday, who was kind enough to supply me with some of his antibiotic samples and sent me on my way. They must be working, because last night, I finally felt alive again. To celebrate, I ate my first real meal in three days. I chose pizza.