In the airport, I started reading this:



Sister 2 was, like, "This is you."

A few pages into the first chapter, I come across this:

I am currently boyfriendless and in no shape to date.

Perhaps I should kill myself...

I'd no longer have to worry about money. That would be a relief. I wouldn't be afraid I'd get raped running the reservoir, hit by a car or blown up by a terrorist. I wouldn't have to keep up with fashion trends, do laundry or search for the perfect haircut. I'd never have to overhear another ridiculous cell phone conversation on the bus, or waste my time running ridiculous errands. I wouldn't have to wait on hold for a representative to come on the line while simultaneously waiting for AOL to get me online, only to waste more time deleting junk e-mail when I finally got there...I'd never have to hang around nad watch people I love grow sick and die, or witness my young face and body turn old. I'd never get some awful disease, shrivel up in the hospital, and lose my dignity while chin hairs grew unruly and unattended...and I could finally stop dating.

Good idea. Now. How?

Instantly every idea seems horrible. No guns. No razors. No noose and no ovens. The only possitiblity would be pills, and who am I kidding? I don't have a prescription and I'm not going to get one, because I'm never going to do this. I don't want to die. I want to get a great acting job, and fall in love, and get married. I want to honeymoon in Italy, and buy a huge co-op on Central Park West. I want to go to Zabar's, and eat cherry cheese strudel.

With the exception of the cherry cheese strudel, dying seems easier to accomplish. But if I screwed up, which I would because I don't want to do it, it would only be interpreted as a call for help. Then I'd have to use the balance of my medical insurance to go to some kind of rehab and therapy, and for sure I would lose my apartment. By the time I got back rents would be even more expensive, even more of the good guys would be taken, and everyone would point at me as the one who tried to off herself.

Okay.

I have no idea why she would have ever thought that sounded like me.

Was coughing like crazy on the plane, which probably made everybody around me think that I had SARS or something. Didn't help that the turbulence made me queasy and sent me running to the washroom to dry heave into the little toilet.

I struggled not to fall asleep 'cause the night before, I was already on the road to Sicksville, and by the time I headed back to my room and crawled into bed after a night of loud music, I was sort of delirious.

I felt like my head was swaddled with bubble wrap and I felt like I was screaming every time I talked. Which was the main reason I wasn't in the mood for any chit chat with anybody --- not even the cute guys from Florida. It was sort of like, "Oh, please. We'll never see each other again after tonight. Have a good life. Bye."

So, yeah, the reason I didn't want to fall asleep was because the night before, I'd wake myself up coughing and moaning like I was dying.

I'd actually wake myself up, hearing myself going, "Uggggggghhhhhh" and then coughing like I was going to throw up a lung.

I actually think I started getting sick when I went and swallowed all that ocean water while snorkelling. I couldn't help it. I turned and there was this fish right in my face and I guess I was startled 'cause I didn't expect it to be that close and I went, "Arrrgggghhh!", opening my mouth a little and then, I started choking. Which was embarrassing 'cause the snorkelling instructor was cute.

So, now, I'm back in Toronto and I have a headache and it's grey and humid and I have emails and voicemail messages to wade through and tons of dirty clothes and Harlequin Reader called to tell me about her latest business idea, which, of course, she'll never go through.

I was practically croaking into the phone and at one point, I couldn't even speak, but on and on she went.

Some of the voicemail messages from last night were...um, weird. Like G asked, "What's it with you and these weird stalker people?"

Maybe I should have just stayed in the Grand Cayman Islands, like I was considering.