hot lava

a lot has been happening as of late. most exciting: my appetite is back! AND i'm peeing during daylight hours again (which is TERRIFIC for sleeping during nighttime hours). i mean, yesterday, i drank 1.5 gallons of water and only peed TWICE at work. i was practically standing on my head trying to figure out where all the water went. add to that that i hadn't been interested in food since i'd gotten back from hawaii, and i felt like a stranger's intestines had infested me (oh innertube, outertube, where is my innertube?). and when i say not interested in food, i mean, literally, not hungry. you have no idea how worried i was. i'm NEVER not hungry. i'd eat a couple bites of something and lose interest. for example, yesterday, i had half a banana and a roll. and this had been going on for 5 days. my arms and legs were all tingly, and i couldn't walk a straight line, but i still wasn't hungry much. by the way, i now know why holy men all starve themselves. you really do see visions. it wasn't unpleasant, just a nice high. Anyways, you'll be glad to know the ailment has gone the way of the sabertooth tiger. i can't wait to stick my face into an avocado (with salt! and lemonjuice! and a tomato).

the other thing i've recently gotten over is a nasty fever (the cough is a more persistent bedfellow). i've been sleeping for like 15 hours a day, which is darned nice, not to mention the time off from work, and the excuse to skip an offsite in macau (altho i would've liked to see the newly built venetian casino). seems like 4-5 ppl from my hot hot team came down with it, along with a ton of boys from the texas men's team...um...i plead innocent.

the thing i have NOT gotten over is how AWESOME my team at kaimana turned out. major props to lori for getting me in. we made it to the finals, losing to howling coyotes 15-10 (they're schwa players? and defending champs from last year). the rest of the weekend, in bulletproof form:

• on the flight over, we had to emergency stop in narita (japan) b/c some passenger got really sick. the pilot came over the intercom and said, "flight attendents, man the slides!"--i felt guilty for being so excited given the circumstances, but the SLIDES MAN!
• thursday, we tried to drive all the way around oahu, but the road ended, and responsible johnny forbid me from offroading in our rental...which was wise. we tried to walk to the other side, but instead we found a nature reserve and a albatross nesting site. albatross are HUGE, and they make these really funny noises with their beaks...click click whirr whirr arouuuga (kidding on the last one). i thought we'd only see 1 or 2, but they nest in droves...like clusters of 3 all over the place. and then lots wheeling overhead. awesome.
• friday we went on a hike with shwu+doyle+j9. it was like a scene out of lost (which incidentally, is filmed in hawaii)--jungle gyms of vines, bamboo forests, fallen logs, orange flowers, ferral chickens, and waterfalls.
• for lunch, we found some small hawaiian dig called ono. i can't remember the names of all the foods we had, but i didn't like the poi very much. my mom used to boil taro and dip it in sugar as a dessert, so i can't get used to the taste of it as a salty substrate. the other stuff was mostly meat wrapped in a huge glob of spinach, and of course, poke (which is marinated sashimi). and then...COLDSTONES! peanut butter and reeses cups in french vanilla ice cream and a chocolate dipped waffle cone. oh boy oh boy. i couldn't finish it, but we were picking lori up from the airport, so she drank the rest. yay lori!
• i met kate wilson at the friday night party, where she propositioned me for butt sex. turns out, this would be an appropriate introduction to my team, hot lava.
• jon and i went surfing sat morning (hot lava didn't have a game till 11:45). turns out he's really good at it...i guess i should stop making fun of him for owning so much billabong gear. i...could get up once or twice, but mostly i drank a lot of water.
• the surfing meant i was late for the team activities and missed the intros...whoops.
• we won 2 games and lost to yelena's team, superflown (couldn't defend their swing cut). yelena played really good fwisbee and went deep twice for amazing grabs.
• i spent the sat night party chilling with beautiful. she's just as neurotic as always. we decided we're jealous of cathy chu and her attentions elsewhere (cathychu! pay attention to US darnit!)
• i would like to take a moment in memory of the tourney breakfasts. they had soymilk. nuff said. (except i'd also like to mention the muffins and 5 types of cereals and fresh papaya and pineapple and smoothies). if you need caffeine, it is best to eat your coffee separately from your cereal...it makes your cereal mushy super fast (this lesson is courtesy of lily and her school of hard knocks).
• on sunday, we won both our games, upsetting #1 seeded howling coyotes (chelsea dengler's team), only to almost lose to phine (tucker's team). we pulled it out in the end tho, coming back from a 4 pt deficit in the first half to win on universe point. which means...NO CROSSOVER GAME!! we were done for the day! and then i got fabulously drunk doing team shoutouts, climbed some railings, went to subway, and lost my wallet. go drunk lily go! i'm definitely not allergic to alcohol anymore. that doesn't make it my friend.
• slap, the DD of the day (she faked her sips of shoutout), turned out to have a huge concussion...which probably meant she shouldn't have driven either. luckily, the concussion didn't hit her (har har) till the next morning, AFTER a night of the craziest styliniest, illest (ok, i'm not really fly enough to use ill as an adj, but i'll pull it out for slap) dancing i've ever seen. thank goodness for slap. anyways, slap drove a bunch of us to the beach. i think britta was riding on the hood, and i was standing out of a window. can i mention at this point that we'd probably already won the party?
• and THEN we went skinny dipping, which actually feels more different from normal swimming than i thought it would. yelena was also at the beach, but she wouldn't really talk to me until i put my clothes on again.
• the party was crazy good and full of dancing. voltron tried to hold a dance contest for the girls, which sucked (poor organization and no follow thru, what do you expect from boys?), except for the part where jen smith (who already had huge scabs on her hips from her sick layouts) got onstage, pulled out a killer backflip WHERE SHE LANDS HORIZONTALLY ON HER HIPS and goes straight into the worm, which she then turns into a backspin (think mikey of the turtles--you know, the one who's a party dude?). that girl is my hero.
• did i mention that britta halverson is a dead ringer for kathy dobson? i mean, except that she skinny dips and all that. but with clothes on, on the field, she looks so much like kdob that i was very happy for a lot of the weekend b/c i felt like kdob was almost there. yay kdob lookalikes. also, she (britta) is very good at frisbee, so its not like she's an abomination to the face or anything. i have to try kinda hard not to like her so much that i freak her out (KDOB! KDOB!), cuz i don't want her to think i'm a lesbian or a weirdo (not that there's anything wrong with lesbians, i'm just not one. and ok, i AM a weirdo, but not in a bad way). ok, this point is weird, move along.
• sunday morning, we won our quarters game against the UCSB alum team, our semis against phine (more comfortably this time), and lost our finals rematch against howling coyotes (so we didn't get to see any new teams). our finals rematch against howling coyotes? lasted 2.5 hours. oh yeah. it was a war of attrition. towards the end (or the middle?) chelsea laid out into mina's knee and tore, it seems, 3 out of 4 of the major ligaments. our prayers go out to mina.
• and then all of a sudden, it was over. one of the best pickup teams i've ever played on. i can't wait till kaimana 2009. you ladies are all class.