Thank me later, but you may have noticed a total lack of New Year’s resolutions this, uh, year, and the omission is by design. Normally I’d be able to milk a post or two out of whatever declaration pops into my head, but the slate is blank this year. There are no such pronouncements, save for one delivered yesterday evening, when I told my archnemesis in ping-pong that I’ve resolved to beat him more this year. Let the records reflect this.
Let the records also show that I tried the best cheesesteak in these here parts today, according to Charlotte Magazine, and although it was good, it still wasn’t the cheesesteak I’ve been craving. Most of the foods I loved from Chicago have made their way here, whether by hook or by crook, and that includes Chipotle, Giordano’s, and some big honkin’ cookies lovingly baked under the El tracks. There are two items that continue to elude me, however: Potbelly Sandwich Shop and Philly’s Best. I don’t know if I’d ever claim to yearn for the former–it’s more the fact that Quiznos invariably toasts disappointment into each and every sandwich.
But Philly’s Best! I suppose I’d be better served by hitting up Philadelphia for authentic cheesesteaks, but a general has to go to war with the army he’s got. When I sit back and really deconstruct what I miss, it’s the texture. It’s always the texture. It certainly isn’t the quality of ingredients. Let’s be honest here: “quality ingredients” and “cheesesteaks” are, as the French would say, on the wrong fuckin’ sides of the Venn diagram. There’s a reason why you never hear patrons shout, “Garcon! Some of your finest free-range steak destroyed by a spatula, please, and smothered in organic Cheez Whiz. The white kind.” No, it’s the texture–that slightly chewy bread ensconcing a veritable crime scene of cheese “product” and what appears to be livestock fed through a paper shredder.
Like a bad punchline made flesh, I found myself in the ER on Christmas Eve, naught but two days after our final post of 2011, grappling with a virus most foul. Can you actually “grapple” with something that’s definitively kicked your ass, though? Is the verb even legitimate at that point? I have empirical evidence that suggests otherwise–specifically a vomit stain in front of the Urgent Care facility I visited prior to the hospital. Didn’t even make it through the doors. I simply ralphed right there in the parking lot, broad daylight, in what may have been either a very good or a very bad advertisement for Urgent Care.
I can’t remember the last time I upchucked. It’s got to be at least 11, 12 years ago. This is ridiculous, but in the back of my mind I’ve always regarded it as one of the weaker sicknesses, an ailment that can be overcome by sheer will alone. Well, lesson learned. It’s not a contest! I also learned to despise the IV, which essentially turns you into a spigot. Blood out, fluids in–my life was on tap for an evening.
Thankfully the staff was competent to the utmost. There were no scenes even remotely approaching the one I detailed in my last post. But even then, the hospital experience offered little comfort to me. I remember laying out my exact concerns to the doc: to ascertain that I hadn’t created some new strain of salmonella or E. coli. And if it was truly a virus, my homegrown diagnosis was that I’d have to “shake it off,” right? In medical parlance? She nodded. Turns out it was a virus, in fact, and in hindsight I probably should’ve spent those few hours sleeping. Was the assurance worth it, though? Was it even assurance, or was it just a different type of not knowing? Jury’s still out on that one. There was a time when leeches were prescribed for pretty much everything, and the only certitude I gleaned from my brush with modern medicine was leeches, if no one else, can breathe a little easier nowadays.
Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, January 03.