Things about five years ago that make me shudder in retrospect.
*I attended my first Red Sox game and hung out the entire time near the beer stand, leaving before I even knew who won.
*I came home from Chinatown and vomited into a waste basket.
*We lived in a studio apartment that made me physically ill.
*I took a job that doubled my income, then got laid off six weeks later, and was given a 12 week paid severance package (at the beginning of summer).
*The heating in our apartment was so bad that we would stay in bed like Willy Wonka's grandparents at all hours, watching TV and drinking Maker's Mark from the bottle.
*I sat in a cab at 3am, with the meter off, and listened to the driver detail all of his sexual encounters as a Boston cab driver.
*Pipes burst in the apartment above during the coldest stretch of winter, and I collected the falling, freezing water in a variety of pots, pans, pitchers, garbage cans, and bowls, which was like containing Niagara Falls in a thimble. I developed a rash that lasted weeks, as the water had filtered through drop ceiling panels before drenching me. We took polaroid pictures of all our ruined belongings.
*Per doctor's orders, I peed into a jug (which I had to keep in the refridgerator next to leftover Vietnamese takeout) for an entire weekend and then drank two bottles of barium on Monday morning before going to the hospital for an MRI.
