IT HELPS TO WRITE ABOUT IT

Again with the headache. It started at the bakery -- the new job is going great -- where they had me make 55 little ramekins of flan. I love flan. It has this borderline burned flavor from the sugar -- not your usual desert. As you know, flan is baked in a water bath which makes it all muy tranquilo for the flan. But the little ramekins are so shallow and the pans we use for the water bath are also shallow -- the whole thing jiggling and slopping like crazy putting it into the oven -- well the water evaporates pretty quickly and if you don't put more water in the water bath then not so tranquilo for the flan. Honestly I don't know what would actually happen if we just let the things bake without water.

So I'm standing over the open oven with an 8 cup pitcher of boiling water which I have to carefully pour into the water bath pan without getting any into the flan cups and I'm sweating bullets. Nevermind that it is still winter. It is probably close to 200 degrees standing over that open oven -- OPEN OVEN! -- with boiling water -- you get the picture.

Ordinarily I really like to sweat -- I think it is very cleansing -- and one of my Korean acupuncture Buddhist healer friends told me sweating is good for the liver -- but this kind of sweating gave me a migraine. I know -- dehydration. Whatever. I was drinking tons of water. And yes peeing too. Clear and copious. But still this headache got so big I couldn't see. My peripheral vision turned all white. I had to lie down in the manager's office with a cold washcloth over my eyes. That helped for as long as no one walked into the office.

Later at home I called Sunny to come over to help me. First thing she says when I pull the towel off my eyes -- I'm lying in bed in the dark and still need a towel over my eyes -- "your head has gotten bigger!" Which is exactly what it felt like.

This was yesterday. I still kind of have the ambiance of a headache. What the hell is going on? I probably have a brain tumor.