This cold that’s been going around, it’s a two-week thing. And it’s pretty damn nasty. Every morning I wake up with a rattling cough that has me doubled-over, red-faced, trying to hack up another glob of tan gunk. When I used to smoke, I thought that the brown phlegm was from cigarettes. Apparently it’s just from being sick.

Good afternoon. How was your lunch? Aren’t I attractive today?

In any event, the Job that Dissolved became the Job that Needed Me Again late Saturday night, so I had to go back in again yesterday. I was looking like complete crap and needed a quick fix that would keep me presentable and alert for ten straight hours.

Enter Zicam.

I can’t remember who told me about this first. But when I first got sick two weeks ago, I went straight to my doctor and got antibiotics. One of my friends grabbed my arm and said, “If you get this cold again, you go out and get Zicam. It’s amazing.”

So I got the cold again this week and yesterday, through my phlegmy, drippy fog I started to remember the words of advice. I went to the drugstore, plopped down the ELEVEN BUCKS it cost, and snorted Zicam on my way to work.

In three minutes, I could breathe.

Three minutes. I’d spent all morning fighting to breathe. I had gone through a box of Kleenex, snorting, snuffing and sniffing. I’d been dripping and sneezing and coughing for hours. Three squirts of Zicam in each nostril and I felt like I’d been in a Eucalyptus sauna. I could breathe. It didn’t taste like anything. It didn’t run down my throat and make me gag. It just opened up my nose and I could breathe. Heavenly!

I still needed a bag of cough drops for my hacking, but it was nice to not have to keep breathing through my mouth like a yokel.

Go Zicam!

Then about three hours later my nose started running everywhere. I was the grossest girl in Sherman Oaks, y’all. Covered in Kleenex and hugging a mug of hot tea while I worked. People stayed away from me. By the time ten hours had passed, you probably could have seen the squiggly lines of sick coming off me. I smelled like menthol from the cough drops and my nose was bright red from all the Kleenex.

Then. I accidentally blew a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of snot on my boss’ arm.

I saw it. He saw it. But it was late, and I was leaving, and there was nothing anyone could say about it. I was exhaling and it just flew and landed on his forearm and he sort of just rubbed it in for about five minutes as we talked about what time I’d come in the next day.

I was mortified. But you know, it’s just a temp job, right?

I’m so gross.

So this is the part of the entry where I ask a favor of you. Because, you know, all I do now is ask you guys to do things for me. Fix my computer! Fix my webpage! Fix my brokeness! Fix my play!

But now, I’m wondering if you want to help promote my book. It’s gearing up for publicity time, so I need to send my editor and publicist people that are in the position to help promote the book. If you work for a bookstore, or know someone who does, if you’re a reviewer, or know someone who works for a newspaper/magazine and would be interested in promoting a book like mine, or if you’re working for some kind of talk show that interviews people like me, I’m looking for contacts. So, if you’re someone who can give me advice/help/names/numbers/etc, let me know. Thanks.