But I lied.

I can’t help it. Horking follows me everywhere in Beijing.

Okay, simply put, Chinese people hork out loud all the time. It’s cool, I get it. Okay, maybe I don’t get why people need to regurgitate phlegm everywhere but I’m learning to be culturally aware and I knew that I’d have to get over the public horking that goes on. It’s allll good. I prepped myself. I even made a promise to myself to never blog about the horking.

That is, until somebody horked on me.

Scene of the crime? Small restaurant down the road from where I work. I was there, eating and reading a magazine when I heard the sound. I always hear the sound, but usually can block it out.

“Hrkkkkkk……” or something like that. “Blarrrrkkkk. Heerrrrrkkk…”

Picture the sound of someone horking up an entire bag of Frito’s corn chips. This may start to approximate the sound I heard this afternoon. It went on. And on. And on. After about five minutes, it stopped.

I was glad. Also because I was eating eggs, which, well, kinda look a little bit like horked up corn chips.

And then it started again! The old man horked on the floor beside him. Then he horked again – this time a “flyer” – and it landed on my shoe.  He. Horked. ON. MY. SHOE.

I turned around, gave him my best indignant stare and roll of the eyes and he just sat there, doing his business.

“Hrkkkkkk…Glargkkhhhh!”

What’s  a girl to do?

Hork, I suppose.

Ah yes, always reporting the story, not becoming the story. well cross your fingers that no one in rows 12 and 14 had their video cameras or camera phones on, or any possible recording device as I made my way home from Vegas to NYC, rounding out 36 hours of hardcore free as a bird partying. I was so proud of myself as I woke up Saturday morning without a hangover for drinking only water the last hour or so of my evening. wow, such control. Such responsibility. Sigh. I was so proud that, before I left for the big party at Bare, I had scheduled a wake up call, packed, and consolidated my stuff back into one bag. I headed out to Bare feeling pretty sassy in satin “King Richard” poofy short sleeve tangerine/burnt sun shorty shorty dress. Of course, I dropped my lip gloss near my hooha so it looked like something might be trying to escape, but whatever.

The setting was glam, the people were self important, the hosts were fantastic, the food was deplorable. The afterparty was a who’s who of douchetown and the mayor had the clipboard. But let’s talk about the flight home, because that’s where it gets good. I got to the airport two hours before boarding so i could write, have a bloody mary, and just get close to “away from Vegas” as possible. I think it’s a crap town. I hate it to be honest. It’s depressing, it’s trying to be something it’s not (like, um, if you want to stay in a hotel that looks like the buildings of New York, hows about spend your hard earned money on a trip to the REAL city instead of a depressing poor man’s version?) I think that’s really the theme of Vegas: low class aiming for a self imposed importance… that fails. It’s all about loss and how willful a marketing pawn you are. Sometimes I hate being older – it’s too much awareness.

Anyway. Bloody Mary in full effect, I wandered over to the gate and saw all the poor hungover schmucks from the night before. I assumed it would be a quiet flight. I figured no one would be talking, just a lot of napping. I assumed wrong. Free vodka and beer AGAIN, and new seat partners for me because I switched at check in for a window. Turns out my seatmates were fans of ordering a bloody mary and Dos Equis at the same time. We had 4 rounds of each within a 3-4 hour time window. just in time to hit gut flopping turbulence. just enough time to really really regret my choice as we were forced to land in Rochester in order to refuel and wait out the violence. And Rochester? just enough time for me to fill four barfbags full of honk – to be relayed to the main garbage and back by my saintly seatmates (two gruff and funny guys from “the Suffolk). just enough time to have an annoucement made … certainly not beacuse of me, noooo,

“If anyone is feeling ill, which we’ve had reports of, please move to the front or back of the plane so you can reach the bathroom more quickly” – this was after major turbulence, but yeah, that’s not why I honked.

I arrived in New York, slipping out of the Broadway/Lafeyette stop, at 2:00am. Home just before 2:30, showered, and in bed. Today all I could think of was how that honking situation could have been so much worse. Those guys could have been horrible assholes. They rallied all the seats around us and got every single barfbag in a 12 seat radius. They saved me.

so yeah. I guess time will tell if anyone kept a record of that. I made it through Vegas without barfing, just in time to hork in Rochester, NY.

I imagine I’ll get the hint from my body soon.  well, it’s not so much a subtle hint, it’s a glaring, “hey take a look at your stomach lining” sort of hint.  And that hint is “maybe you shouldn’t drink beer anymore.”

GASP!! I know!  Isn’t that a horrible sentence?  I LOVE beer.  I like how it tastes outside.  I like how it tastes in the sun.  I like how the night smells after those first 2 beers.  I love wings.  And beer.  You can’t have wine and wings.  You can’t have a cosmo and wings.  Have you ever seen someone drinking a pina colada with wings?  Ack, that’s the chemical equivalent for intestinal blockage. I’ll have to find wings a new partner in my life, however, because my body no longer enjoys the way beer sits in it.  It’s not sitting anymore, it’s wrestling with the other innocent bystanding organs.   I can have one.  I can have 8.  and the results are the same.  I wake up, feel fine, and then hork up a sweet pile of foam.  And if I’m lucky, I’ll continue to hork throughout the day — just some non assuming foam puffs.  Nothing significant.

So beer, I guess this is it for me and you.  This morning I got my final hint.    Now to figure out what else can complete the phrase “wings -n- _____”