Solved Mysteries

Q. What are the symptomatic differences between a hangover and natural gas toxicity?

A. Surprisingly few.

Technically, natural gas isn't toxic. Oxygen deprivation, however, totally is. Symptoms of hypoxia include: dizziness; fatigue; nausea and headache. Last Saturday, I went out and had something like 3-4 beers and felt pretty terrible on Sunday. Unusual, but not unheard of since I dropped to a size 4/6. My skin was tingly in that weird uncomfortable way that sometimes happens when you're dehydrated. I had a headache. Everything smelled off... it was your typical mild hangover. Anything else out of the ordinary, I attributed to angst, because everybody knows that my pasty, translucent skin encompasses a resevoir of resentment sufficient to propell a G0th-o-Rock3t of Despair from here to the galactic core.

It was cold out, so I was keeping the windows closed.

But it so happens that on Friday or Saturday, the pilot light on our oven went out. Which is why, when U. and I went to keep the pancakes and bacon warm on Saturday morning, the oven wasn't heating up. Over the course of the weekend our apartment was filling up with gas. And when my roommate came home on Sunday night, the concentration of natural gas in our apartment was apparently overwhelming. I'd spent all day inside, trying to clean, and had only left all of an hour or so before she got in. Probably just in time.

Mystery, solved!

I felt much better when I left on Sunday night, but was still cracked out enough that the Scissor Sisters concert was less than awesome. Small Sins was a lot of fun, though; particularly when the crazy guy in the middle started whaling on his synth with a maraca. They claim an affinity to Kraftwerk, so I'm going to see if Mark can tolerate any of their stuff. In the meantime...