Our original plan was to leave Tuesday and drive back along the coastline, stopping whenever we wanted, staying overnight at San Simeon Pine Lodge where we’d stayed last year, and then take a leisurely drive home Wednesday. But because we were having so much fun with the NorCal folks, we decided to stay another night and leave Wednesday early morning instead. We figure if we leave at 7a, we’ll avoid downtown LA rush hour traffic.

We’ll never know if that timing would’ve worked, because I could not get up Wednesday morning. As Mr. W packed around me, I woke up in a start having been jolted out of a very disturbing nightmare of betrayal by a girlfriend over some jerk I wanted nothing to do with, who nevertheless swallowed my housekey (which I didn’t even know he had) instead of turning it over to me as I screamed louder and louder at him demanding my key back. ANYWAY, I tried hard to get up, but I kept falling over to the right. I looked up and the ceilings swirled to the left, over and over. I made it to the bathroom and while sitting on the toilet, I got deeply nauseated as the bathroom continued to spin counter-clockwise. I crawled back to bed and said I think I have vertigo. Diana soon came back up and asked for my symptoms, and confirmed it sounds like vertigo, which she used to get and which her mother gets occasional severe attacks of. She suggested motion sickness medication, and told me to just lay down. Mr. W went out to his car and got some Dromamine for motion sickness. I chewed two tablets, fell over sideways to the right again (there seemed to be this weird rightward gravitational pull), and knocked out. I woke up again at 11:30a. The room was still doing its counter-clockwise turns, but the nausea was now gone so the dizziness is tolerable. It’s not unlike being on a moving ship. I packed up my stuff and we soon took off. Diana had left for work already by this time.

I slept most of the drive, until we stopped by Magic Mountain and ate a late lunch/early dinner at Marie Callendar’s. Then I slept again in the car until we got to Mr. W’s house. I’d wanted to watch “Buffy” and “Angel,” but every few seconds I’d get the sensation of falling backwards into my own head, so I eventually just closed my eyes and slept on the couch. This morning, Mr. W woke me up, dropped me off at my house on his way to work, and I crawled into bed at 7a and slept. I’d wanted to get up a few times, 10:30a, 11:30a, 12:30p, but every time I pushed the covers away, the cold air would make me pull it up again. I finally made it out of bed for the first time at 3:30p.

The nausea never came back (thank goodness, cuz that’s the most awful part of this vertigo thing), but the dizziness didn’t completely go away until maybe late evening. I was concerned I couldn’t drive, but I badly needed groceries, so I visited the new “healthy” organic grocery chain “Fresh & Easy” near my house. After eating, I now feel a lot better. Thank goodness I’d taken the whole week off.