Last week was a hectic week for me and a long day at
work on Friday. Lots of people are sick
or getting over being sick but still coughing their germs around. I didn’t feel great on Friday night, and I
was glad it wasn’t freezing when I had to walk my dog. By Saturday, my ear, throat, and head hurt,
and I had a chest cold.
I was glad it was the weekend and one without
commitments to anyone else. I did think,
however, of a co-worker who didn’t attend a meeting on Friday due to being
sick. I attended the meeting and got
sick later. Seems unjust.
I managed Saturday with tea, gargling, ginger ale,
and Tylenol. But by Sunday, my stomach
was the focus. Ugh. Switched to peppermint tea. If not for needing to walk the dog,
I’d have slept more of Sunday away. In spite of what felt wrong, by evening I was
hungry. I ate oatmeal.
It sucks to be
sick. One of the benefits is supposed to
be not having to feel guilty or concerned about not doing anything. I did feel concerned. I had many things to do. Another benefit is having the opportunity to
appreciate our body’s many functions. I
do.
When I was little and got sick, my grandma* took care
of me. She was quite good at that. She grew up when people dealt with polio, died
of pneumonia and infections, and all sorts of things most of us do not deal
with. I grew up before vaccinations for
many of the things we vaccinate against now.
She saw me through measles, German measles, chicken pox, asthma, and all
the colds and scraped knees of my early years.
She was very proud that I don’t have one pock mark from scratching. She had me polka-dotted with Calamine lotion
and too afraid of her to scratch. My
mother would buy me Archie comic books and hang out with me when she could.
Being grown and sick means I still have to walk my
dog, buy food, make tea, watch my apartment get more cluttered, etc. I’m whining.
But it isn’t the end of the world or anything, and I’ve lived through much tougher circumstances, God
knows. I just wanted to whine a bit. By Monday evening, I was feeling a lot better
though I do have something wrong in my ear.
It might be connected to teeth issues or it might be an infection that
is traveling around my body. My worst
thought is that it is something awful from cell phone use.
In the spirit of the
world ending, my apartment continues to threaten to collapse. A few months back, my bathroom and kitchen
ceilings were replaced and painted. Now
there’s a leak from above making a situation where not only will those ceilings
need replacing again, but the wall shared by both rooms will probably need
replacing as well. It is sometimes
difficult to take all this in stride, but again, these are physical problems
that, while very inconveniencing, are fixable.
I normally work most
evenings to supplement my morning job income.
Working many evenings really limits my other endeavors. Now I am on holiday break (unpaid) from one
job. This is my chance to try to do the
other things I do. So I am glad to say I
will be performing at the Ooba Lounge in Brooklyn on Wednesday and the Grisly
Pear in the Village on Thursday this week.
Next week on Thursday, I’ll be in Johnny Zito’s show at Goodbye Blue
Monday in Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you’ve
been meaning to get to a show, all of these shows are free. And just in case the world ends on 12/21, you
might want to not put this off.
*My grandma's birthday is December 15th. Though she's passed on, I feel her with me much of the time. Happy Birthday, Grandma.
Being sick sucks - feel better soon! After 3 weeks of dust & debris my bathroom ceiling is done. Now once I buy a new shower curtain I can take a shower.