The heaviest toll exacted by the flu, I realized in a Sudafed-induced haze yesterday, isn’t the phlegm or the sniffling or the scratchy throat. It’s the way the bug slowly herds your thoughts onto one track, limiting your focus to whatever task is at hand. Gone is the ability to think in parallel–devising a solution to a work issue while you’re cooking, for example, or picturing the opening lines of an e-mail as you pump gas–and in its place is the slow plod of thinking in single file. It’s about completing one task, then the next, then the one after that, until you reach the promised land of another pill. Fortunately for us, my brain is queued with two items right now: to cram three paragraphs into Blogger, then embrace a few hours of oblivion.
Since we’re talking about thinking, if that makes any sense, I may as well update you on my quest for mental acuity. The executive summary: I’ve been feeling markedly slower recently, and in an effort to fix this I’ve prescribed for myself a regimen of sleeping more, writing regularly, playing chess, and eating better. I figured I’d maintain a record here–patchwork, of course–to track whether these measures will even work.
Obviously I’m still writing, but it’s not enough, since I was doing so when the wrinkles in my brain began to unravel. Still, I’d like to propose the written word is at least slowing my descent into the mire, and I’m not particularly eager to discover what would happen if I did otherwise. Sleep, too, has been welcome but ineffective. I’ve been punching in seven to eight hours each night, a veritable turnaround in the span of a week, and aside from being slightly more alert I’m not feeling the difference. Food is next on the docket, I guess. No fries ingested this week, thankfully, but I haven’t exactly let up on the refined sugars either. Food it is, then, because the prospect of having chess–chess, for fuck’s sake!–lined up for the weekend is simply mortifying, even for me. There are anti-social depths to which even I would dare not sink.
Our thousandth post should’ve arrived with fanfare befitting the coronation of kings, the likes of which would call for a sumptuous dinner spread, rivulets of rich country drink, court jesters, song, an elephant, and possibly even a beheading. That’s what’s supposed to happen when you hit the big one-oh-oh-oh, at least on paper, but reality instead lavished upon me a case of the flu. The nerve! I thought I had beaten the odds, landed on the right side of the bell curve, and I was certain my luck was all but guaranteed when I survived a recent storm of office coughing and multiple encounters with the afflicted.
When you play with fire one too many times, however, especially the magic fire of disease, there will be consequences, and accordingly I’ve reaped the harvest of my hubris. It isn’t the dreaded swine flu, I don’t think, because I haven’t been hacking my lungs out or running a fever or anything like that. I’d like to think it’s a more dignified strain, marked with a stoic congestion and light discomfort, but we’ll see if matters worsen. I may as well be upfront here, too, and declare that the thousand mark we’ve reached tonight includes the “we’ll be back on so-and-so date” posts, which is clearly lame. Blogger still reads “1,000,” of course, so it’s a milestone nonetheless. I just didn’t want to tell a half-truth, only to be promptly struck down by lightning midway through a sneeze.
In case you’re expecting a speech, some kind of tawdry collage of reminiscing, let me assure you I mainly want to go to bed right now. There is one memory I’d like to share, though. I remember, back in the day, considering a commenting system for this site, driven by the belief that your voice should be heard here. This didn’t happen, obviously, and I’d like to recommit to never implementing this feature. Think of it as renewing a vow of your silence. I don’t care for you to talk back! And even now, while Twitter consummates its dark grip on the populace, this corner of the Internet shall remain, as ever, a one-way conduit of information.
The way I remember it, panhandlers were fixtures on the street, practitioners of the hustle who cornered the daytime vampire market well before any of this Twilight shit, shaking down passersby for sundries and coin. Sure, they may have worked an intersection on one day, then an adjacent avenue the next, but by and large they were stationary during the act itself. Custom also dictated that solicitations occasionally were accompanied by a brief explanation for why their ill fortune now involved you, and at times not a single word was exchanged, with only the jangling of a worn Dunkin’ Donuts cup to summon both sympathy and wallet.
Now, some panhandlers bucked tradition and were a little more suspect. Perhaps it was the nice shirt, or the fancy pair of shoes, or the shiny watch, or the CD player, or how the crutch-side leg was favored, but questions would be raised. Indeed, the panhandler-panhandlee covenant may even have been broken, and when you consider how this species of panhandler also tends to be the pushiest, well, what you have right there is a powder keg of indignation. It’s especially volatile if you’re accosted after a long day at the office because it’s, like, oh, of course I should give you some money. You must be tuckered out from listening to music and standing around outside all day.
Never have I encountered a panhandler in a car, however, until today. In case I wasn’t clear, this guy was asking for money while he was driving a silver compact. Only in southeast Charlotte, I suppose, can you find begging evolved to its most luxurious drive-through form, in the parking lot of a Target, no less. I was making a right onto a side street when the fellow started turning into the lot, established eye contact, rolled down his window, and then proceeded to ask whether I could help him out with some cash. I mean, really? Was the irony really that subtle? Next thing you know, I’ll be expected to drop off a donation or two at his house, whenever his schedule permits. I declined, naturally, only to feel a deep remorse later in the day for having missed the chance to ask about sedanhandling. There’s always next time.