For the longest time, I was a staunch proponent of the moping policy, which comprehensively outlines the best course of action for dealing with the flu. Its specifics are hard to understand, involute even for the most learned of folk, but it goes something like this: when you get sick, you retreat to bed and you stay your ass there until the symptoms subside.
I’ve jumped ship. Bedrest is fine and all, yet for minor sickness there’s a feeling of dirtiness from hibernating the whole day. Plowing into routine is another option, I think, and whether by a qualified miracle or sheer force of denial you sometimes recover in hours. It’s like your blood is replaced with pure antibiotics on command, and all the pathogens promptly perish as the penicillin pulses through your person. That was a nod to V for Vendetta, a pretty damn good flick.
There’s a high probability I’ll feel like shit again tomorrow, however, so I wish you good evening. A full night’s sleep? I’m still a fan. Dreams, too, take a sharp left down Awesome Street when that out-of-body achiness hits, as if you were the one person in the world to whom the secrets of flying were made clear.
Secretly, just between you and me, I’ve developed a fondness for them pre-sick blues. Now, I don’t think I’ve quite assumed the mantle of certifiable hypochondriac yet, nor do I actively derive pleasure from an itchy throat or the twinge of unreality that precedes every fever. The comfort comes from the finality of the matter. It’s no longer a question of whether I’ll get sick, or whether a few zinc tablets will delude me into good health, it’s a question of dealing with the matter at hand.
Have you ever visited Goodbrush? This guy is one of my favorites. I like it when the canvas has some heft to it.
I’m told it’s wise to ease into bedtime, steering far away from potential sources of stress, by doing any number of sensible things: listening to music, reading a book, going for a walk, playing a game, or deconstructing the latest Doonesbury while taking a drag on the trusty opium pipe. How subject-verb agreement is possible right now, I have no idea, because the current mood is white hot rage.
For the past 20 minutes, I’ve been playing an utterly exasperating game. Picture a long Egyptian hall, with the exit at one end and a bottomless pit at the other end. You start near the pit. Swelling orchestral accompaniment. The goal is to make it to the exit, hit four switches along the way, and complete the run in under five minutes.
Sounds easy, right? It would be simple, were it not for a steady stream of obstacles sweeping through the hallway, cunningly crafted to hinder your progress and push you into the pit. Some obstacles are nothing more than walls with a window or two. Other obstacles are entire rooms you need to negotiate quickly, lest you, the room, and all your goddamn frustration plummet into the pit.
“Sorry, you failed this time. Try again,” intones the digital carny every time you lose.
After the fifth time I plunged to my death, I wanted so badly to throttle something. Perhaps I didn’t explain the game clearly enough, in which case I offer an analogy. It’d be like putting a fat kid on a cycling regimen and telling him to book it down the freeway. The only problem is you starved him for weeks and, more deviously, you replaced his wheels with gigantic cheddar rounds, and he can’t stop falling off his bike, eating the wheels, and crying. Sisyphus, I know your story well.