Live From My Bed (Stage Left)

I am sick, sick, so sick.  I am the kind of sick that has me contemplating whether one more breath is worth the ensuing coughing fit even if it does keep me stringing along as a living creature for another little while.

I have taken up residence in my bed with my new best friends.

As friends go, they are nice enough, but they don't do much to take away the stifling boredom that comes with not being able to move without pain and suffering. I can't help but feel lied to by the Berenstain Bears, who filled my childhood with promises of sick day perks. There are no perky pastel dinosaurs here, smug Brother Bear. No dinosaurs at all.

I tried writing for a while, but then my vintage Esterbrook fountain pen leaked on me. I was displeased. Maybe, though, it is sick too. Maybe it can't help leaking out of its section threads, and it is sorry, but it hopes that I'll put it down and let have a mercy nap. Maybe I should dab it with a tissue and feel sorry for it.

Then again, that would mean it leaked ink-snot on me, and that's just gross.

I should probably not anthropomorphize things so much, but that would be no fun, and I am already having very little fun. However, I will say that being the writerly type can be fun when describing symptoms to a doctor.

"Tell me about your cough," becomes, "There is a grenade in my chest, the clip in my throat. Every breath I suck past it flicks the pin."

That one got me a blank stare and a breathing treatment.

"So, you have body aches."

"Yes, it is like my skin is boiled and pain burns up my legs like a slow wick, but not hot enough to chase away the chills."

Slow blink. "You have chills, too?"

"Yes. They leave me desperate and shivering like the last leaf in autumn."

That resulted in a raised eyebrow that said, "You have pneumonia and you read too much."

She's probably into mysteries, the Joe-Friday-Just-the-Facts-Ma'am* kind. They eschew the lacy edges of the language like a boiling plague.

Okay, obviously, I just can't help myself. Anyway, I am going to try to make the best of my confinement by working on that New Year's Resolution Resolution I mentioned before. There are books to finish, stories to write, novels to revise, and book reviews to type. Why did I think I was bored?

I guess there is plenty to do, provided I manage to keep breathing. (I'm on the fence about this.) I'll find something constructive to do right after this next episode of The Big Bang Theory. I swear, just one more. Just...one...more...


*Sergeant Joe Friday never actually said, "Just the facts, ma'am," in all the 1960's Dragnet series. I know this because I just swallowed whole all four seasons on Netflix. All. Four.