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.

Captive Audience

Yesterday, while I was at the laundromat with one of my most vulnerable clients and everything she owns that could possibly fit into a washing machine, my back flipped me the bird and went on strike. No really, I could actually hear its little overworked cusses bumping up my spine to my ears as I lost all strength to my lower body and excruciating pain ripped me into tiny little pieces.

If your back has never gone out, do not let it.

Do NOT.

Not even if you are really curious.

Not even if you are writing a really important novel about someone whose back goes out.

Do NOT.

I didn't want to freak out my client--this is an easy thing to do and usually requires hours to undo--so I just played it nonchalant. I leaned my elbow on a triple-load washer that was almost my height and tried to pretend that I was still breathing. I sneaked a call to my supervisor and she came in like Social Work Superwoman and took over with my client and drove her home. Husband then arrived to take me home. Getting in the car was difficult.

(The italics mean that it was OH SO PAINFUL THAT I LOST MY RELIGION IN THAT PARKING LOT. ALL OF IT.)

Getting out of the car was worse, but I did not have anymore religion to lose, so I just yelled a lot. I'm sure the neighborhood association thinks my husband is a horrible murderer. (Horrible because he's not good at it because I am still intermittently yelling for someone to hurry up and finish killing me when I move the wrong way.)

Last night, Husband left the TV on for me since I was forced to sleep on the couch. I was in a lot of pain and woke up in the middle of the night to find this blaring proudly:

 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

No. Too sleepy and groggy and uncomfortable even to laugh at Godzilla. I looked around for the remote--which I spotted across the room where I had no hope of getting to it.

I was stuck. I watched Godzilla tromp his way through Kyoto while Rodan received a life-force boost from a chorus of children singing a magical song they heard emanating from a prehistoric plant. Meanwhile, this hatched from an egg that glows red like a giant mood ring when it is grouchy:

No, that's not Barney with a skin condition. That is Baby Godzilla. Yes, that's a proper name because that is what they named him. Or her.

Because of Baby Godzilla, they were able to glean that they weren't able to defeat Godzilla because Godzillas have extra brains. In their HIPS.

Right about then, when they started plotting to shoot out poor Godzilla's extra hip-brains to paralyze him, I started feeling some kinship with the old boy. I mean, he can't help it that he has big feet and Kyoto was in his way. They have his Baby Godzilla, for crying out loud. He's just looking for his kid. Or something. Either way, they shouldn't give him lower back pain. It's INHUMANE.

But they did. And then Rodan came into the picture and zapped Godzilla with his special child-song powers and made his hips better and he went off into the sunset with Baby Godzilla to smash cities another day.

I dozed off somewhere in there and woke up this morning still dreaming of Barney smashing Japanese landmarks. I thought that surely, SURELY this movie was a dream because if it had been real, I would not have watched it. Then I moved and yelled and hurt and remembered.

Where's Rodan when you need him?

Anyway, since I've been splayed out on the couch, I have realized that being a captive audience has its perks. I will no longer think anything my imagination conjures is too bizarre because Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II makes anything I come up with look positively sobering (and I have an in-progress novel involving mind-controlling towels. Seriously). I have gotten some quality time with the animals:

Also, I have no excuses not to read and write. A lot. I'm going to make the best of this.

And when I can't, when I have to make that inevitable excruciating walk to the bathroom, pay no attention to the screeching and groaning. It's just Godzilla tromping through the Memphis suburbs, minding her own business.

Today I Was a Zombie

I am sick.

I do not like being sick.

I do not like it so much that I actually hauled my carcass to the doctor today. If you know me, this is a Big Deal.

While I was there, they took my blood pressure and my heart rate, which were miraculously NOT THERE.

"I am dead," I said to the nurse.

"No, you are not dead," she replied.

"But I have no pulse and no blood pressure. That means that I am a zombie now and you should fear for your juicy, juicy brains."

Then she cocked her head at me and checked the charge on the heart monitor.

Oh, well. It was kind of cool for a second.

My new diet. This, and plenty of Jell-o.

Since I am verifiably Not Dead, I am planning for the future. Next Wednesday's future, for instance, will be my grateful participation in The Next Big Thing Blogroll. I was graciously tagged by Ellen Morris Prewitt, who is now practically a deity in my opinion. I'm going to have to do some thinking about which of my projects to post about, but I just wanted to throw that out there in case of, you know, zombie attack.

After all, if we can't find an excuse to eat brains, then at the very least we can learn to appreciate them for their intrinsic qualities. Even mine.