Wednesday, February 6, 2008

February Already?

I'm so sorry, lovelies, for my radio silence of late. Like many people across the blogoverse, I've had the most wretched cold -- as in, I can't remember being in so much pain and had many moments where I thought I'd reverted to childhood and was going to break down and begin to cry incessantly from a bad ear infection. Not cool. This morning was the first in a while that when I woke up I felt good. I'm still coughing, still have my little camper table aclutter with snot rags, still don't expect much from myself. Yesterday, I went stir crazy and decided I was going to go for a drive to Starbucks, which from Weird Mountain Town takes about twenty minutes. By the time I drove through the other weird mountain towns and to a normal sprawly city, my back really hurt. While I had thought I might read or whatever at Starbucks, I found myself exhausted and just wanted to go home. (Or maybe I just wanted to get back in the car to listen to my book-on-CD, Steve Martin's irrepressible and inspiring Born Standing Up. I recommend it.) By the time I got home, I had to lie down (bringing the CD book into the camper, of course.)

I have learned a few things from my delirium:
  1. I have toxic sludge in my brain that tells me I can't do anything and am a total waste of space and an irredeemable fuckup. Fighting against this constantly with a mixture of busyness, kinder self-talk, disgust for such ridiculous self-indulgence, and a sense of humor takes considerable energy and fortitude.
  2. Getting out of the house and seeing people and doing things are good things to help battle against the Toxic Sludge Monsters.
  3. Toxic Sludge Monsters seem to feed on my physical pain. Or else, being in pain seems to travel to all my other deeper roots of (emotional) pain and then I'm one hysterical crazysickperson.
  4. It is possible to cough so much you throw up.

A friend of mine, the delightful Jane D., has given me an assignment to write about camper-life. I am honor-bound to fulfill assignments (e.g., I've only ever been good at school and have fucked up everything else was an important refrain of the TSMs) so expect some description of my environment. I am also giving myself some space from the novel right now and am going back to finish a project that was and is very important to me that I had to put on hold to finish the dissertation.

But now I'm tired and have to go do something else -- like lie down.

6 comments:

post-doc said...

TSM sucks. And he's quite wrong about you. Here's hoping you feel much better soon.

Sisyphus said...

Oh, get well soon!

Have you seen those Mucinex commercials? THat's what I'm picturing with the toxic sludge monsters. You need to find what the mental equivalent of a nasal spray is. :)

k8 said...

Feel better soon! It seems like everyone here is in the state you are in or just getting over it. It is evil embodied!

Maude said...

get well soon sweetie! i miss you!!

go to a website called apexfitness.com and see if you can order their "super antioxident." i've been taking it, and i'm the only person who hasn't gotten sick at work and i haven't caught soldier boy's cold. i swear by it.

Earnest English said...

Thank you everyone! I really appreciate your good tidings and well wishes. This cold IS evil embodied!

Anonymous said...

Jane D doesn't feel so delightful when she takes such a long break from catching up on your fabulous blog! Hello! Missing you and loving reading up on everything! I do hope you find the camper-life description assignment inspiring! Loved your description of cleaning out the septic system, for example. I want more! More! Btw, I know I'm commenting on something that you've actually written in a later post, but I like breaking rules a little. And I think you do, too. Which is item #2304 of the things I really like about you.

I also like that you're writing about your pregnancy!! Do you realize how important this is for those of us who identify with you so strongly? It means I'm feeling like I'm pregnant right along with you.