a succulent brain roast

After a few days of coughing and sneezing, I woke up last Friday morning with a sore throat. I suffered through work that night and chose to ignore the signs of impending illness and celebrated Halloween Eve out in Salem with friends, drinking margaritas and dancing.

I paid for it. Paid for it like you might pay for maxing out a $500 limit credit card which you then forgot about for six months.

Saturday afternoon found me at the doctor's office, Jason at my side (he did all the talking for me because I could barely speak), a disposable face mask strapped over my nose and mouth, gasping for breath. The Nurse Practitioner saw me and did the following things:

- took note of my symptoms.

- established that I had a fever.

- jabbed a loooong cotton swab so far up my right nostril that I involuntarily kicked my feet in pain and wondered briefly if I was being subjected to the brain-removal step of mummification.

- looked befuddled when I told her I had received a flu shot

- hilariously screwed up my name while talking to someone else in the hallway outside ("Um, I think her name is... Lola... Van Cutter?").

My chest was x-rayed and I was given a note excusing me from the next three days of work, along with prescriptions for an inhaler and cough syrup with codeine. The diagnosis?

A "flu-like virus".

This brought me right back to the time when I missed weeks of classes my junior year of high school after being diagnosed with a "mononucleosis-like virus". It seems like I only catch imitator, generic versions of illnesses and never the prestigious brand name ones.

I spent the next few days between my couch and bed, my brain being slowly stewed beneath fever and a thick glaze of medicated cough syrup, dreaming crazy, bizarre dreams and occasionally choking on my own mucus.

Oh boy.

I missed Jeff and Kolleen's much anticipated costume-mandatory Halloween wedding, the Edgewater Cafe's huge closing goodbye party and three shifts of work.

What didn't I miss? Excessive, indulgent levels of self-pity. I gorged myself on it.

It's Wednesday night now, and I estimate that my systems are back up around 75%. In between naps today I had enough energy to wash a few dishes, do two loads of laundry, score a few achievement points for Civilization Revolution on the 360 and finally visit the new-ish Sonic on Route 1!

I'm setting my goals even higher for tomorrow. Perhaps I'll wash all the dirty dishes? Stay tuned and wish me luck!

Per request...

From the comments section of my last blog:


"Miss Kolleen said...

amazing. put me on a brontasaurus!"

Okay!

I know, I know... technically, it's a brachiosaurus...

Remember Dino Riders?

MS Paint always cheers me up.

I'm not sure how I appear to you, but this is what I see when I look in the mirror...

SAD

I am self-diagnosing. Either that, or I am unknowingly a solar-powered android.

In an effort to boost my withering spirit, I am making an incomplete list of things that make me happy:

- This is Spinal Tap
- tofu green curry, no basil
- Jason's new tattoo
- Ryan Edward Fitzgerald's possibly red hair
- "The Drama Bug" by David Sedaris
- the clumsy/sad/adorable way that Mina falls off of 50% of the things she attempts to jump onto
- Boggle
- "Still Alive" from Portal
- Emergen-C mixed into very little water
- this picture of Bonnie and me taken after a cakefight:

Auntie Lola!

Little Ryan Fitzgerald was born on September 7th, 2009 at 7:31 in the evening. His parents are Scott Fitzgerald and my older sister, Julie Fitzgerald. His measurements are: 13.5 inches, 2 lbs .04 oz.

Originally, we had all planned on a December arrival, but Ryan was apparently very attached to the idea of being a Virgo.

Jason and I are going to see him tonight :)

Guffaw!

I had a very nice date with my mom today; we took the ferry from Plymouth the Provincetown.

How would you spell the shortened, hip version of "Provincetown"?

I would spell it like this: P-Town.

Our ferry tickets, however, boldly proclaimed that they were for passage between "Plymouth and P'Town". I found this hilarious because, to me, "P'Town" sounds more like the sound effect one might make if they wanted to mimic either spitting or shooting something.

P'Town!

Do spelling and grammar quirks ever make you giggle? Please share if you have any good ones.

Busy! Tired! Cranky!

Don't be misled into thinking that this blog entry is going to be an inspired one; this is a forced venture - blogging for the sake of blogging. I am writing so that I may dissuade my personal guilt that I haven't been journaling often enough.

Wugh. Blaaaargh. It's 6:15 in the morning, and ideas are flowing through my mind as fluidly as chilled toothpaste through a pinhole.

I have been working at a day camp in Essex weekdays, as well as working at Legal Sea Foods weekday nights and weekends. I've been enjoying myself immensely, but my energy level is usually down around my ankles by the time I get home at night.

Luckily, Jason has been very sweet and supportive. Yesterday he finished booking hotel reservations for our upcoming road trip; I don't know all the details yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out tonight during my first night off since last week.

At the moment, I am preparing to finish writing the script for the short play my Drama Camp kids will be performing on Friday. They were in charge of choosing the characters, major plot points and one line each, and I am in charge of the rest of the dialogue and creating a semblance of cohesion. The story goes something like this:

Beautiful Pegasus and her cousin, Uni the Unicorn are playing in a magical forest. They meet a mermaid named Princess Pearl. Pearl is distraught because her parents, the king and queen of the mermaids, have been kidnapped by a terrible star creature named Mr. Freak. Aside from missing her parents, Pearl is overwhelmed by the pressure to become the new queen and has run away. Uni uses her magical horn to give Pearl legs, and Pegasus invites the princess to come live with them.

A little later, the starship of Mr. Freak crashes in the forest. Pegasus, Uni and Pearl subsequently trick Mr. Freak into giving up his toilet plunger (which is the source of all his power). In exchange for the plunger, the friends demand that Mr. Freak return Pearl's parents. Mr. Freak complies. Uni then uses her horn once more to make it so that Pearl will have legs during the day, and a tail and scales at night so that she may move back and forth between the world of her family and the world of her friends.

Everyone is happy.