"I'm not going to call in sick while my boss is out of town," I said.
"I don't want to waste any precious Franz-free days," I said.
"I feel fine. It's just allergies," I said.
Blehhhhh.
I woke up this morning at 5 a.m., feeling as though someone had been running a truck back and forth across my face all night long. The annoying little case of sniffles that has plagued me since before the Christmas trip to TicTac has morphed, overnight, into a fullblown sinus infection.
[Just before I woke up I dreamed that I was standing in front of my eighth grade gym locker, peering into a little mirror. I was alarmed to see all of this gooey pea-soup stuff, oozing out of my tear ducts. "Oh nooo!" I wailed. "I've got Home Ec in ten minutes!" A premonition of things to come? Or a subconscious holdover from last week's "X-Files?"]
I crawled out bed, then and there, and called the office. I left voicemail for The Human Resources Specialist Person -- my closest *neighbor* in the Corporate section of the Totem Pole Company, and the person most likely to feel my absence -- and then, just for kicks, I left a voicemail message for Franz [knowing full well that *I* will probably hear that message before HE does]. I told them both that I was feeling "quite ill" ... involuntarily snorting into the receiver a couple of times, just for dramatic effect ... and said that I would be back in the office tomorrow, no matter what. [Unless, of course, that oozing-pea-soup thing actually happens ...]
And then I crawled back into bed, smooshing myself against the warmth of The Other 50% of the Population. He woke up, a little. "Everything OK?" he asked.
"I think Ibe going to stay hobe today," I shnuffled. "It feels like by sinus cavities are filled with bud."
He seemed to think that this was a fine idea. A couple of days ago his boss at the newspaper was actually rushed to the emergency room and almost died as a result of complications from a lingering sinus infection. Neither one of us is interested in taking chances. "Don't do anything today," he exhorted. "Sleep. Drink a ton of juice. Lay in bed and read."
"I think you're right," I said. "I can hook up the laptop and lay here and catch up on message boards."
Apparently this wasn't exactly what he had in mind. "I meant, you could read some real BOOKS or something."
[Oh.]
As it turns out, though, I haven't been "reading" much of anything today. At least, not until now. I fell back to sleep almost immediately and didn't so much as twitch until the unheard-of hour of 9:30 a.m. [I guess the Comtrex must have kicked in right away: I didn't even hear David leave for work.] After I crawled out of bed for the second time, I crammed a bath towel into the crack beneath the bathroom door and took an obscenely long, hot shower. The combination of steam and water pressure really helped open things up, sinus-wise ... temporarily, at least. Then I took another half-dose of Comtrex [I hate that weird, "disconnected" feeling I get from OTC cold medicine, so I usually don't take full doses of anything] ... spoke briefly on the phone with my mother and the Ex-Hub [both of whom, apparently, had called for me at my office, were told that I was "out sick," and were concerned] ... ... and then promptly crawled back into bed for ANOTHER three hour *nap.* Good morning. Again.
I still feel like twice-reheated-s**t ... but I'm wide-awake now, and I'm bored and antsy, and it's going to be another three hours at least until David comes home and *entertains* me. So I'm deliberately disobeying Dr. DRaftervoi's "orders," and I've dragged the laptop here into bed with me. Thanks to a 12' Radio Shack phone cord, I am able to plug myself into the cyber universe ... and I can lay here for the rest of the afternoon, catching up on cyber journals [amazing how many people are thinking about quitting drinking right now, btw] and lurking my way through all of those bookmarked message boards [I don't like the AA board, I've decided: it doesn't speak to my experience, it's too preachy, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of tolerance for people who choose recovery without a twelve-step program], and surfing the Internet for that much-ballyhooed eponymous Five Man Electrical Band LP. [One thing I won't be doing, however, is writing much of anything meaningful for the website today. Just typing this much on the dinky laptop is giving me a brand-new kind of headache. I'm afraid this is about as good as it gets for today, folks.]
I've also dragged the new piano into bed with me, though, so I figure that if I get tired of wasting brain molecules on the Internet, I can practice. I've just about got that first little Clementi Sonatina [Op. 36, No. 1] down: all I really need to do is slow down, get my fingering back, learn to compensate for the lack of pedals, and quit expecting to sound as good as I did in 1975, overnight.
And on top of everything else I've got a stack of ... are you ready for this? ... "real books" to read. ["Sanctuary" by Nora Roberts -- a Christmas present from my mom; "E-mail Trouble: Love and Addiction at the Matrix," S. Paige Baty, a used bookstore *find* that I've been kicking around since last summer; "Paint Shop Pro Vs. 6 User's Guide," which may finally help me unravel the mystery of raster vs. vector images]. So I've got plenty of stuff to keep my head occupied for the next few hours. Unless, of course, the Comtrex kicks in again and I drift back to sl ...
