By this point I am starting to feel like Ariel in the Little Mermaid as I look out the window at the people coming and going from my building and mumbling the words "I wanna be, where the people are. I was see... wanna see 'em dancing." You get my drift. You get my drift even better if you imagine me singing that in a deep (incredibly deep) gravely voice nearly identical to Benedict Cumberbatch.
It's very sexual.
When I get sick I really get hit hard. I might have a couple small colds throughout the year but they are never anything noteworthy and certainly nothing I'd complain about. While I love attention I don't love it for my ailments. That ship sailed in 7th grade with the galbladder incident and all that bullshit. When I get sick now it's usually an awful fever, throwing up, the works. With my fever now gone and my head reattached to my body, I figured I could share a few bits of perspective and a story or two to help me pass the time. Because while the fever is gone, mama still feels like she got hit by a truck.
This Sunday was the worst day of the fever. At one point it got up to 104.2 and when that happened I couldn't do anything but sit motionlessly on my sofa with only music playing verrrrry quietly. The slightest adjustment in my posture and my head would start pounding. Mom swung by with a load of supplies for me which was incredibly nice of her, and brave, I might add, but when she came in she did say not to go near her so I kept a healthy distance. I mostly sat on one edge of the couch with my middle and index fingers planted firmly against my temple to keep my head upright. I couldn't really sleep, it was more like this weird form of stasis. Only in hindsight do I wish I had been recording it because it was probably hilarious.
Sweating so much I could almost feel it coming out of the pores in my scalp, my sweatshirts kept getting soaked completely through, and my feet were cold as ice. Because why stop at one thing, right? I love how when we are sick we do things that make sense to us at the time but in hindsight you kind of shrug and laugh about. The positions I was in and the clothes... I should have just gone and sat in bed to lean up against the headboard but that would be too easy, and of course I could have shed the sweatshirt for a T-shirt but no, not this guy! I imagined my brain boiling in my head like a egg dropped on a hot skillet. Ding ding, order's up!
I know I faked being sick a lot when I was a kid; anything to get me out of school was fine by me. One time, after we had moved to Wisconsin, I remember chewing up my cereal and I just kept shoveling it in and making my mom think I was swallowing it. Then I got up (I'd already laid the ground work and said I was a little queasy feeling (despite no fever)) and ran to the bathroom to make the required awful vomiting sounds while spitting the mashed up cereal into the toilet with some milk. I don't remember exactly but I'm sure she just rolled her eyes and called me in for the day.
That's what I would have done to my own kid, too. If you're gonna work this hard for it, whatever, go nuts.
I've been wracking my brain for sicky-poo stories and I can really only think of two for you guys. One is classic and a lot of you know it, but one is just a memory so I'll start with that instead.
I remember all sorts of things from my childhood but there is a lot of it that I don't recall when it took place. I remember images and sounds but not really the year, mostly because I was too young to know the difference/importance. Most of the memories I have of the first house we lived in on Lanfair are limited to "birthday" or "that one movie night," because I was 5 when we moved away to the house on Knightsbridge and the bulk of my memory comes from that home. I do however remember being sick once at the house on Lanfair.
I spent the day on our ugly as sin plaid grey couch, but from what I can remember it was super squishy and comfortable (the way most super ugly couches are, am I right?) I remember lying face down on the thing for most of the day and I couldn't tell ya what I was watching on TV (probably soaps with my mom) but I remember it was very sunny outside and I was eating a lot of Oyster crackers. Anytime I see a box of them now I am instantly reminded of that day.
This was the house I was born in, 1333 Lanfair St. I Googled it. No, it's not creepy to do that.
I said it's not!
The other memory is from 2010 and it's when I humiliated myself in front of a long standing crush. I don't think I've told this story in the blog before but if I have, forgive me. And then get over it.
This particular incident was probably the worst bout of sickness I'd had in years and then it subsequently kicked off the yearly arrival of the same. I'd made it through Black Friday 2010 at Express and the day just whooped my ass, and as happens now and then it wore down my immune system. I just didn't know it at the time. I ended up having the weekend off following that big day and I started it by helping with a family portrait for @caitcd and her family. It was a gift for her mom but it was a surprise and seeing as I LOVE surprises, I had to be in on it. I felt fine through the whole thing, did my styling like I was supposed to and then I went to meet my dear friend Jillybean for lunch.
We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings (crucial to the story, trust me) and gorged ourselves on boneless wings and beer. From there we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (though we had both seen it a few times already.) I don't remember exactly if I bought candy or not but I know I bought a soda; I remember sitting through the movie and thinking "Holy Christ am I full! I shouldn't have bought the soda. Oof it's just too much." So the movie ends, Jillybean and I part ways, and then I see I have a voice mail.
It's from my high school crush Josh.
Now, Josh had "come out" to me earlier in the year (after about four years of us not having any contact) and after he did, we liked to flirt a lot. There was an attraction there, always had been, and I didn't see any harm in it as we were both in relationships at the time and he lived in Madison on top of it all.
Josh wanted to get together for coffee because he was in town for the holiday, and would I like to do so as well? I called him up and said yes of course, and then drove to my parents house to clean myself up a little before going to meet him at Starbucks. At about that point I started to really wonder why I still felt so full, as I didn't REALLY eat that much at lunch and even if I had, it was now several hours later. So what the fuck was up?
I get to Starbucks, meet Josh, get my coffee and we sit to start talking. We tend to have these very fast-paced, blink-and-you-miss-it types of conversations and this was no exception, but after about half an hour he stops what he's saying and goes "Sean, I can't help but notice you're not drinking your coffee." And then the haze of bemusement in him washes away and three things quite instantly dawn on me:
1) He's right, I'm certainly not drinking it.
2) I suddenly feel really full.
3) My mouth is getting dry.
So I look at my high school crush with his big brown eyes, sexy shaggy hair, white collared shirt under a sweater and pea coat, and staring him dead in the eye I say "Will you excuse me? I have to throw up."
I didn't even wait for an answer. Starbucks is notorious for having someone in the damn bathroom right when you need it so I instead took off out the front doors, sprinted across the parking lot and ran into the white rocks surrounding the perimeter. I crouched, pulled my trench coat away, and started heaving. The highway off ramp was right there and thank god it was dark outside otherwise EVERYONE would have seen me. The icing on the cake, however, was yet to come.
Finally satisfied I'd gotten it all up, feeling the stringy drool of vomit still on my chin, I look up to see Josh standing not five feet away. Watching me. Instantly my stomach wants to drop out of my ass because I am mortified. He doesn't even laugh, he just says in the most charming and convincing voice ever "Well if it helps this doesn't make you any less attractive to me." I hardly smiled before I turned and threw up more. That's why it's important you know what I had for lunch and subsequently why I veered away from BWW for a year or so after.
Anywho, that's all I've got for the sick talk. I try to only reveal embarrassing stories every now and then so I hope you enjoyed THAT gem. Someday I'll tell you about the poop in the fitting rooms at Express. I'm feeling a lot better now; I'm ready for a shower and bed so I can go back to work tomorrow, and that's all there is to say about that. Check back in ten days for the monthly update! Ciao!
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