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My Mommy Says I Can Do Anything (But Apparently That Doesn’t Include Vomit)

A little over a month into my relationship with Kyle, we attended a fateful Christmas party together.  I say fateful, because it was at that party that we learned that I cannot handle wine like I can handle regular liquor.  In fact, I can barely handle wine at all.  And much later that night, I punctuated this fact by barfing up a bottle of wine all over Kyle’s mattress.  (He handled it surprisingly well; he did make me help him clean it up the next morning, but he never gave me any grief for it.  In fact, it was the way he handled the accident that reassured me that he was a keeper!)

I sit now in that same exact bed, almost three years later, and I wish to god that I could repeat that performance.  I’ve been in bed for the last several hours, wheezing and hacking and trying not to die.  I feel as if I’m breathing through coffee stirrers, and I’m only using 1/3 of my lung capacity.  It takes great effort to dislodge any of the crap in my lungs, and every cough sets my lungs on fire and burns my throat raw.  I’ve got two different inhalers at my disposal, and neither seems to do anything more than tweak me up on steroids and raise my heart rate.

But the worst part is the fatigue.  Even though I slept for almost five hours after work, I feel as if I’ve just finished a strenuous cardio workout.  Getting up to use the bathroom took a serious pep-talk, and walking from the couch to my bed winded me.  Honest to god, it took me an hour-and-a-half to work up the energy to pull out my laptop and type this.

And this, ladies and gents, is why I wish I were barfing like a freshman right now.  There is no way I’m feeling up to work tomorrow, especially considering the rough two days I have ahead of me.  We’ve got two big shows coming in, both bringing in gear, which will require a lot from me both mentally and physically, and they’re both bound to be at least 13-hour days.  Considering I barely had the energy to relieve my bladder earlier, the  thought of scampering up and down stairs and monkeying all over the cove is just exhausting.  Yet, I can’t just stay home.  What am I going to tell my boss?  That I can’t come to work because I’m tired?  Yeah, so is everyone else.

But if I were barfing, then there would be no question.  Barfing is one of those litmus tests for the severity of an illness, sort of like bleeding is for injuries.  Fevers are also an in-arguable sign of true illness.  Without some kind of fluid spewing from my body, I can still technically make it through work.  I will be fucking miserable, but I’ll be able to make it.  But were I spilling the contents of my dinner into the belly of the porcelain god, there would be no question; I could stay in bed tomorrow with a clean conscious, knowing that I truly was sick enough to stay home.

But I’m not barfing.  Nor am I bleeding.  I don’t think I have a fever, (the thermometer was sadly lost between Atlanta and Saratoga,) and all my digits are still attached.  There’s no way I could bail out on the crew with such a huge and technically complicated show loading in, but damn, would I like to.

But I suppose there’s still time.  Maybe I can blow chunks on this mattress yet!

*This post was actually written last night, but apparently my inability to get sick is matched equally by my inability to press the “Publish” button correctly.

{ 3 comments… add one }
  • Camels & Chocolate November 3, 2009, 10:35 am

    Haha, OK, this post made me physically ill to read.

    But I wish you best of luck in your chunk-blowing endeavors!

  • gem November 3, 2009, 1:59 pm

    Hmm, those sound like flu-like symptoms to me. And everyone’s petrified of that. Don’t give details, just say you feel like you have the flu and voila, nobody questions a thing!

  • Suzy Voices November 3, 2009, 2:31 pm

    God, I’m so sorry you’re feeling so horrible!!

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