First off, I want to apologize for being a whining little bitch.  My last post is existing proof that sick people should not be allowed near WordPress, especially when feeling sorry for themselves.  I was depressed about my state of health and the dilemma over whether or not I could miss work, and I threw that anxiety up all over the internets.  Sorry internets.  I’ll go get the Resolve.

As it turned out, I work for two very cool bosses for whom my health and well-being is a priority, and whom were supportive of my decision to take the last two days to rest and get myself back in working order.  So after two days parked on the couch armed with orange juice and tissues, my body no longer feels like death and my mind no longer feels like I’m five.

Of course, I can’t credit my new-found health and vigor entirely on the rest  and vitamin C.  (And the bad day-time television; I truly believe that a major part of anyone’s recovery should be shamelessly terrible day-time television.)  There was a big turn-around in the way I was feeling when my husband, Kyle, walked in the door, sniffling and coughing.  Shortly after dinner, he holed himself up in the bedroom, complaining that he felt tired, like he might be coming down with something.

And that‘s when my energy came back.  Suddenly, I had a purpose, and a duty.  Kyle’s been wonderful these last two days, taking care of me, getting me whatever I needed, petting and comforting me.  And now it’s my turn.  My man is sick, and by god, I’m going to nurse him back to health if it kills me!

And suddenly I found the energy to pull myself off the couch and begin puttering around the kitchen.  I wanted to make him tea, find him another blanket, cuddle him, stroke his hair; I wanted to be be comfort for him.

Unfortunately, Kyle is not the kind who likes to be fretted over when sick.  In fact, he doesn’t really like to be fretted over at all.  About ten minutes of me mothering over him and Kyle had decided that maybe he wasn’t feeling sick after all.  And by that, I mean he threw off the blankets and told me to get my ass on the couch and out of his damn hair.

And so I’m back on the couch, in my nest of blankets and used tissues.  Hopefully by tomorrow, I’ll be back in the game and have the strength to kick some dirty dishes, errands, and sick husbands into submission.

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.

Yesterday, Kyle and I made an impromptu trip to NYC.  There wasn’t really a reason, other than that we had the day off, and we could.  Going into it, we knew that it wasn’t the best day to make the trip; it was supposed to rain all day, and seeing as we didn’t decide to go until 11:00 the night before we didn’t do much preparation.  But, caught up in all the excitement, we just had to go.  Because we could!

It ended up being a day of fateful decisions.  Decisions that at that moment, didn’t seem very big or important, but later affected us, for good or bad, in a big way.

Decision: When Kyle turned to be as we were getting out of the car and asked if we should bring the umbrella, and I looked at the heavy mist outside and said, “Nah, it’s not really raining.  Besides, you’ll just make me carry it.”

Consiquence: That heavy mist?  Turned into more of a torrential rain by the time we got off the train.  Minutes into our half-mile trek across Central Park we were soaked.  I kept telling myself that we’re made of tougher stuff, that a little rain can’t hurt us.  But it did make for reaaally wet socks.

Decision: “We turn left here, and the Met should be be just ahead on the right.”

Consequence: What Kyle should have said was, “We turn right here.”  Unfortunately, he didn’t realize his mistake until we were five blocks in the wrong direction, and my socks were soggy.  There were a few minutes, (or twenty,) when I contemplated pushing him in front of a bus, but I refrained.

Decision: When we finally got to the Met, we were soaked, but also starving, so we decided to stop at a hot dog stand outside of the Met before we went it.  As we stepped up to the stand, I noticed that there was one down the way that sold gyros.  We immediately abandoned the hot dog stand and bought gyros, wrapped in tin foil.  We huddled behind the trash can next to the building, under the overhang and ate our lunch.

Consequence: I was so dripping wet that I didn’t happen to notice that my arm was growing wetter and wetter.  But it wasn’t from rain water; turns out it was wet from the lamb grease dripping down my hand.  It dripped all the way to my elbow, and soaked the silk lining of my coat.  For future reference?  Lamb grease doesn’t wash out of coats very well, at least not when you’re scrubbing it with a wet paper towel in a crowded women’s bathroom.  But on the up-side, I got to smell like meat for the rest of the day.  In other news, the smell of lamb now makes me nauseous.

Decision: Because I’d been to the Met twice before and Kyle’d never been, I let him take the reins on this one.  Going over the map of the museum, we went over some the highlights that we wanted to see, but we agreed to skip the Egyptian art exhibit.  We did, however, decide to pop into the large sun-lit room housing the Temple of Dendur; it was just too amazing to ignore.

Consequence: Not so much consequence, but coincidence.  As we left the exhibit, I glanced one more time over my shoulder at the temple.  As I did, my eye was suddenly caught by a group of people standing across the room.  It was some acquaintances from college who are now living in the city.  They are the only four people that we know in that entire city, and there they were, standing in the same room at the same moment.

After that, things pretty much calmed down.  We wandered the museum for hours, admiring art and discussing what we saw.  (For the future?  I don’t care what you say, Modern Art Exhibit, a florescent light tube bolted to the wall is not art.  Not.) We didn’t take any pictures inside, because I refuse to be one of those annoying asshats who stood in front of me so they could have their picture taken with the art, but we took a picture outside the museum.  (Because no one’s trying to admire the intricate details of that.)

We went to FAO Schwartz, the famous toy store, and divided our time between ogling the ceiling, which was covered in LEDs, and playing with toys that were far from age appropriate.

Becuase really? THOSE are our toys.

My real moment of weakness was in the candy section, which featured countless varieties of gummies in so many, many forms.  I behaved myself, and only indulged in a bag of cherry-cola bottle gummies, but had Kyle given me my wallet back it could have been embarrassing.  We also did the obligatory walk down to Time Square and Rockefeller Center, as well and the traditional browsing of the seedy NYC camera and gift shop.  Then it was dinner and back on the train.  When we finally collapsed into bed around 2am, I swear, that bed has never felt so delicious.

For our first impromptu trip to the city, we consider it a successful one.  No one was mugged, no one was killed, and we willingly got into the same bed at the end of the night.

But next time we go to the city, the fates of the city will keep their damn hands of our trip!