NOT THE FLU, JUST FLU-LIKE
Yup, I've got another sinus infection. Shocking, I know.
So.... what's with Overboard being on permanent repeat on the in-between channels on network TV? Did the copyrights run out on that movie? Did the station just buy it outright and fire their whole programming staff? I think I've managed to watch the entire movie in seven minute increments over the span of three days. This is the measure of how sick I was: instead of pressing a few more buttons on the remote and catching up on some of the greats in the world of cinema, I chose instead to watch Goldie Hawn scrub the same filthy log cabin about a hundred and thirty times to the accompaniment of a tuneless banjo.
A few days ago, while coughing, I found a tiny little spot of blood in my phlegm. It was just a tiny spot, no doubt from all the irritation in my throat from all that lovely post nasal drip and subsequent hacking. For a moment, I thought of changing into an ankle-length flaxen nightgown and throwing myself down on the floor dramatically and coughing some more just to make it worth the while. In the movies, it seems, everyone who ever died in the past died of coughing up blood. And they usually did it while stumbling unsteadily through a doorway and dropping whole urns of milk or wine or something that made an enormous, splashy mess when it hit the deck. Also, it provided a nice backdrop against which our heroine could collapse (eyes open, of course), a dribble of the red stuff leaking from one corner of the mouth. Extra points were awarded in my book for the number of women in linen bonnets and aprons who would first exclaim and then lurch towards our heroine before calling to another woman in a different linen bonnet who would be instructed to fetch the doctor for a bleed with the leeches or a poultice in a filthy rag or something.
I was by myself when I discovered the blood, so I calculated the time it would take to change costumes and the distance to the floor and the arthritis in my knees and decided to just toss my tissue in the trash and finish the laundry. It is entirely possible I have been watching too much Tudors.
READING: IT WILL MAKE YOU ANGRY
I have finally joined the world of the living and regular-bathers and have returned to activities that gave me no pleasure but which make it seem like I have "done something" with my day, things like shopping for shoes and paying library fines for no less than what it would have cost me to order the books online. New.
I read an article in Mother Jones (go ahead. I'll wait for the Portlandia jokes. No, really. Go ahead. I deserve them) about what it's like to work in a mega warehouse and to have to pack all those boxes full of vibrators and books and also vibrators and ship them FREE! NEXT DAY! to their recipients. Burdy and I recently signed up for an Amazon Prime account and I'm a little disturbed at how fast stuff gets to our door. (Not as disturbed as I am at having to shop under fluorescent lights and be alternately bombarded with standard retail greetings of good cheer when I arrive and ignored when I want to check out, so there ya go).
Last week's bus ride was an operatic composition. The bass notes were supplied by a large man who sat in the front of the bus in the seats that faced the center aisle. He had his eyes closed and I couldn't tell if he was snoring or talking, but the noise that came out of him was not unlike that of the monks who can hum two notes at once. This went on the entire length of the bus ride.
On top of that was the conversation of two recently post-pubescent boys who were discussing the merits of Kant, Aristotle and some other philosopher. I didn't hear the third one because I stopped listening after "Aristotle". And that's because he pronounced "Kant" "Kantz." Plural. It was the audible equivalent of sticking an apostrophe where it has no earthly right to be. I had to restrain myself from interjecting.
Anywho, these two were going at it non stop. And their voices were similar enough, and they talked rapidly enough, that they perfectly complimented Mr. Eyes Closed in his meditative chant/snore. They sounded like a set of piccolos.
On top of this was me, coughing. It was intermittent at first, but then it started to sound intentional. So, I was the accidental rhythm section to this bus-song.
Now, my right ear was all clogged up and I could barely hear out of it. I was starting to think (hallucinations: stage five of the flu) that I had been imbued with a compensating ability to hear (with my left ear) frequencies that no one else could hear. I mean, no one else on the bus seemed to be hearing or enjoying this urban opera but me.
Boy 1: Have you seen those phones, those big ones, that you can, like, kinda trick people with?
Boy 2: Which ones?
Boy 1: You know. The ones that you can, like, hook up to your real phone. They're like old fashioned phones? The ones with the curly wire thingee?
Boy 2: Oh, yeah! Those things are so cool. They're like those phones from the 'Eighties! I so want one of those!
Comments
Smooshy’s comment: Ditto.
“Privacy is like Santa Claus…“That has to be the most appropriate sum-up of privacy I’ve ever heard.
LoLo-I “Kant” think of a better way to spend 5 minutes than to read of your escapades. Lordalmighty, I hope you are on the mend. I have to go - got a call coming in on my rotary…-John