Thursday, July 8, 2010

Typhoid Jenny

I had to give a talk at a certain national lab this morning, and was very, very nervous about it.  Turned out, it was no big deal.  The group that showed up was nice, and only one person closed his eyes and tried to sleep for a minute, but then I amped up the entertainment level (look at me dance, ma!), kicked him under the table, and watched him perk right up.

Correction:  I was very, very nervous about the talk yesterday, and the day before.  This morning, I was not nervous.  I was just trying not to feel completely miserable.  Because I have that old one-two combination of bronchitis and sinus infection, yet-fucking-again, and feel like death warmed over.  On top of that, the doc prescribed a "z-pac," which is some form of nuclear antibiotic that has left my stomach a barren wasteland. 

Some of you know how I get when I haven't eaten.  It's not pretty.  I'm frantic about eating regularly, I tell you.  It's a full-blown neurosis.  I can be completely vomiting like crazy, and still be thinking about what my next meal is going to me.  It's disgusting.  I'm a foul, foul human being, whose satiety impulse is completely absent. 

But these antibiotics, I tell you.  I do not feel like eating at all.  Sure, I wiped out a tofu scramble at the lunch after the talk today, but I chalk that up to the adrenaline that got me through the talk and also yesterday's stretch of fasting.  Because when I got home in the afternoon, all food looked like poison to me.

I should be happy.  I've been wanting to drop a few pounds (nothing drives that desire home like swimsuit shopping.  I know it's cliche, but it's just f'ing true.  Suck it).  But I'm not happy.  I'm grossed out.

AND, my lovely children just pranced in the room with jars full of mystery substances.  One game we play sometimes is we put a bunch of ingredients on the table for the kids to play with (flour, raisins, mustard, seeds, whatever) and then they get to mix them up and make "recipes."  So they just brought them in to show me and I almost crawled out of my skin.

Over it.

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