About Nothing

Listen, I'm feeling better today, but that stinking illness went on for about four days longer than I thought it would, and it killed any creative urges I've ever had.  This is disappointing because I was in a very productive manic phase there for a while:  I was blogging just about every day, sewing everything in sight, shooting papers out for work like they were free sneezes.  You get the picture. 

Then along came that stupid bronchitis and, BAM!  All I'm able to do is watch The Hills and The City marathons on MTV.  I actually tried reading one day, I did.  But my brain was incapable of doing anything other than watch Kristin chase after Brody and see Olivia stab Whitney in the back (again).  I'm coming out of my mental fog today, finally, but part of me longs for that week of brainless activity in front of the television.  It was exceptional.

And now I don't want to sew or knit or do anything.  I've been writing for work, which has been fun, but that's it.  And it doesn't count because I have to do it.

Mania?  Where are you mania?  Come back to me.  I miss you.

This post isn't about anything, in case you're waiting for it.  All I really want to say is that my grandmother (Ruby) just called four times in a row (I was on the other line) and talked to the voicemail like it was a real person.  I'm talking about minutes of going on about this and that.  Then she'd get a warning from the voicemail police that she was about to be cut off and she'd say, "Oh, God, Oh goddammit, I'm about to be cut off, I have to hurry, it's so stressful knowing you're going to be cut off."  Then she'd be cut off but the next message would have her just rambling on from exactly where she had been before.  It's all kind of mind-blowing.

Meanwhile, I'm talking with someone from work and thinking there's a real emergency, you know other than the fact that my grandmother always loved my father best and how she stays in touch will all of my mother's old boyfriends, and isn't that nice, and she's going to go downtown and take a picture of a painting of an old sawmill my family used to own, but she'll ask first because she doesn't want to terrify anyone because she's not a terrorist she's courteous.  Which apparently is quite some urgent information deserving four voicemails.

And, now, a blog post.

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.