Sick

I have been sick the last couple of days. Being sick is considerably less fun as a grown man than it was when I was a boy and it meant staying home from school to explore the world of daytime television. It's never felt good to be sick, but the break in monotony was then pretty well worth the pain. It helps also that then I was a minor under the care of someone else. All I had to do was loiter around the house and take pills. In an extreme situation, I might need to visit the doctor, and roaming around town in the middle of a weekday was its own thrill.

This particular illness is fairly mundane, but it struck with alarming suddenness. There I was, entertaining friends with some VHS tapes at my apartment. They left, and I made myself some spaghetti. I started to feel not great, but as it was now after two or three in the morning, it seemed reasonable to attribute my condition to simple fatigue. I woke up feeling significantly worse. It was all the classic, timeless symptoms. I had sore throat, coughing, runny nose and headaches.

Blood For Blood

I found myself doing something a couple days ago that I didn't expect I would be. I don't mean firing a handgun, which I did do a couple days ago. I guess I did two things that day that were unanticipated. The second came late in the day, and I at first swore I wouldn't do it. I didn't say so, but I wasn't sure I felt at all well. I was awfully tired, which may be attributable to the little sleep I've had among other things.

What I'm talking about is having my blood drawn. My sister is studying in school, and she's learning to draw blood. She has to do it so many times, and my mother, my father and I went to help with her numbers (although I think only my father and I submitted). Being rundown, I feared that I might have a poor reaction. Who wants to be the guy who collapses and has to be helped into a bed, especially when numerous older people are doing fine?

Gross & Overly Personal

Not to venture any unprecedented opinions, but it's very unpleasant to throw up. I did so two nights ago after a night of drinking. It caught me a bit by surprise, as I had ceased drinking perhaps a couple hours before I was seized by a fit of terrible nausea as I lay in bed trying to sleep. I first did not want to go to the trouble of trying to ease the feeling, hoping that the feelings would pass. The feelings of nausea did not pass.

My first concession was the readying of a receptacle to throw up in right by the bed in case it became necessary. Admittedly, it was not a very good receptacle. My waste basket was full, and I could not be bothered to empty it. Instead I located a small plastic shopping back which it's highly probable would have failed if put to the test. I probably would have evacuated my stomach onto the carpet, and I would have been ill-equipped (so to speak) to cope with that.

Recovering

As I write this, I am a bit ill. I doubt whether it's anything serious, but it's been enough to slow me down over the last couple of days. A person could reasonably argue that my personality would benefit from the sort of ailment that would have me talking a good bit less, and such has been the case. Sickness is unquestionably one method of curing the more serious problem of over-exposure, which is one I'm sometimes prone to.

My means of treating a mild illness are crude and perhaps not overly effective. It does occur to me to obtain some kind of cold medicine, although I don't always follow through on that. I do usually go as far as buying and consuming chicken noodle soup, even buying the top-shelf brands if I suspect that what ails me is as serious as that. After all, there's nothing more important than your health, and if it's really at risk, three dollars is a fair price to spend, even if slightly more is not.

Pull It Back

It is frustrating to reach the point in life where you can't just do whatever. Maybe it's supposed to happen sooner than when you get to your thirties, as it seems to have for me, or maybe it's a period of time that never ought to have happened, this time of reckless freedom. For much of my life, responsible actions could only be extracted from me virtually at the point of a gun, or at least only under direct supervision.

That's not to say that I was was some kind of feral child. I just couldn't be relied on to do dishes, brush my teeth or complete uninteresting homework without some considerable cajoling. I furthermore have, until recently, been very bad at most of the things meant to ensure my long-term health and even short-term safety. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I did buy a bicycle helmet some time ago, and even more recently learned the value of stretching before riding (in rather dramatic fashion).

Stretching

Something I'm only beginning to learn is how to live smart, To this point, I was content to live rather recklessly and inefficiently. Perhaps then I could afford to sustain wear and tear, but these days it is more and more evident that while I can do what I want to do, I have to minimize harm and maximize the resources of my body. I only hope that I have begun to learn this lesson while it is still possible for it to do me any good.

Something I have decided I cannot do anymore is to just jump on my bicycle and ride a bunch of miles as I have done without any thought in the past. I think I can still ride a good distance, but must prepare myself. To that end, I have found a routine of stretching to do in order to set up my body for the whole thing. It was rather interesting to try and read my way through the moves in anticipation of a ride (which never happened).

Leg Up

I've never really broken a bone. I guess that's already not true exactly, because I have some recollection of being told I had broken something, but I think it was some minor hairline fracture or something. I don't count that. It seems to me like it's got to be a compound fracture of an arm or a leg to really count. If not a compound, it's got to be the severest possible case of whatever it is that is less than that.

I really don't think I've had one of those. In grade school and before, a broken arm or leg was a real boost for one's social life. You showed up to school with a cast, and it was a whirlwind of activity from there. You had the whole story of how it happened to tell, and you could tell it again and again to the whole gamut of the school's student body and faculty. You also got everyone to sign it, and that was like getting your yearbook early.

Holding The Line

You'll recall that I have been writing about my dwindling weight in recent weeks. I have been in the range of 134 to 145 pounds, and mostly on the low end of that. It's been enough to be alarmed, and yet I have done little about it except note the fluctuations and think about it. That mental energy could even have burned some calories. In any case, all I'm getting at is that keeping weight, let alone gaining it, has seemed a struggle for me through this time.

I finally have been doing something about it. Specifically, I've been eating more. It's a peculiar thing I suppose, that eating more could be a constructive remedy, given that eating less and exercising are the usual ways that things go for people, in this country anyway. Well, eating more is the way for me- I never have been one to go along with others. Why should I not buck the trends of eating less as well as needing to eat less?

A Wrist Watched

You may have noticed a recent preoccupation with my weight lately. I have lately noticed that I seem to weigh as little as I ever have in my adult live, and that does not appear to change, although I did get back into the 140's. That may have been a fluctuation of water weight or some such thing. In any case, there have been a number of weigh-loss symptoms. There was the latest notch I had to cut in my belt, for one. There was more besides that.

I wish I could cut a notch in my watchband. I have noticed that even using the narrowest notch presently there, the watch does not reliably stay put where it ought to on my wrist. Indeed, it slides over the end of the bone toward the hand with relative ease. This has become a real distraction to me, as if I needed any other excuses for fidgeting. It's hard enough to not clasp my hands behind my back or thrust them into my pockets, and now this.

To Arms!

I went to the dentist the other day, and suffice it to say that it had been too long since my last visit. We need not dwell on precisely how long. The point is that it was a trying experience, which doesn't actually distinguish it very much from past visits that have been on a more frequent basis. At any rate, there was a lot of probing of my mouth with rather imposing implements. It was well-intentioned, but tell that to a person's impulses.

My tongue is a rather noble organ. Without regard for its own safety, it again and again plunged into danger in hopes of warding off the aforementioned invaders. Even against my will, disregarding orders, my tongue put itself in between my sensitive teeth and everything ranging from pointy metal tools to sophisticated cavity-sensing electronic probes. It was a truly selfless, gallant series of sacrifices by the tongue that has already done so much.

Wait, Weight!

Yesterday, I had to punch another notch in my belt. Now, for most people (especially these days) that would mean that they were getting larger around the waste. Most people would be expanding the capacity of the belt to circumnavigate their girth. This would be particularly true of people with as little inclination towards diet and exercise as I have generally shown, although I avow that I am getting better at those things. I am not getting larger, though.

I seem to be getting smaller, and if one takes the long view, not by a little. This notch is the fourth new one I have added, all heading in the same direction. It tells quite a story, and the climax must be that I suddenly am able to fit through a grate on the street. I don't exactly know how to account for that. I have not got the money for too much food, but I have got the money for food that is bad for me. I just do not seem able to hold weight.

Hard To Swallow

I've got these vitamin pills, and I don't know what good they still are. I say still because I know they have value as a balance to my diet, but I say I don't know what good they are because I have had this bottle for several years. It is partly empty because of various momentary (and ultimately irrational) health scares, but still contains some pills because my various solemn resolutions to improve my health have always been short-lived.

They taste like hell, these pills. I don't deny that when I take them, it is in the morning along with something like hash browns and some cheap coffee full of non-dairy creamer and sugar cubes. Still, they make me feel nauseated, and that's no reaction that I think I ought to be getting from these non-mandatory pills. I'll take that from something that's saving my life today, but not that's adding days on to the end. A pill like that had better at least taste like nothing.

Marked Man

Some time not so long ago, I made some remark online about how needless it seemed to get tattoos or piercings. The reason was that it seems to me life tends to make its mark on you anyway, and so it's senseless to spend money making it happen. I'm still a young man, and have not been incredibly active in life for very long, but I have nonetheless managed to get my share of distinguishing, disfiguring marks. There's nothing too gruesome, but there are a few things there.

The key, I think, is to ensure that you have a good story to go along with a scar. "I burned myself cooking bacon without a shirt on" is not a good story at all. It's a horrible, humiliating way of explaining what the resulting scar is. You have to make up something better when it's a thing like that, or at least claim that you don't remember it even happening. That sound pretty good, because then people marvel at the live you lead that prevents you from being sure of how that scar happened.

Tired Eyes

I'm tired a lot of the time. This is a product of several contributing factors. I sleep less than I ought to, and that of course is due to all the obligations happening in the morning and all the pleasurable recreation happening in the late evening. There also just happen to be a lot of activities that fall into one of those categories or the other. Now, when you're tired, there are a lot of ways that it begins to show. Some are very overt, and some are not so much so.

One way that is obvious enough if you are looking (but which one might well overlook) is in the way the eyes begin to suffer. They get red and may water. They can be puffy (particularly if one is tired and has conjunctivitis), and then there are those bags underneath the eyes. By this point I have those about all the time. I hear that one can ameliorate that with things like cucumber slices and Preparation H. I'm at least prepared to try the cucumber.

Suck It Up

I've got these lollipops and mints here at my computer desk. If I were the sort of man who could easily bear throwing things out, I would have thrown them out a long time ago. I can't put a date on when I acquired each one of them, but I can say for the lollipops that I must have bought a couple of years ago or more. They were packaged to promote a movie which came out at least five years ago, but then I figure that lollipops don't spoil. After all, there's nothing real in them.

If I haven't thrown them out but still have them, you must be wondering how it is that I haven't eaten them. The rather obvious answer is that they are not good. Their flavoring is passable, but not exactly as potent as your name brand hard candies. Even worse, the coloring of them tends to stay with you. What I mean by that is that if you eat a blue one, there's blue on your lips and blue on your teeth, and a vigorous effort to remove them by means of toothpaste and mouthwash is apt to yield mixed results. When a man is caught marked by lipstick he is at least know to have achieved something laudable, but the consumption of lollipops is better to keep secret.

Health? Nuts!

There's nothing original in observing that it's unpleasant to be sick. I shy away from writing tired stuff if I can help it, but that may be to my detriment considering how well formulaic, done-to-death material tends to do. In any case, I'm under the weather (meaning sick and not hung over this time), and I can't think about anything else. One may as well write about being sick if the alternative is to write nothing, and that's where I stand.

I was recently in close proximity to forty thousand people from out of town, and I suspect that one of them may have been sick, passing it on to me. I don't bear that person any ill will (unless they knew very well they were sick), but I would appreciate it if they could reach out to me and let me know what's happening with them so that I can plan day by day. If they get worse, I'd like some notice so that I can rearrange my engagements.

Cans

It's exceptionally possible that when I perish, it will be from something like heart disease. I eat slightly better these days, but not terribly well. The things I gravitate towards are filled with sodium, nitrates and about everything else bad. These things I eat because they're simple, and because they're cheap. They're intermittently tasty, although I don't tend to insist on that. I should cut down on all that, but it's hard.

The thing that really makes it bad is when there's a sale or something. The other day, I noticed a sale on the canned ravioli that I love. It's ordinarily 99 cents. They marked it down to 89, for a discount of ten cents. It's not rational that I would go and snap up a bunch, considering the savings there is not incredible. That's why, of course, I did exactly that thing and bought six cans instead of two. I've never pretended to be rational.

Sound Check

A couple of days ago, I was advised of a remarkable concert to transpire here in my neighborhood. This concert was to feature a singular newly-formed group made of musicians who each were part of several highly regarded bands. Among the connections were The Clash, Eurythmics, The Sex Pistols and Blondie. Given that the show was more or less free and that this was a one-of-a-kind opportunity, I felt I had to go.

There was some fear that the show would be too crowded for me to get in, though a friend was taking pictures for the event. As it happened, I need not have worried (as is most often the case), for I was able to get in easily. I was able to take in the last act before the aforementioned supergroup, and it was not too bad. Notably, it was not uncommonly loud. I don't happen to be crazy about exceptionally loud music, though my roommates and neighbors might disagree. I know my limits.

Fluctu-Weight

I am in the habit of weighing myself. I can't say that I have much reason for doing so. I make no deliberate effort to work out (although physical exertion of a practical nature means that just by going about my business some exercise happens). Thus is removed from any possibility of affecting my weight one of what I figure to be three possible factors. Still, the other two mean that my weight does fluctuate somewhat.

One of the two remaining things is water weight, which is a surprisingly substantial proportion of the whole. I'm told that it does wax and wane quite a a bit, noticeably shifting one's weight up or down in just hours. This has led to some rather surprised outbursts from me, albeit ones that have gone unremarked upon by friends who are perhaps increasingly aware of my idiosyncrasies in this area.I just chalk up any unexplained loss or gain to this water thing.

The Conquer

I had read something a number of days ago about how the ability to search out information online is now impairing our ability to remember it when it is already stored in our memory. That is to say that you are less able to recall the name of a film's star because you so readily look it up on the internet without spending even a few moments trying to remember. Well, that spurred me into action, as an article about the paucity of US passport holders did when I was in college.

I resolved that I would no longer seek out information on the computer without giving my brain as long as I could spare it to remember the information if I was sure I had known it in the past. Well, it didn't take very long before a piece of information I knew that I had known eluded me at a time when I wanted to know it. You will recall that just a couple of days ago I alluded to this incident. I was coming back from the library with a book on the Spanish Civil War. I had decided on reading it after already reading Elmore Leonard's 'Cuba Libre' and one other book.