So I have plague. And it is a nasty one. The premiere symptoms are incessant snot production and a crushing headache. I found out today that one of my coworkers caught it and was hospitalized, mainly because the first day of it features throwing up everything you have eaten since birth, and she couldn't stop long enough to keep down water. On the bright side, since she's been tested, we now know that it's not some weird kind of meningitis. Which is nice, as the headache was a bit worrying. It's all the fun of a migraine, only on both sides of my head. It goes away for a bit if I take enough Benadryl and Bronkaid -- not very useful for getting any sleep, unfortunately, but at least reassuring that it is just swelling in my sinuses.

I was a dumbass and went to rehearsal on Thursday night. My director sent me home. I had to get my roommate to walk me back from the T stop, because I was so out of it I wasn't sure I would make it back to the house on my own. I spent the rest of the night puking up the insides of my own feet before sleeping through Friday in its entirety. I got up today -- Monday, as I start this -- and I shouldn't have.

The most aggravating part about being ill is that it absolutely destroys my ability to tell when things are and are not going wrong in life. Is the train late? It feels late. No, it's only been five minutes; it just feels longer when I have to blow my nose every nine seconds. Is my coworker telling me important parts of her life story? No, she's just nattering on about neighbors and gym memberships and the evils of her bank; safe to distract her with pictures of kittens. Have I put down something important and utterly forgotten to finish it? No; I was just reading a book, and I can go back and read it again if I need to.

And I hate hate hate that it ruins my ability to read people. There are too many alarm bells going off, and I cannot tell the difference between 'I am a crushing disappointment to all who interact with me, and I should stop talking forever in penance' and 'I feel like hell and need more NyQuil'. Last Friday, I was beginning to suspect someone I would actually be interested in was trying to get my attention; by Wednesday I was ready to say something; by Thursday I was huddled on the bathroom floor trying to sip water without heaving; by Saturday I convinced myself I was insane and should never hope for anything again; and today I am just fucking angry with myself for being unable to behave like a normal goddamn human. 

I'm tired of being unable to trust anything I think, because everything else gets swamped by the urge to crawl back into bed and stay there until my nose stops running.

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