Home sick

Yesterday I woke up feeling generally muzzyheaded and out of it, but that sometimes happens in the morning, so I went to work anyway. In fact, I even rode my bike to work for the first time—every day 'til now I've had some reason why that wasn't a good idea. The ride went well; nice sunny morning, short ride, and my bike's in good condition thanks to the ministrations a few weeks back of Kam—she replaced the tire with the slow leak (a bike repair shop guy told me some years back that it was perfectly normal for a tire to go flat after about two days and have to be pumped up again), oiled the chain, and generally got it in shape to ride after a few years of inactivity. Thanks again, Kam!

Anyway, after a few hours at work I was still muzzyheaded; I couldn't think coherently, couldn't focus on anything, had a headache that seemed impervious to painkillers, and wasn't making good decisions. (I sometimes get into a space, especially when very tired, when I know that my judgment is impaired, but it's still hard for me to tell whether any given decision is the result of that bad judgment or not. I imagine it's something like a certain stage of drunkenness.) I finally added up all the symptoms and concluded that I was probably sick, so I decided to go home.

That decision was immediately justified when I got to the bike rack. I spent at least two or three solid minutes standing next to my bicycle going through my pockets, over and over, looking for the key to my lock. Finally it occurred to me that when I'd locked the lock, what had been in my other hand was my helmet, so I looked in the helmet and sure enough there was the key. Which had been a particularly bad choice of place to put it 'cause the helmet has air vents in the top and the key could easily have fallen out, but I'd gotten lucky.

So I rode home, napped, and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening watching the first half of Spartacus (that being about the level of brainpower I could manage), which I'd gotten from Netflix a couple weeks back partly 'cause it's a classic movie, partly 'cause I've been told it's a classic of barely concealed homoeroticism (I loved the "snails and oysters" scene), and partly 'cause Lois Tilton's Spartacus story in Asimov's a few months ago piqued my interest in the characters and the period. (I'll have to re-read that story after I finish watching the movie; I suspect it's a lot more historically accurate despite being an alternate history. The movie keeps making me want to ask Kendra or other Classicists what facts they're mangling.)

Later, Kam came over, and brought some chicken soup that her mother had made for dinner, which was awfully nice of both of them. Tasty, too. We watched another episode of Alias, and then I tried to finish making sense out of the candidates and propositions on today's ballot. We'd done a lot of that work at the discussion a few weeks ago, but I hadn't looked at all at the local candidates (judge, school board, etc) or the local ballot measures (a set of three measures that appear to be entirely about a labor dispute between the county and various organizations). That took me a lot longer than it should have, 'cause I was still too unfocused to make much sense out of some of the arguments and such.

Anyway. This morning I'm feeling a little better, but still a bit under the weather. I think I've probably been mildly sick for at least the past month, on and off; most of the time it's not noticeable (you can tell I'm still sick by the fact that I almost wrote "most of the time it doesn't impact my ability to function"), but it would explain a lot about my general lack of energy lately.

Gotta go do some magazine stuff, then off to vote, and then to work if I'm feeling up to it. Btw, I haven't done the rounds of journals in a while, and I'm still behind on email, so if you need to reach me in a hurry, my cell phone may be the best option.

2 Responses to “Home sick”

  1. David Moles

    Sorry you’re feeling crummy. Get lots of rest.

    The “snails and oysters” dialogue (okay, monologue) is brilliant. I don’t think I fully appreciated it the first time I saw the film. I recently watched it again, and my main reaction was amazement at how modern the writing of the minor characters’ dialogue seemed compared to the Technicolor-era lines they gave the main characters…

    reply
  2. metasilk

    Get well soon! Tea, rest, lemon, comfort reading, hugs

    reply

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