Sick Sickness, The Sick Edition

So, as many of you know from the FB-verse, I have been sick for some, if not all, of 2013. Much of this illness covers that last week or so, and some of it covers whole swathes of January, but never mind. I am not here to praise sickness, but to bury it under a list of things I have done, so that I can feel that, indeed, Sickness, you have not buried me under a mountain of used Kleenex and cough drop wrappers. No, I will rise again!! (sniffle, sniffle, cough!)

1. Watched "Pitch Perfect"! Finally! Why didn't everyone beat me with their fists and plead with me, nay, beg me to watch this the minute it was released, and then again and again? Because it really was *that good*. And I say this even while wondering (if by wondering you mean beating one's chest and looking skyward) why, oh why, do funny movies have to have disgusting bodily function scenes. Can anyone tell me why?
2. Tried different medicines. I want to know, for example, if the liquid green Nyquil (which tastes like Jagermeister and burns) is better, in terms of healing function, than the Sinex capsules which are also an eerie nuclear green, but have no taste, but almost get stuck in my throat. Do I know? I do not, really, except that maybe, maybe the capsules give you less of an "I just drank a bunch of Jagermeister" dry mouth effect. Also, there are these daytime Tylenol cold pills which are minty (why? I'm just going to swallow them. I don't need minty in my esophagus) and they seem to work, but they also make me feel like someone just poured plastic into my sinuses. That is, they work, but do they work by just stopping all sinus functions which will just come back fourfold when they wear off? These are the questions I need answers to.
3. Drank a Mexican coke. I don't have to explain this one, do I?
4. Ate some soft chicken tacos. Hightouchmegastore made me.
5. Drank too much wine. This has nothing to do with anything, per se, but I was starting to feel sick again (a sore throat) and I had already invited people over, and what to do? So I told myself I wouldn't drink too much and then I did, and then what happened? (See #s 3 & 4).
6. Drank a shit ton of tea. I have to say, that I'm a little sick of tea. Which is why I drank coffee today. Sometimes you has to do that.
7. Blew my nose like 8.3 million times. Bought more kleenex. Blew my nose. You see where this is going.
8. Had an idea for, and then wrote an essay. I think under 1,000 words is my sweet spot and by that I mean attention span. Also, the way I write works that way and when I try to make it longer...let's just say Silly Putty.
9. Did not work on some grant applications. That is for suckers and people whose heads are not stuffed with cotton and Nyquil.
10. Deleted a shit ton of email. Why, dear readers, do I not just delete it when it arrives so I don't have to go back and delete it later? Why??
11. Read almost nothing. When sick, even reading seems like too much damn work. I want someone to come and put the words in my brain while I lay here with my eyes closed.
12. Did no prep work. See, I had this great idea at the beginning of the semester and I made a schedule for the first 5 weeks of the semester, and, you see, the first five weeks are rapidly drawing to a close and, my friends, what will I do??
13. Spent a shit ton of time on-line. It has not made me smarter, friends, it has not.
14. Bought my husband a sandwich. He can't say I didn't help.
15. I may have to go out and get chicken pot pie for dinner. I just might.

I'm not Dead!!

I'm alive, although just barely.
I have spent this alternatively cloudy/sunny day inside doing such things as: grading, making tacos, taking a bath, drinking a ginger tea/whiskey/lemon/honey concoction, surfing the interwebs, etc. Now I am trying to collect myself into a semblance of what one might call a "person" so I can go out into the world and interact with others. It's touch and go at this point...
and I have more grading to do...

Late Poem

This poem is actually about last week, but I'm so behind I may never catch up. Here it is.

Son, Sick

Is it wrong that I enjoy it?
Not his nuclear forehead
or the redness of his
eyes nor the vomit
I have to clean up
off the floor, no I enjoy
the warm proximity of him
when I put my lips to his forehead
to take his temperature
I adore his near-ness
the way a fever jerks him
back to childhood out
of his seven-year-old attitude
too old
to touch mom
to need mom
and suddenly I’m alive
again
the bringer of the Gatorade
the one’s who cool washcloth
feels like ice and spring at the same
time and he’s lying, quietly
listening to me read, he puts
his head on my shoulder
he nestles into me
nestles! and though I don’t wish
for him to be sick, in fact
I pretend he’s well so I can
send him back to school,
I actually love the days
when he sleeps without struggle
walks directly into my arms when
he wakes when his voice
doesn’t rise to a whine but instead
settles against my skin
a cool, considering hand

Sick

Son has been sick off and on ("on" being Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, Thursday afternoon, Friday night). He has the afternoon fever thing going on. So much so that he slept in our bed with me last night while poor MB was stuck with the kid's double bed. Son had a 102 degree fever, then his body felt like hot coals, then he was super sweaty. Finally, he was okay. That was around 1 a.m.
He woke up several times last night, talking and gesturing. He inherited this from MB. Once he had his hand up like he was trying to catch something. He was saying "het, het." (as near as I could figure).
Another time he woke up and I thought he was going to throw up or something. He was grunting and opening and closing his hands like beaks. He went to the bathroom and I kept asking him, "What's wrong? What's wrong?" He finally yelled, "Fingers!" and went back to bed.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night. The night before that we foolishly stayed up to get closure on "Dexter." I'm actually glad, because now I need all my energy to freak out about the DFL which is in 44 days and, as you probably need not be reminded, I haven't written it yet. AND I want a friend to take photographs for it. Which means I need to finish in the next week. No pressure!!
So if I'm mean to you, please attribute it to the fact that I haven't slept and I'm pretty much having an anxiety attack 24/7.