Near Death Experience
By the time you read this, I might already be dead.
I began to feel the symptoms after I got home from work last night: watery eyes, severe fatigue, dizziness, a slight fever combined with the occasional chill, and strangely enough, a libido that acts like a demented combination of a merry-go-round with one of those zero-G centrifuges they use in astronaut training. The outsider might not notice the differences, but for me, my body is like that proverbial finely-tuned instrument. Unfortunately, it's one of those instruments you glimpse only on late-night reruns of National Geographic Explorer, having long since been abandoned even by the small tribe of indigenous people who created it in favor of the guitars introduced by missionaries in the 1950s.
Welcome to the state of being sick, infected with some sort of heretofore unknown monkey virus by a "friend" who works at the CDC, all as a part of a nefarious government plot, or perhaps just taken with the common cold.
By 9:30 last night, my energy had been completely sapped by the simple process of just eating dinner, and the chills we're getting worse, so I decided to call it an evening. Crawling into bed, I went through the cycle of freezing followed by the sweats. Sleep was not going to come easily.
I should have had enough sense to take something right off the bat, but I'm as stubborn as I am dramatic. It's not like I didn't have anything to take; be prepared is as much my motto as it the Boy Scouts, and I always am ready with whatever it is I might need just in case. Cooking dinner, and want to whip up a sauce that requires a variety of spices, scallions, peanut butter, coconut milk and lime juice? Easy--those are regular items that I keep in stock in the pantry. Need an outfit for any occasion? My closet is equipped with clothes ranging from a tuxedo and two very nice suits to black leather jeans and a pair of red pleather pants that have the distinction of making it look like I do something with my ass besides just sitting on it.
The same applies for medicines. Take your pick from TheraFlu Nighttime, Contact Cold & Flu, Claritan D or any number of decongestants--I've got them all. Secretly, I keep hoping that some handsome Eagle Scout will be so impressed he'll want to fuck me silly.
After several hours of fitful, sweaty sleep, I was finally awoken at 2:00 AM. to the sounds of the meth-head whores upstairs engaging in their nightly bowling game, or whatever it is they do at that time that sounds akin to dropping large, heavy objects onto the floor. I lay there wondering, what will it take to end this horrible methamphetamine addiction in the gay community? Can't they switch to something with a quicker resolution like PCP, where even a neophyte killer could arrange a crime scene to make it look like it was a simple, drug-induced murder-suicide?
Why no, your Honor, I've never even thought about hurting anyone in my life...
The digital numbers on the clock flicked forward. The bowling game ended, but still no luck in going back to sleep. I was going to have to do what I dreaded--take TheraFlu.
Now, it's not that TheraFlu doesn't work for me, because it does. Boy, does it ever! I personally think it's a miracle drug that cures all ailments, including cancer, the clap, and shingles. Acetaminophen might be a placebo when wrapped in the Tylenol label, but put it in that hot lemonade concoction, and I swear, I can't fathom how the creators didn't win the Nobel prize.
The downside of TheraFlu is twofold. First, if I was sweating already, taking TheraFlu was going to mean that I'd be waking up with the sheets soaked in water, like a slimy towel on a lounge chair besides Leonard Cohen's pool. The other issue is that TheraFlu knocks me out--way out. I'd be waking up in a little over 5 hours with the equivalent of a sleep hangover.
Crawling out of bed this morning, an epiphany dawned on me. It wasn't their perfectly carved abs of bronze, or whatever alloy from their particular metallic age they lived in that allowed those 300 Spartans to keep out thousands upon thousands of marauding Greeks. No, those Spartans were clearly on their way to the local Starbucks, and nothing but nothing was going to keep them from a damn good cup of coffee--and hot!
Today, I'm somehow here at the office, but I feel, in a word, like shit. I'm still a quart low on energy, and the daytime TheraFlu I just took is making me alternate between even more sweats and chills. I should still be in bed, but the downside of having a job where you're seemingly on the clock is that you always feel like you're on the clock.
Chances are, though, that I will beat this monkey virus and defeat the government agencies conspiring against me. Frankly, I probably have a better chance of being killed from a fire starting due to whatever residue was burning off my electric stove last night while I was heating the water in the tea kettle for my TheraFlu.
Perhaps I should clean that up before my life really goes up in smoke.
I began to feel the symptoms after I got home from work last night: watery eyes, severe fatigue, dizziness, a slight fever combined with the occasional chill, and strangely enough, a libido that acts like a demented combination of a merry-go-round with one of those zero-G centrifuges they use in astronaut training. The outsider might not notice the differences, but for me, my body is like that proverbial finely-tuned instrument. Unfortunately, it's one of those instruments you glimpse only on late-night reruns of National Geographic Explorer, having long since been abandoned even by the small tribe of indigenous people who created it in favor of the guitars introduced by missionaries in the 1950s.
Welcome to the state of being sick, infected with some sort of heretofore unknown monkey virus by a "friend" who works at the CDC, all as a part of a nefarious government plot, or perhaps just taken with the common cold.
By 9:30 last night, my energy had been completely sapped by the simple process of just eating dinner, and the chills we're getting worse, so I decided to call it an evening. Crawling into bed, I went through the cycle of freezing followed by the sweats. Sleep was not going to come easily.
I should have had enough sense to take something right off the bat, but I'm as stubborn as I am dramatic. It's not like I didn't have anything to take; be prepared is as much my motto as it the Boy Scouts, and I always am ready with whatever it is I might need just in case. Cooking dinner, and want to whip up a sauce that requires a variety of spices, scallions, peanut butter, coconut milk and lime juice? Easy--those are regular items that I keep in stock in the pantry. Need an outfit for any occasion? My closet is equipped with clothes ranging from a tuxedo and two very nice suits to black leather jeans and a pair of red pleather pants that have the distinction of making it look like I do something with my ass besides just sitting on it.
The same applies for medicines. Take your pick from TheraFlu Nighttime, Contact Cold & Flu, Claritan D or any number of decongestants--I've got them all. Secretly, I keep hoping that some handsome Eagle Scout will be so impressed he'll want to fuck me silly.
After several hours of fitful, sweaty sleep, I was finally awoken at 2:00 AM. to the sounds of the meth-head whores upstairs engaging in their nightly bowling game, or whatever it is they do at that time that sounds akin to dropping large, heavy objects onto the floor. I lay there wondering, what will it take to end this horrible methamphetamine addiction in the gay community? Can't they switch to something with a quicker resolution like PCP, where even a neophyte killer could arrange a crime scene to make it look like it was a simple, drug-induced murder-suicide?
Why no, your Honor, I've never even thought about hurting anyone in my life...
The digital numbers on the clock flicked forward. The bowling game ended, but still no luck in going back to sleep. I was going to have to do what I dreaded--take TheraFlu.
Now, it's not that TheraFlu doesn't work for me, because it does. Boy, does it ever! I personally think it's a miracle drug that cures all ailments, including cancer, the clap, and shingles. Acetaminophen might be a placebo when wrapped in the Tylenol label, but put it in that hot lemonade concoction, and I swear, I can't fathom how the creators didn't win the Nobel prize.
The downside of TheraFlu is twofold. First, if I was sweating already, taking TheraFlu was going to mean that I'd be waking up with the sheets soaked in water, like a slimy towel on a lounge chair besides Leonard Cohen's pool. The other issue is that TheraFlu knocks me out--way out. I'd be waking up in a little over 5 hours with the equivalent of a sleep hangover.
Crawling out of bed this morning, an epiphany dawned on me. It wasn't their perfectly carved abs of bronze, or whatever alloy from their particular metallic age they lived in that allowed those 300 Spartans to keep out thousands upon thousands of marauding Greeks. No, those Spartans were clearly on their way to the local Starbucks, and nothing but nothing was going to keep them from a damn good cup of coffee--and hot!
Today, I'm somehow here at the office, but I feel, in a word, like shit. I'm still a quart low on energy, and the daytime TheraFlu I just took is making me alternate between even more sweats and chills. I should still be in bed, but the downside of having a job where you're seemingly on the clock is that you always feel like you're on the clock.
Chances are, though, that I will beat this monkey virus and defeat the government agencies conspiring against me. Frankly, I probably have a better chance of being killed from a fire starting due to whatever residue was burning off my electric stove last night while I was heating the water in the tea kettle for my TheraFlu.
Perhaps I should clean that up before my life really goes up in smoke.