For days now-- forever, I'm telling you-- I've been sick. I'm not going to be melodramatic, but I've been singed, I swear, in whichever of Dante's infernal circles includes crusty, cruddy head colds. The fifth? I'll admit, I'm sullen now. Or maybe the ninth, because there can be no doubt that my body has committed treason against me. After the first long 24 hours of sleepless breathlessness--or was it breathless sleeplessness?-- I decided to fight back.
I'm usually a sucker for the holistic approaches. You'd know that about me by now, right? I may not enthuse over other people's kidlets, but I like compassion. I hate politics, but I love to think we might be better than our elected reps believe. Certainly, we're better than our elected reps. I digress. You'll understand why in a moment, unless you are so canny to have already guessed. In general, I favor that hippiest of non-ornamental ceramics: the neti pot. (Note: I don't use a single-malt in my neti pot.) I also like breathing in eucalyptus and camphor to clear my nose. But, my friend, what was I to do when neither of these worked well enough to promise an adequate oxygen supply to my vital organs? That's right. I ingested heaps of cold medicine.
If you haven't figured it out already, I'm still suffering (seizing from?) their effects.
For the last two and a half days, I've been sucking down a cocktail of nyquil, dayquil, mucinex (so onomatopoeic, these half-hearted remedies), alka seltzer cold and panadol. In the past, only one of these would have sufficed and I would have slept loudly through a night and day, or, if it was dayquil, ground my teeth energetically until work was done and then slept loudly through an evening, exactly as my 10 bucks hoped they would do. But, apparently, these medicines won't work independently in the antipodes. And I am left to suffer and seize.
Fortunately, I've discovered that, in collaboration, they will at least make my cold more fun. I feel a little like I headed out to a rave without troubling myself to leave the couch, pop a light stick, or apply sparkly eyeshadow. For the last two nights, high on everything in the medicine chest, expired or not, that promised to clear my head, I've woken up at hourly intervals singing Lady Gaga. I kinda sorta wanted to dance, but it would have been so tricky to find the right floor in my whirling room. (You wondered why dance floor have lights?) Luckily, I managed to see the urge for what it was: a pathetic attempt by subversive, restless legs and twitching fingers to channel their frantic pizazz. I will now start to walk it out.
Ah, well. Good times down here. I'm going to go see if I can't clear up that giant black cobweb creeping over the window. Or... wait. Nevermind.
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