Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Random Sick 'n' Cranky Blogging

1) Sick. Sick as the sixth sheik's sixth sheep since Saturday evening. This was when my sinuses responded to some perceived affront by drawing all the mucus and moisture from my throat up into the vicinity of my left nostril. It's a bit like the process by which pearls are created, but with a considerably less valuable work product.

By Sunday night, the combination of liquefied sinuses and bone-dry throat produced a sensation not unlike simultaneously drowning and inhaling cigarette smoke - after gargling ground glass. There was some kind of awful synergy with my bad ear (too much headphone-wearing in my misspent data-entering youth) too, which just added to the overall soreness and misery. I probably got about four hours of sleep while trying to fight it off, which my subconscious or unconscious attempted to render into terms I could relate to (I'm hazy on the details, but I'm pretty sure I had to go through some kind of approval process to request temporary passageways that I could breathe through).

After that, it wasn't so bad. I'm a bit lightheaded, and my throat is still kinda sore (not so dry now - I've even started coughing), and my nose is still stuffy, and I have to periodically retire to the men's room to make elephant-graveyard noises. But this too shall pass. If this runs its typical course, I expect that by tomorrow I will feel fine but sound awful.

Well. That was considerably longer than I expected, and was not really intended as a woe-is-me-my-life-is-miserable post; I've certainly been through worse. There was probably only about an 8-12 hour period on Sunday night where I was sick enough that I would have had to call off from work (my benchmark for "really really sick").

2) Disgusting Hypothetical Invention I Would Totally Pay Money For Right Now: "Nostril Vacuum".

3) One of my favorite Phillip Glass pieces is "Open The Kingdom," from Songs Of Liquid Days, but it always makes me think "Open The Kingdome." I suppose "Demolish The Kingdome" would be more apt.

4) The word for "lawyer" in French and possibly Spanish is very similar to "avocado" - is this a coincidence, or did lawyers used to be greener and bumpier in Ye Olden Tymes?

5 comments:

echidne said...

You write really well all stuffed up. I mean that it's a great description of the process, though mine usually also includes the feeling that my head is a heavy seedpod on a slender stem, ready to explode.

Eli said...

Wow, thanks, Echidne!

I tapped it out on my Treo, to boot...

karmic said...

What Echidne said.. maybe you need to have stuffed nostrils when you do a post with a literary bent. ;)

Anonymous said...

damn, that could have been a NyQuil commercial.

seriously, i've always found that illness brings on the endorphins, which at least in my case brings on the creativity.

speaking of NyQuil, i sometimes use that for isomnia, which i shouldn't do, but i think i might.

Eli said...

maybe you need to have stuffed nostrils when you do a post with a literary bent. ;)

I should have titled the post "Ode To My Cold" - it rhymes when I say it out loud...

seriously, i've always found that illness brings on the endorphins, which at least in my case brings on the creativity.

Hm. Good to know. I think my funniest writing is usually when I'm really tired and punchy and loopy. I actually had a friend following me around at the end of a double all-nighter, because I was apparently just hilarious and he didn't want to miss anything.

So I guess maybe I should try staying up all night and then taking pictures, or taking pictures with a cold. Or with a cold *and* schizophrenia - they'd probably end up with spiky colored outlines around everything...