So I'm in Toronto getting hot flashes like I'm fucking Maude or whatever. Going through the change. And I'm trying to be a good houseguest by not, you know, napping all day. I have absolutely no appetite, so the entire weekend consists of me ordering food and then eating about a third of it. This culminates at the vegetarian restaurant where I order a delicious big salad ("crispy tofu cubes" might sound effing disgusting, but they really just taste like deep-fried nothing, and trust me, you don't think you're in the mood for deep-fried nothing, but you totally are) and, yummy as it is, I barely finish half of it. The waitress is all, "Wrap this up for you, then?" and when I say no thanks, this poor girl does not know what to do. "You mean you...don't want it? Wrapped up? I don't...what? I don't understand." I start to freak because this is the vegetarian place, and wasting food is probably up there with taking a huge bite of a live lamb. "No, no! It was delicious! I'm just...finished. Not hungry. Even though it was very good and tasty! I'm sorry you have to go out back and compost my salad. I don't know any better!" Fucking wasteful American, that's me!
So that's a lot of my weekend. No apetite. No energy, to the point where I was unable to keep up with Sarah and Tara on a Queen St. shopping excursion. No, that's a total lie. I could have been made of PowerBars and Red Bull and still not have been able to keep up with those two. I think at one point I wound up sitting on a comfy chair and reading a book about big hair. That's not even a joke. It was a fun weekend -- any weekend involving The Death of the Incredible Hulk has to be considered a raging success -- but there was still this nagging concern about me going through The Change. Hot and cold. Hot and cold. I've got the fucking flu.
I get home and lie down for about a year. My head hurts. My stomach hurts. I can't eat. I can't sleep, at least not comfortably. I do wind up with a few interesting fringe benefits as a result of what ended up being seven days of misery. For one thing, no appetite for a week means I lost some weight. Mostly in my face which, combined with a week of not shaving, gave me that nice "Day 36 on Survivor" look. The coolest thing, though, was that somehow, be it by not eating or by sweating out all my electrolytes, my senses of taste and smell became crazily heightened. I smelled chicken wings that had been eaten and thrown away, like, a week ago. "What the fuck is that smell?" Oh, you mean this celery stalk? "I can smell it from the basement!" The sense of taste was even weirder. I had such a sensitivity to salt. Like, a plate of cheese and crackers was the equivalent of licking a pretzel factory. I lost it after a few days, but for a while there I was enjoying being an X-Man. They called me "Tastebud" and I joined up with the Magneto terrorist mutants. Mostly because Famke Janssen is pretty.
So last week, at long last, flu's over. I'm still a little sore, probably from all the laying around and not doing stuff. And my throat's a little raw, but that's probably nothing. So's that dull pain in my jaw and ear emanating from my throat. Just after-effects, right? Just the last few remnants of flu sticking around. Just...strep throat. Strep. Throat. I wound up having a fucking beehive protruding into my gullet, like a reverse goiter. The production necessary to just swallow a sip of water was the height of physical comedy. Hey, way to go, immune system. One measly bout with the flu and you leave the barn door open for strep? I'm totally knocking y'all down a pay grade. Finally, the last straw having been placed, I went to the doctor. Who gave me pills! Beautiful little pills! Free beautiful little pills! Thank you, pharmaceutical salespeople! They worked within a day. Kind of makes bed rest and Vitamin C look like a couple of chumps, huh? Sadly, the strep didn't give me any super-powers, besides the ability to call off work in a single bound.
So I'm all better and ready to start blogging again. I know, right? Breathe that sigh of relief! Barring any sudden case of malaria or rubella or whatever, I look forward to being disease-free for the summer. You hear that, avian flu? Disease-free. You better step off.
