Scribbles & Munch

      I'm sick. Not sniffly, puppy-dog eyes, tucked under the covers sick. Nor achy, low-feverish, tea-guzzling in front of the TV sick. I'm blowing my nose 'til it's bloody, exquisitely-painful sore throat, dropping from the exhaustion of non-stop coughing sick. And every time I think I'm getting a tiny bit better and I dare to do something that resembles a normal life, this virus laughs sadistically and knocks back my recovery time by 48 hours.
       Normally when I get sick, my energy level drops, but my sense of humor kicks in and I fare tolerably well. But when I get THIS sick, I alternate between darkly cynical and melodramatic. And - if I'm under the influence of OTC cold medication - really, really weird. The melodramatic kicks in at the end of a coughing fit, when I have visions of clutching a handkerchief to my lips and swooning back onto the fainting couch, Victorian-style.

I can collapse after a coughing fit WAY more melodramatically than this chick. She's not even holding a trembling hand to her clammy brow, or clutching a handkerchief to her suspiciously visible bosom!

      I suppose these notions are appropriate since the manuscript I'm re-visiting at the moment takes place in an alternate Victorian-era London. But I only have the energy for a couple hours of typing a day at most, so that's not getting as far as it should. And smelling salts aren't helping.
      The cynical means that I brood a great deal on the origins of my diseased state. I contracted this plague from my husband. He got it from an elderly woman who sat behind us on our flight from Seattle to Ohio a couple weeks ago. She was hacking almost non-stop the entire freaking flight--AND she wasn't covering her mouth.* So it's no wonder that the infection made it's nefarious way into my household. As I lay here on the couch, torso aching from coughs, I daydream about inventing time travel. I would go back to SeaTac airport and abduct this woman before she could get on the plane. I would strap her to a gurney, stick a sign on her that says "Drug-Resistant TB Suspected: ISOLATE IMMEDIATELY," then drop her off in front of a hospital and run away, shouting, "I serve the greater good! I serve the greater goooood!!!"
      The weirdness, of course, is a result of sleep deprivation (from all the pointless fucking coughing!) and the variety of over-the-counter symptom treatments I have tried (none of which are working--this virus laughs in the face of such paltry weapons as Tylenol, Robitussin, and even NyQuil. I fear for our future). Today, this weirdness made itself known over breakfast, where I growled to my husband that I didn't believe we had fallen victim to the typical chest-cold. No, what we are suffering seems to resist every OTC treatment relief we can find, lingers interminably, and sucks one's energy with vampiric appetite.
      "This is no typical robovirus," I muttered darkly into my tea.
      He looked at me strangely. "You mean a rhinovirus?"
      "Yeah. That. It's not that."
      "No, it probably isn't," he confirmed, finishing his egg. "Rhinopharyngitis invariably begins with acute nasal congestion and...."
      He kept talking about technical medical stuff, as medical professionals are wont to do, but my drug-addled brain was already elsewhere. That's where the weirdness comes in, you see. I was musing on the oddity of having one's ass handed to one so very thoroughly by something so small it can't seen, not even with a regular microscope. As modern science will tell you, a rhinovirus looks like this:

I guess that's kind of creepy, if you're a science person.

      But I have to admit, when I'm sick with one, I rather envision it looking like this:

By Z.D. Gladstone, © 2015, all rights reserved.

     Note the cell-piercing tail, DNA-devouring tentacle-mouth, and generally vicious demeanor. Imagine millions of THOSE flying out of your mouth every time you cough! Damn straight, you'd better cover your mouth!**
      But the silver lining to this affliction is two-fold: first, my cat becomes even sweeter and more cuddly when we get sick. She's more patient and lap friendly. And she stops waking us up 15 minutes early, demanding breakfast--instead she let's us sleep in, and then eats along with us. Anybody who thinks cats are selfish creatures simply hasn't earned the love of a cat yet. Trust me.

I get to spend my day snuggling THIS pile of fluff!  Feeling jealous?  Yeah, you are so jealous right now....

      The other silver lining? Major catching up on reading. I plan on posting at least three book reviews on Goodreads by the end of the week...if I ever get my act together and stop drawing crazy mutant rhino monsters....




*Not that it really helps all that much on a 5 hour plane ride with recycled air, but one would hope that the general habits of good hygiene would be reflex-like by that age.

**Alas, I lack sufficient energy/talent to draw the "robovirus" that my brain first came up with this morning. Imagine this little devil crossed with the T-800 from the "Terminator" movies. Now if that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.