Who knew you weren't just kidding?
I am still sick. I am blowing my nose constantly, sneezing almost as often, and my voice has returned in the sense that I was able to have a conversation above a scratch with an ENT this afternoon and then I have spent the rest of the day carefully not vocalizing because it hurt. I have a high-test headache and a low-grade fever.
On the other hand, according to the ENT I have no signs of sinus infection, no signs of damage despite laryngitis, and the killer sore throat of the last week and a half and the congestion monster of the last three days are almost certainly the same virus as opposed to two overlapping illnesses, which is stupid but reassuring. Because I left the house in the mid-afternoon, I got a blue-gilt cabochon sky and a fire-gold sunset that turned all the bricks in the skyline rose-amber. Some very fine graffiti glimpsed through train windows. And people were nice to me. The counterman at Mei Mei gave me a double serving of haymaker's punch for my throat—it's cider vinegar and honey—at no extra charge. The driver of the 47 bus told me the CT2 was coming in a minute, so I could choose to wait for the straight shot to Sullivan instead of taking a roundabout route home through Central, and it actually did. The cats have been adorable and I have a plan for traveling to Yiddish New York, where it now looks as though I will be one of the narrators as well as one of the singers with A Besere Velt.
Thank you to everyone who wished my niece a happy birthday. The MFA's "Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic" is an exhibit to climb around on as well as look at and she had a wonderful time. When the weather is less freezing, I will take her to play Poohsticks at the Old North Bridge.
And I have finished my first original fiction all year. It was supposed to be seasonal crack for
selkie, but history got in the middle. I am pleased to have written it, and right now even pleased with it. I hope to find it a home.
On the other hand, according to the ENT I have no signs of sinus infection, no signs of damage despite laryngitis, and the killer sore throat of the last week and a half and the congestion monster of the last three days are almost certainly the same virus as opposed to two overlapping illnesses, which is stupid but reassuring. Because I left the house in the mid-afternoon, I got a blue-gilt cabochon sky and a fire-gold sunset that turned all the bricks in the skyline rose-amber. Some very fine graffiti glimpsed through train windows. And people were nice to me. The counterman at Mei Mei gave me a double serving of haymaker's punch for my throat—it's cider vinegar and honey—at no extra charge. The driver of the 47 bus told me the CT2 was coming in a minute, so I could choose to wait for the straight shot to Sullivan instead of taking a roundabout route home through Central, and it actually did. The cats have been adorable and I have a plan for traveling to Yiddish New York, where it now looks as though I will be one of the narrators as well as one of the singers with A Besere Velt.
Thank you to everyone who wished my niece a happy birthday. The MFA's "Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic" is an exhibit to climb around on as well as look at and she had a wonderful time. When the weather is less freezing, I will take her to play Poohsticks at the Old North Bridge.
And I have finished my first original fiction all year. It was supposed to be seasonal crack for

no subject
I don't really know how to respond to this kind of statement, although I recognize it as a compliment. Thank you. I think it is the result of having been chronically ill for decades, in situations where I haven't had a choice about not working—I have never had a job from which I could take sick days without disastrous financial repercussion. There are a whole lot of other things tangled into this, none of which I know you meant to evoke; it is historically difficult for me to get exhaustion or pain taken seriously because people see that I'm functional and assume I can just keep trucking without cost, or that I'm lying about experiencing the exhaustion and pain in the first place. It's how my body is. It can take a lot of damage. It's not indestructible.