Get Well Soon

I've decided the world is broken into people who are "good" at being sick, and people who stink at it. The people who are good at it revel in the attention, the soup pilgrims, the curling up and sniffing and looking with puppy dog eyes at whoever is caring for them. The people who stink at it, author included, either live in denial of being sick, or act like complete and utter babies while feeling less than par. Nasty, whiny babies. Babies who forget that their stomach flu has nothing on people who have- you know, CANCER. Who think the universe is out to get them, and who make sure everyone knows their every moment of suffering (I can text and email at length from my phone while lying curled up on my side in dim half-light I have learned).

I've spent the last two days with a stomach flu that rendered me incapable of doing anything except, and only at times, watching television. This is my idea of hell. To be laid up in bed with a stack of "to-reads" and yet not have the energy to read- this is literally my idea of a bad place that bad people go to after doing very bad things. Somehow, in my head, I had believed that if I ever got sick I'd finally get around to reading War and Peace or to watching all those random foreign films in my Netflix queue. I'd clean out my inbox. I'd lose 5 pounds inadvertently. I'd get all my reading done for school and work, just from my bed!

But it didn't work out like that. I lay prostrate on the couch, surrounded by an army of Gatorade and Ginger Ale bottles. The sole people to pierce my veil of solitude were my brother and sister, who each broke my quarantine of the last 48 hours to bring the prisoner something to survive on (Susie, perhaps offering the best house call of all time, tucked an US Weekly between the Pepto and the soup. (*Applause*)

By the way, I think being sick in the internet age is a curse. I grew up with parents who didn't take you to the hospital unless you were missing an appendage- everything could be cured with tylenol and a nap -- they'd seen it all. Well, the other night I got a backache and of course I immediately assumed that I was departing this cruel world with meningitis. And then this morning I woke up with incredibly sore arms - and just knew that a blood clot was working its way to my heart to finish me off. I wish I could tell you I didn't entertain these thoughts -- rather seriously-- for 2-3 minutes each. Then I remembered I had worked out my arms the other morning before this flu sucked my body under, so it made sense that my arms would be, you know, sore.

I shake a fist at you, WebMD!

Anyhow, seeing as I guess I'm gonna LIVE and all, I've been working on my speech for Jessica's wedding. For the first time I'm stumped with what to say. Not in a cheesy way, just can't seem to find a story that's appropriate to tell in front of parents. Not a one! Go figure.