|
| < 2/21 2/22 2/23 2/24 2/25 2/26 2/27 2/28 >
|
Monday, 28 February 2005 (false epoch) 8:49am This is what happened, how I wrote it out to tell the insurance company over the phone when I reported the accident: I was heading east on Kezar drive, just past the intersection of MLK. There were several car lengths between me and the drivers up ahead. They came to a sudden stop. I hit my brakes, but the road was still wet from the rain last night, and I slid into the rear bumper of the car in front of me.Maddy was worried that it might sound too rehearsed, too polished, like I'd made it up. An understandable concern, but I'd like to think that one of my strengths as a storyteller (if I may be so bold as to suggest I have strengths as a storyteller) is that even when I have something written out in front of me, I still riff and improvise enough to make it sound like it's coming off the top off my head. It's one of the reasons I rehearsed the J.T. LeRoy piece so much more than I ever had one of my own; I knew that if I didn't, I was likely to rephrase things on the spot. In any event, it's all true, every word of it. Besides, I was still too shaky and spooked when I called the insurance company for it to sound remotely polished. 7:42pm We came straight home after the accident. Maddy's boss was uncharacteristically non-belligerent about it, even when her chiropractor suggested she take tomorrow off as well. I had planned on working from home today anyway, and decided to put off filling out my timesheet and getting the chest X-ray until tomorrow. Driving to the office, back into the sun, sounded like too much. There'd been some hope that I wouldn't be needing the X-ray at all—even through the auspices of the Waddell Clinic, there's going to be a co-pay, a premium, something, and it's going to fucking break us—but my shotgun-like cough persists. For the second day in a row my temperature has remained in the double digits, which is a surely a good sign, but there's still something with my respiration. How I wish I could ignore it, and it would just go away. It's not out of the realm of possibility that it'll go away, be it spontaneous remission or just the virus dying, but I shouldn't bank on it.
| ||
 | ||
Sunday, 27 February 2005 (functions of linear scales) 7:43am Although I did get up three or four times, as is my body's wont even when healthy, I'd daresay that was one of my more restful nights. The dreams were more vivid than usual, if nothing else, with space shuttle-esque aircraft escaping from distant atomic explosions, and even a few moments of pleasure, but not without anxiety and consequence. Sometimes fever dreams don't need to stray too far from reality. (Not that I'm getting warm enough for them to really qualify as fever dreams, but pick pick.) At Maddy's recommendation, I've been not only taking my temperature fairly regularly, but writing it down. I haven't been keeping track of my medicine intake, but, frankly, I'm not convinced that's been making a difference. Anyway, here's how it looked over a twenty-four hour period, starting early Saturday morning. It's a tad inelegant, I know. Hey, I poked around for a freeware program to make a simple line graph, but they're all designed for people much smarter than me. Although Geometry was the one (1) math class I didn't suck at in high school, I am wholly ignorant of coordinate planes and whatnot. Next time someone comments on how intelligent I appear to be, I'm going to reply fuck you, it's not like i know what bernoulli's lemniscate is. i'm dumb as a rock, thank you very much. But I digress: So, yeah. There you go. My temperature at a quarter to seven was ninety-nine on the dot. It's now half past eight, and I'm kinda scared to take it again. Maybe if I don't, it won't go any higher, and I'll start to get better. 8:51pm My temperature never hit three digits today. A good sign, perhaps, but I'm not taking it to mean I'm out of the woods yet. Unless I don't cough at all tomorrow morning I'm still getting the chest X-ray, and working the rest of the day from home. KROB is covering my radio show again, just in case. We had sushi delivered this evening, the first I've had in weeks. It was from one of my least favorite places, but it's the only one we know of that delivers, and leaving the house was simply not an option. (Wouldn't have been an option even if it hadn't been raining.) Damn, it was good. It feels like it's been forever since I was capable of appreciating the charms of a simple California Roll.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Saturday, 26 February 2005 (barometric shift) 6:41am The evenings are bad. Not necessarily the nights; sleep is fiftul at best, and my tossing and turning does Maddy's slumber no favors, but at least my temperature drops and I feel a little better in the morning. The later I'm awake, the more it hurts. Yesterday evening was the worst yet. I cried quite a bit, from both pain and fear. I want it to end, and that fact that it isn't is scaring me. We did not make it to RIte Aid. Maddy offered to drive me, but just the thought of getting sufficiently dressed, walking out to the car, the interminable trip out there (sometimes I'm very aware of just how far we are from everything else in the City, how distant the Outer Sunset really is), walking from the car to the store, walking to the pharmacy all the way in the back, standing in line, possibly having to communicate with the clerk...and then doing it all over, in reverse? Oh hell no. To further complicate matters, not only is it in a fairly high-traffic area thanks to a nearby freeway onramp, it was also the last Friday of the month, meaning there was a good chance we might run into Critical Mass. The only way to avoid both of those bottlenecks was to leave later in the evening, nine being the safest. (The pharmacy is open until ten.) By nine, I was in bed. So that was that. For the record, I do not begrudge Critical Mass for inconveniencing me. Never have, never will. They're making their statement, and I respect that. My enmity is reserved for the backup in traffic caused by that fucking ballpark. You know, the one I voted against. I think I've mentioned it before.
| ||
| ||
Friday, 25 February 2005 (after the silence has returned) 2:53pm The Vagina Monologues cast party is finally happening tonight. I will not be there. Still coughing, still burning.
My plan goes like this: actual rest over the weekend, probably in the form of reclining on the couch watching
Carnivale and/or Six Feet Under. If I'm not feeling better by Monday, I'll go by the office first thing
in the morning to fill out a timesheet for this week—I've managed damn near forty hours—then go get
the chest X-ray. After that, the future.
The cough syrup with codeine is supposed to be ready in a few hours; I was told around five or six in the evening. I really want it, but the thought of dragging myself (or, more accurately, driving) all the way to the Rite Aid at Market and Van Ness is unbearable. And it has to be me, you understand. They check ID has a rule, and especially for a Schedule III like that. Feh.
| ||
| ||
Thursday, 24 February 2005 (approximately infinite) 3:02pm In the shower this morning, I couldn't help noticing that my stomach looked a little less round than usual. Stepping on the scale for the first time in weeks, I saw that my weight is around 170. It's true that I've been eating very little this week due to the illness—I'm just not hungry, and at least one theory of fever suggests not forcing it—but I seriously doubt that has anything to do with it. All the same, I'm so fucked up that I actually like the idea of losing weight because of whatever this is. See, I scored on a pair of shiny black pants at a thrift store this weekend (Lip Service, no less), and the waist is thirty-two inches, which I've been down to before, and I know I can be again, and...yeah, I know. Whatever I lose, I'll gain right back when my health improves, especially if my body is starved for nutrition. So sue me for finding my own particular shade of lining, huh? I'd briefly considered going to the Waddell Clinic yesterday afternoon, but didn't because of what surely would have been a multi-hour wait. Turns out my regular doctor was working Urgent Care, so I probably would have gotten to see her if I had gone. Oh well. Anyway, the doctor I did see isn't really sure what I've got, but it seems to be a virus which is making the rounds. There's nothing I can take to make it go away, so we have to settle for making me feel not so icky while I have it. Oddly enough, my throat looks fine. Indeed, she said I don't look particularly sick, which doesn't give her much to work with. don't misdiagnose me because i'm beautiful. She prescribed cough syrup with codeine (don't worry, Buffy, I'll be careful), which I won't be able to pick up until tomorrow evening at the earliest, and gave me a bagful of over-the-counter stuff. If I'm not doing better after a few days, though, she gave me the paperwork to take to San Francisco General Hospital for a chest X-ray. Hopefully it won't come to that, because even with the stuff she gave me, that sounds like a major hassle. It can't not be, really.
About halfway through the appointment, she asked, Are You Transgendered? I was a little surprised by the question, seeing
as how she knew who my primary doctor is, saw that I'm on hormones, and had gotten pretty close to my face. Evidently, though,
she wasn't entirely certain.
| ||
| ||
Wednesday, 23 February 2005 (nostalgia ii) 12:09pm Sometimes, I'm very grateful to be living in a technologically advanced land of plenty. Oh, for all my progressive/leftist blustering, I know that I benefit from the system as much as anyone else, that the fact that I'm in no rush to get an iPod does not make me some kind of rebel (especially considering how much I've been lusting for a 512MB flash drive), that while I've abandoned my male privilege, being a reasonably attractive blonde caucasian woman is not the least advantageous thing to be in this society. Anyway, right about now, I'm all kinds of grateful for the fact that I was able to buy an electronic thermometer at Walgreen's for eight bucks. I'm sure that were one to dig deep enough, one would find a chain of systematic oppression and human rights violations allowing me to do such a thing, but damn. This thing is, like, the greatest invention ever. I'm especially glad I shelled out the few extra bucks for the kind that only takes ten seconds rather than sixty. I want what I want, and I want it now, damnit. Even when the news is less than pleasant. My temperature seemed to have gone down overnight, but is creeping its way back up, just shy of three digits. I've been running a fever on and off for over a week now, and the cough has never really gone away, either. This cannot be a good sign. So, I'm venturing to the Waddell Clinic tomorrow morning. Maybe they can tell me what my deal is. Meanwhile, I've had to bail on my hosting duties at Re-Tool & Grind tonight. I'm seriously bummed about that, both because I hate canceling and because I was really looking forward to it. As it happens, that's my only scheduled gig until April. (Haven't heard back from Heather's people about her show next month.) Normally I'd be really bummed about that, but at the moment it feels like it's for the best, like I'll never be well enough to do anything ever again.
Not that I am, but if I were teminally ill? Hunter had the right idea.
| ||
| ||
Tuesday, 22 February 2005 (a slight return) 4:45pm The first big warning sign was the fact that I took a nap before going to the station to do my radio show. That can only mean I'm not well. I briefly considered just playing hooky altogether, but I hadn't been on the air the last two weeks, and I was kinda missing it. Besides, it's an obligation, and I try to keep those as best as I can. I spent most of the show looking forward to it being over so I could go home and jump straight into bed. Also a warning sign; I usually don't do that. I got home at around half past ten, and was in bed by a quarter to eleven. Unfortunately, my cough had returned with an ugly vengeance earlier in the evening, and it kept me up until at least half past one. My throat felt a little better in the morning, and while the cough was still there, it seemed to played itself out. I went to work as usual, though my supervisor told me I could work from home if it would make me more comfortable. Because I still haven't wrapped my brain around the fact that it's okay to work from home, I lasted for about an hour before I realized that, yeah, I should go home. I felt progressively worse on the drive home. Took my temperature. One hundred point one. What the fuck? I have a fever again. Wasn't that last week? Aren't I supposed to be better now? Feh.
| ||
| ||
Monday, 21 February 2005 (on the wing) 3:45pm Apart from persistent icky cough and a creeping malaise, I'm well. Back in the office. Much of the working world has the day off, but we're still at it. That's okay, though. Made parking easier. I mustered up the courage to ask my supervisor about the possibility of taking a some time off in the late Spring to go on tour. Kind of a dangerous thing to ask for someone still as new here as me. (I'm fairly confident last week won't be held against me, since I still worked eight hours a day, just in my jammies and with cats about.) She's completely cool with the idea, even suggesting that when I return, we can look into me becoming a full-time employee. Technically, I'm only part-time, but there's been enough work to keep me occupied eight hours a day. So, that's one hurdle cleared. It isn't the biggest one, though. I still have to save up a bit of cash before then, which won't be easy, considering that I have debts to repay to Maddy and others after my recent destitution. I'm not sure how I'm going to do both things. It may not be possible in the time I have, and paying back the money is highest priority. But, see, I want this to happen, so I'm going to try my best. Lynnee has suggested having rotating touring partners—me out here on the Left Coast, and some else for other parts of the country. That takes a bit of the pressure off, as even going for a week is better than not at all. I want to do the whole thing, I really want to see and perform in the rest of the country, but I want a lot of things. Like everything I want, it'll be hard-won. Life is too short not to try. Someday I'll be dead, and I don't want my last thoughts to be regrets about all the things I wanted but never got.
If I don't get to go, even for a week or two, it won't be for lack of effort on my part.
| ||
| ||