Went to the Doctor and the Doctor Said

"Your lungs aren't crackling but we can do a chest x-ray anyway." What?

It was a really frustrating appointment. First, not an appointment -- I went to the clinic at 4pm and did not avoid all the moms and kids and elderly and other sick working-types and all of them coughed in unison in the waiting room for an hour and a half.

So, yeah, my lungs aren't crackling, which means probably no pneumonia. He offered the x-ray anyway, saying it could show stuff that he couldn't hear. So I kept asking "Do you think you need to do that?" and he kept repeating "We can if you want to."

Grr.

And he offered me the blood test for mono, which functions just to let you know you have it, because there is no treatment for mono. Besides what I am already doing: avoiding alcohol (by falling into a bottle of tasty chardonnay last night); getting rest (which is not happening this week); and getting vitamins.

Mostly it was good to hear he couldn't hear liquid in my lungs or crackling or any of that.

Anyway, I am a knitting fool, I am bringing two dresses to STL because I am like that, I bought new flats which are lovely and painful to wear. By the end of the first day wearing them, I felt like I might have plantar fascitis in my right heel. Then I took them off and I was okay. It's back to the good Clarks boots and SmartWools today, recovery wear if there could ever be recovery wear from dress socks and unsupportive flats.

The new Knitty is up; if you follow my link on the right to 'the patterns!' you'll see it. This is a major event four times a year. Trust me.

Work is calm and yet swirling, swirling beneath the surface. I learned that half our editorial team might be leaving by the end of this year, with two of those five people a 'maybe' and three for sure (there are 12 of us; we're tiny). And we're at workload capacity, so that makes me think immediate promotion to the two dedicated AEs who would be left ... like me ... one can dream. Dream dream dream. Then I would be in a position that grudgingly allows telecommuting, which I would want to try maybe, at least until getting my bearings in our new town wherever.

Our landlord agreed to raise rent by $25 and no more. Yaaay nice landlord! He is really nice, super nice in fact. A bit odd, with all the complimenting me every time he sees me (without Noah) by saying something like "a pretty blouse for a pretty lady" or a variant on that safe old man with charming phrases thing.

Today is 'let's start a colony on a farm with lots of hills and sheep and alpacas and bread and gardens' day. Is that what your dream colony is like? How different is it? Is it, by chance, urban and not farm-ish? Let me know. It's a dreamy day.

The People Have Spoken

I will probably see a doctor or nurse today.

Noah managed to convince me to go to bed last night by saying "Remember how we talked about keeping you well? Or getting better? It's ten o'clock."

Can anyone else in the world be as fastidious as me? I can think of a woman I knew in college who included in her criteria for selecting jeans THE COLOR OF THE THREAD used to sew the seams. Like the exposed thread. Which, certainly, can be a dark wheat color or red or pink or blue. But this influenced how she coordinated outfits.

I think about the metals exposed on my clothes. And my jewelery choices. I do not find this overly fastidious.

I'm thinking of outfit-planning for these two weddings in STL that are a week apart, and how I've been knitting a capelet/shrug thing for myself to wear with a dress I love. But now I am worried. I am worried the plum/mauve/dusty pink yarn and the dark red dress are not working.

Thankfully I have far too many clothes and with a few hours spent trying things on, I will work it out.

Does anyone else love and hate J.Crew at the same time like I do? Love the quality, love the colors, hate the casting of models and the lifestyle portrayed in the ads, hate the 'coast' feeling of it all, hate the prices, hate knowing that their cashmere comes from a sweatshop like everyone else's ... probably ... I have no evidence for that last one. Just worries.

But good god their shoes.

What Sick Looks Like Over Here

Scene 1: The Kitchen

me: I am so sick of water! Water! Ugh!
Noah: Do you want some juice or tea? Tea disguising water?
me: Okay.

Noah: What do you want to eat?
me: Another blueberry fudgy wudgy brownie.
Noah: Really?
me: Yes. But I can be convinced.
Noah: How about box 'n' cheese? With whole milk?
me: Yeah okay.

(two hours later)
me: Is all the mac gone?


Scene 2: The Main Room

me: I am so cold!
Noah: It's cold-time Wifey! She's cold!
me: I am really really cold!
Noah: Do you have your down vest on? Or a hat? Or your mitts?
me: No, not yet. They depress me.

me: I will never be warm again.

(seated on couch, with kitten Eto)
me: Eto! Stop biting my sleeve! I know it's woolen and you think it's prey but IT IS MY SLEEVE!
Eto: Mraw raw roow raw rarwm! (pauses, begins biting and snarling again)

Scene 3: The Bedroom

(I sleep for four hours. Then at night, for ten more. Minimum.)

Scene 4: Downtown Champaign

me: OWWWW! My lungs hurt so bad!

(Keep in mind this is a very flat walk of a quarter-mile. My lungs are just dying.)

Scene 5: The Mirror

me: Oh my god, where did all these pimples come from? And this greasy hair? And this crazy look in my eyes? And my lips looking a little blue?
Noah: Want some more vitamin C? Maybe you should lay back down.

-----

It's been a week now, and I am worse.

more fever babble: medication

Meds. Yeah.

A long long time ago, when I was young and the music used to make me smile, I announced to my mom that I thought modern medicine is/was for suckers and that pills were killing us as a species and really, we should just let ourselves either LIVE or DIE.

My mother, in a moment of utter her-ness, looked at me slowly from her wheelchair and said, "You realize I'd be dead, right? And you wouldn't exist?"

I probably began arguing something about the way my great-grandmother survived her appendix bursting and severe blood poisoning without even penicillin in the 'teens. I probably had the sense to stop talking then.

Today I want all the meds I can get. But I really want to know which one is giving me a rash on the backs of my hands.

fever babble

Bright white caulk may be the prettiest thing in my house right now. Maybe. It is so lovely.

We made our first entree from Veganomicon last night: potato-kale enchiladas with homemade chile sauce. Oh my they are delicious. Really filling, too -- Noah and I both served ourselves two and could only eat one.

For the record, though, I should ignore forever how long the author of a recipe says something will take, and just assume it will take an hour and a half. Then either be pleasantly surprised or just eat on time.

My fever is higher today, and yet I am at work. I am leaving very soon. Martyrdom is not for me.

"Every angel is terrifying."

Somehow, in all my years of reading poetry, I have not read Rilke's Duino Elegies.

And he's right about all of it. Unacknowledged legislators of the world, unite, and let us proclaim him our mascot.

Especially that thing about angels.

I've been trying to read Donald Hall, because I got that big book of his with the great title, White Apples and the Taste of Stone, for free a while ago and haven't read it. But wow is it painful. I mean I think his writing is painful to read. Repetitive, dull; sorry, dude. I miss your wife too, but not as much as you do. You have the right to be repetitive about it.

My landlord had my moldy caulk all re-caulked today! Big stink, though, so I had to open many windows and the door to flood the place with fresh, very cold air. Now in two shirts, a cardigan sweater, a blazer, a scarf and mitts to compensate.

I am also a knitting fiend. I also make mistakes when I don't check my gauge (that's stitches per inch for you non-knitters). I mean, I thought I was making a hat to fit a four-year-old Japanese girl. Instead it is a hat for a newborn. Marie Antoinette is a good movie for knitting, though -- the decadence and lack of depth make it pretty but not distracting and very indulgent. And I thank you, Sofia Coppola, for leaving the beheadings out.

So, some secret knitting to do, two hats to work on, my shrug to work on (just the sleeves to go), and ... new yarn to play with. It has cassette tape spun into it. I will keep you updated.

And no, I don't know what tape it was, and my brother asked me first.

How to Find Something You've Lost

1.) In grade school, I had many brightly-colored socks (think late 80s neon) and would frequently misplace just one. I really didn't want to wear mismatched socks, so the lone neon sock would float on its own. Eventually I would dream about finding its mate , usually in the sock drawer under other socks, and in the morning I'd search in said place.

No dice.

2.) We need to find our copy of our lease. Today. Well maybe tomorrow would be acceptable. But our landlord, who is really a great guy, wants/needs to raise rent by $90 a month, and the lease doesn't allow that, and he knows that, but he wants us to agree to it anyway. And he offered us an empty third-floor apartment, in light of my mold issues. I can already guess we'll say no to moving upstairs -- moving things up stairs is awful, and our cat Hobbes (the elder statesman cat who is responsible enough to be outside) would kill us if he couldn't go out and in and out all the time. And we would have no patio/pit thing for yakiniku, which would make Noah very sad. So we're not moving upstairs, I think.

But the lease has been lost. And this is very bad.

How do you find something you've lost? If you knew where it was, or had a good idea, it would no longer be lost. You wouldn't be looking, even. You'd have it already.

The problem is, we don't lose that many important papers anymore because we are generally careful in our old age about these things. We have a fire safe, we have a shredder, we have an emergency kit, and that emergency kit includes Chef Boyardee and cat food and some water. We aren't so willy-nilly.

I'm guessing, though, that I put it somewhere "really smart." That it was me, not Noah. He puts things in two places; I put them several places. And the lease isn't in either of his places.

Think of us, St. Jude. Isn't there another saint of lost things in general? You think of us too.