Tag: sick

Sultans of Swing

No jury duty today! And I think I am finished with it all this time around. Trials, according to what the judge told us on Monday, rarely start this close to the weekend of the last push of Carnival, so if I don’t have to report today I shouldn’t have to report anymore. I was only there for an hour or so yesterday before we were released, which was great. I came to work–my testing in the clinic shifts were covered–and got some odds and ends and other things taken care of. I wasn’t feeling too hot by the end of the day–and getting home from work was a nightmare–but by the time I went to bed I was feeling terrible. I woke up to a fever this morning, a sore throat and some major coughing. I decided that it was wiser to use sick time rather than risk getting everyone at the office sick–which would thus spread exponentially, call me Typhoid Greg–and so called out. I can’t remember the last time I missed work because I was sick; probably when I had COVID? I should probably take a test today myself, shouldn’t I? Heavy heaving sigh. I’ll do that before I go lie down with my book.

As far as jury duty goes, this wasn’t too terrible, really. And I don’t mind doing it, either. I always serve whenever I am called; the only time I’ve tried getting out of it was when I was supposed to serve the week after the shoulder/arm surgery, which wasn’t possible. I find it interesting and a solemn responsibility; it’s part of our civic duty as citizens after all, and weighing the evidence and deciding someone’s fate is kind of a big deal. Plus I like seeing how the courts actually work in real life, as opposed to books and movies. (The judge also said on Monday that court isn’t like Law and Order, there’s a lot more they don’t show. It’s really funny the cultural impact those shows have had on the country; someone should do a study on that. I have some thoughts myself about it and other “copaganda” shows, as well as the books about cops/lawyers.)

The not feeling well definitely sucks, though. All of my joints ache, and my legs feel exhausted. I did have to park fairly far from the house, on Race between Camp and Magazine. I’ll try to get the car moved today, so it’s closer to the house. I am hoping this doesn’t last another day–I don’t want to take another sick day and if I do, I still need to go by the office and get my computer so I can work at home on Friday–and the COVID test is negative. If the COVID test isn’t negative, it won’t matter because I won’t be allowed back into the building until next week anyway. I don’t want to use all my sick time, but if I have COVID, there’s no choice.

Good news! The COVID test was negative. I am feeling a bit better, but still running a fever. I also have a tickle in my throat and it’s sore. It also looks like a beautiful day outside, and the weather should be lovely for the parades this weekend, if I am feeling up to it. I definitely want to do Iris and Muses, if I can, and maybe some Thoth on Sunday. Bacchus is too much of a madhouse, but I love Orpheus on Monday because the crowd starts clearing out early because people need to go home and get ready for Fat Tuesday. I just hope I’m feeling better by tomorrow so I can go in to work. I do not like being sick.

The good news is that I signed a short story contract yesterday. It’s been a hot minute, so I am very well pleased. (This is for a submission to an anthology call; the other one I signed was one I was asked to write, so it’s a bit different.) I’m not sure if I can talk about this anthology or talk about my story–which I am dying to tell you about–but I’ll have to be annoying and not say anything for now. One I can talk about is called “The Rhinestone,” since the contract is already signed and the book has been announced. I have to revise and edit the story with notes, but it’s kind of a done deal. “The Rhinestone” is a book excerpt, and what’s really funny about this particular book excerpt (besides the fact that the book itself isn’t finished; this is from Never Kiss a Stranger) is that it was the actual kernel the entire book idea grew from, too. Funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it? I’ve often had ideas that I thought were interesting, but didn’t know if it was a short story or a novel until I tried writing it one way or the other. I used to always be expanding short stories into novels (because I overwrite and always have more to say); it was around 2012 that I began thinking in terms of maybe your novel ideas can actually be written as short stories instead), but shortly after we moved here, Paul and I had lunch at a place called the Quarter Scene, which was either queer-owned or just extremely queer friendly. It was our first time eating there, and I don’t remember why we did in the first place or why we were in the Quarter. Regardless, the table we were seated at–in the big picture window–had a little plaque on the wall reading TENNESSEE’S TABLE with the note that whenever he was in town, Tennessee Williams always sat at that table for lunch. We both thought that was kind of cool, and I thought “Tennessee’s Table” was a great title for a short story. The original story in and of itself wasn’t anything–just two gay friends meeting for lunch and sharing stories. It was a melancholy little story, really, not much to it. But when I started working on Never Kiss a Stranger–I originally wrote it as a long novella, about 30k words–I decided to reuse that setting and write a scene between two of the main characters. When I was asked to write for this anthology–the theme was the story had to be inspired by a queer icon–Tennessee Williams, who has had an enormous impact on both Paul’s and my life, was a no brainer. And then I thought, hey, that scene is set at Tennessee’s Table, why not adapt that back into a short story? So I pulled the chapter and reworked it a bit. I also have notes to make it stronger as a short story, so looking forward to revising that.

As for the country and the world, well, it kind of speaks for itself with no need for comment from me, does it?

And on THAT sad note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

Spooning Good Singing Gum

Saturday morning, and at some point I need to walk to Office Depot and get ink for my printer. I suppose I should really let go of this obsessive need to have everything printed on paper just in case. It’s terrible for the planet, for one, and I am sick of spending the money on ink. Who will win here, the neuroses or the economist?

Yesterday wasn’t a good day. I didn’t feel good still throughout most of the day, and I even took the horrifying step of getting Pepto Bismal at the grocery store. Shudder, wretched stuff. But it also occurred to me that maybe I was just hungry–another neuroses there–because I keep forgetting to eat or don’t eat enough when I am not in the office. So I ate something and did feel significantly better. And whenever that feeling started up again, I had something else. It worked. (Part of my food/eating thing is that I don’t ever get hungry and will forget to eat until I feel sick. That, sadly, is nothing new that can be blamed on the long COVID or anything.) But I was also very tired and feeling a bit burnt out from not sleeping well. Paul and I watched the first two episodes of the Ashley Madison documentary series–there will definitely be more about THAT later–and then I went to bed for the night. I did get some things done yesterday but the primary problem for the day really was not feeling good. Today I feel rested, hydrated, and not hungry, so we’re off to a very good start. I want to catch up on some correspondence this morning, and I need to write a first chapter of a book that I was asked to write this week. I intend to relax for the most part today; I have some cleaning up to do around here, which is fine–I am going to start listening to Carol Goodman’s The Drowning Tree while I clean and organize the kitchen–and I think I’m going to barbecue burgers for dinner later. Can you stand the excitement? I barely can.

I just got the official notice in the mail yesterday that our health insurance provider at work is no longer going to be our health care provider come January 1. I have literally no idea what that means for the future–will I have to buy my own and be reimbursed by the agency? Will we have to take on worse insurance than we already have out of desperation? I’ll be sixty two next month, do I really need to have this kind of stress and aggravation now that I’m getting older and am more in need of medical attention? Thank God I’m getting my teeth fixed in September because who knows what January will bring? Yay. I suppose I should start looking into Medicare and how that all works so I am not blind-sided in a couple of years. Who knows, maybe Medicare is the solution to this pending issue and then I just need supplemental insurance. It makes me head ache just to think about it all, truly. This is the part of being an adult that I really do not like.

But yes, the kitchen is a mess and I need to reorganize myself, which is the goal for today once I get this chapter written. I also will have the cover of the first book I did for this new publisher today soon, and when I share that cover is when I’ll talk more about the book, Constant Reader. I know this vagueness is troublesome, and it may read as coy (I hate coy), but it just makes sense to me to not talk about the book until I have a cover to share. I also think I am going to try to finish some of the entries I have in draft form, or delete them. (Some are over three years old and let’s face it, I’m probably never going to finish those. I can cut and paste what was written and save them as potential personal essays, which is probably the best way to do it.) I do want to go back to doing entries about my own books and why I wrote them–as best as I can remember; the two post drafts I have on here are Need and Timothy–which was kind of fun. I don’t obviously remember everything about those books, the ideas for them and how they came to be, but it’s always fun to try to remember these things.

I am also going to try to get started on Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman once I’ve finished everything today that I need to get done around here (I suppose I should make a list, shouldn’t I?). I have too many great books on top of the TBR pile–books by Eli Cranor, Kelly J. Ford, Megan, Alison Gaylin, Jordan Harper, Christopher Bollen, and S. A. Cosby, a new true crime anthology by Sarah Weinman, and I’ll be getting the new Laura Lippman once it drops–that not reading every day is truly criminal. I also want to read more of these classic short stories from the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies I’ve been getting from eBay. It’s funny, so many retired people tell me how much I am going to miss going to work and how bored I’m going to be once I retire, which is endlessly amusing to me. I will never be bored, as long as there are books to read and books to write. As long as I can function and think and type and read…I’ll never get bored and miss my job. I suspect I will find that time management will be the big problem for me once I retire–allowing time to slip through my fingers since I no longer have to be focused because I don’t have to plan my life and writing around my job anymore–which means I’ll need to make a to-do list for every week as well as one for every day. This is what I did when I used to have to do before I went back to work full-time, and I did still waste a lot of time. The key is structure; I need structure to be productive. And I think–between the tiredness, the hunger, and not feeling well–this last week wasn’t meant to be anything other than a slow and painful transition back to reality. It wasn’t really a work week, since the holiday fell on Tuesday…this coming week is my first full week back to work in three weeks. Next week I have to take a day off for a doctor’s appointment, so there’s that, too. And then it will be August, my power bill will peak for the year and start going back down again, and at the end of the month I will be flying all the way across country to San Diego for Bouchercon.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. That chapter won’t write itself, and the apartment won’t clean and organize itself, either. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow or later. It’ll be a SURPRISE.

Desert Angel

Remember how I felt a little off yesterday morning? Like my brain was tired but I felt rested? I also woke up congested, and took a Claritin–assuming that it was my sinuses and the weather, as it generally is this time of year. Yet after the Claritin cleared my head, I realized that the entire time I was writing yesterday morning’s entry, my nose kept running. This was, of course, unusual…and then I remembered someone at work had tested positive for COVID this week, and I needed to test myself again (I was negative Thursday afternoon). Guess what? Twenty-eight months into the pandemic, after being exposed literally every day at work for the last two years plus, after traveling to New York twice and going to three conferences….I finally, at long last, tested positive for COVID. I am not complaining; this seems to be a mild if unpleasant case–thank the Lord–and I can still smell and taste things, which is great. Mostly yesterday it was brain fog, not feeling great, and a lot of fatigue. By the early afternoon I was exhausted, and of course there’s the coughing and sinus drainage issue. My throat is a bit sore, my voice is an octave or two deeper than usual with a raspiness I usually like in a singer, and the brain fog isn’t great. It’s hard for me to focus–I tried reading yesterday to no avail–and so instead watched some reality television and played some historical documentaries while Scooter snored away contentedly in my lap most of the day. Paul got home and we watched the finale of Stranger Things–I was clearly mistaken as for it being the finale of the series; that was apparent when we reached the end of the episode and I just confirmed there’s a season 5 coming which is the end.

I have already zoned out twice writing this, or gone off on other tangents. I can see COVID brain is going to be a lot of fun. I am also feeling fatigued, which isn’t great. Most of the time it feels like a bad chest cold, or a lower level flu–I’ve yet to have a fever, praise be–where I mostly feel off and tired with the occasional dry cough that hurts the lungs a little bit. My eyes burn periodically from the fatigue–which is fine, I can live with that–but I literally spent most of yesterday drifting in and out of sleep. Was it the COVID, or was it Scooter using his sleep super-power to make me nod off here and there? I did sleep through the night mostly. I woke up at five again this morning but managed to go back to sleep, same as the night before–and got up shortly after seven. I am hoping today will simply be a milder repeat of yesterday, but I am definitely feeling loopy this morning. I have a lot of work to do, but I don’t know if my focus is going to be there in order for me to get things done; if yesterday was indicative of how my brain is going to work for the duration of this illness…not good. It could have been the DayQuil giving me medicine head (for the most part, the symptoms–the cough, the sore throat, the sinus drainage–was kept under control by DayQuil; alas, the DayQuil doesn’t help with fatigue and foggy brain) but I think I had foggy brain before I took it–when I was writing the entry yesterday morning I remember thinking my brain was fatigued.

Well, at least I don’t need to come up with excuses for not going to the gym this weekend.

It’s unpleasant, to be sure, but I consider myself lucky. I don’t need to go to the hospital and I am not having trouble breathing. If this is as bad as it is going to get, I can live with it for a few days. I am not entirely sure what about my day job–I notified them yesterday as soon as I could, but the compliance officer is out of the office until Tuesday, and I think the information shared with me by upper management (the department head is also on vacation and my supervisor’s last day was last Friday) indicates that I have to remain in quarantine until five days after my symptoms go away–which means if I wake up tomorrow without symptoms and it has passed, I can return this coming Friday, but other than that I am not sure. I’m not going to worry about it; there’s no point in doing so until I speak with the compliance officer on Tuesday.

And now? I am going to go lie down in my easy chair and see if I can focus enough to read. Worst case scenario? Sitting in my chair watching movies all day. I am also a bit dehydrated, too. Yay.

Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and will chat with you again tomorrow.

Do You Hear What I Hear

Wednesday. Paul made it home late last night, and is sleeping away this chilly morning in the Lost Apartment. I started feeling a bit under the weather yesterday–scratchy throat, usually not a good sign–but am hoping I can power through today and hopefully will feel better tomorrow. I hate to call in sick, but at the same time I don’t particularly want to get any of our clients sick, either.

I finished editing “Don’t Look Down” and “This Thing of Darkness” last night; I am hoping to get through “The Snow Globe” and “Moves in the Field” this morning, and have my fingers crossed that I can get back to work on Bury Me in Satin tonight. One can hope, at any rate. I also want to get some work done on the revision of Royal Street Reveillon, and I also have to get the afterward to that one written as well. So, I am hopeful by the end of the weekend I’ll have Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories completely banged out and ready for the copy edit, so I can get RSR finished over the Christmas weekend, and maybe–just maybe–get Bury Me in Satin finished by the end of December–a reach, but something I am going to still try to accomplish.

I’d also like to have a strong first draft of “Never Kiss a Stranger” done, but let’s not get crazy.

I can’t believe Christmas is less than two weeks away. I think I’ve done all my shopping for Paul; all I need to do now is buy something for my parents and it’s over. (I know what to get them, so not an issue.) This has been a kind of weird holiday season. Thanksgiving was early, and that built up a false sense of security that there was plenty of time before Christmas…then BLAM, it snuck up on me.

But…I have four day weekends for Christmas and New Year’s, and our annual trip to Commander’s Palace for lunch on New Year’s Eve with Jean and Gillian to look forward to, which is lovely, and LSU is playing in a New Year’s Day bowl, so there’s that. The Saints won their division and are going to the play-offs, hopefully with a bye the first week and maybe even home field advantage the whole series…so maybe, just maybe, we could end up in the Super Bowl again this year. (I probably shouldn’t have said that…because I truly believe that my fandom has enough power to jinx the teams I root for, because it’s all about me.)

But I am thrilled to have made it through the roughest part of the week. Monday and Tuesday’s twelve hour days are rough; yesterday it felt like I was coming down with something–I had a scratch at the base of my throat–and I wondered if I was really getting sick or if it was just from being tired. I slept really well last night–even slept in later than I wanted or planned–and this morning I still feel a bit off…but much better than yesterday. I don”t feel quite the same way today–the little tickle is still there, but not as bad as yesterday–and I may have to stop and buy some teabags so I can just drink tea with honey and lemon all day. I’ve also been really dehydrated lately, so have been drinking Gatorade a lot.

I hate being sick, so here’s hoping it can be warded off.

Last night before I retired to bed early, I also managed to revive the next and final draft of Royal Street Reveillon. I work by chapters, which I know is probably weird to most other writers; they write usually in terms of pages, i.e. “I wrote ten pages today”. I don’t. I go by word counts and chapters; I always try to write a chapter every day, and in early draft form those are anywhere from 2200-3000 words; sometimes less, sometimes more. The Great Data Loss of 2018 took all the final chapter drafts of the manuscript as it was turned in, including the version where I pulled it all together and sent it in to Bold Strokes as one document. This, as you can imagine, was a disaster almost unimaginable; trying to recreate to copy edit and tweak a manuscript you no longer have the final version of is the worst nightmare any writer could have (at least in my opinion). However, the manuscript was in my “sent mail” file; so I was able to download that copy and last night I started breaking it down into chapters again for me to work on. I am also trying something different this time–I am going to work backwards. So I created new draft chapters for the last five chapters, and hopefully will be able to get to work on them this weekend as the end draws near.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Mysterious Ways

I hate being sick.

I noticed on Saturday something was off–I just assumed it was the disappointment of the LSU loss, but on Sunday I knew I was coming down with something; achy joints, burning eyes, fever that came and went, lack of energy, congested sinuses, etc. I took a Claritin-D, dosed myself occasionally as warranted with DayQuil, and slept decently that night. Monday I was still off–congested, achy, etc.–but it was bearable. Yesterday I was again low energy and achy, but was still hopeful I could ward it off.

Silly Gregalicious. When will you ever learn?

Yes, it hit with a vengeance this morning. All of my joints ache. I have a fever. I am constantly blowing my nose. I have a headache. Nausea. Draining sinuses and constant fits of wet, phlegmy coughing. Lovely.

So I regretfully called in sick. I will spend the day resting in my easy chair, reading, dosing myself with DayQuil and Vitamin C and juice and water. My throat is very scratchy and feels raw. There is so much pressure behind my eyes it feels like they’ll both pop out if I cough hard enough.

Yes, in case I haven’t made it clear, I am feeling absolutely miserable. Miserable.

Of course, it could be worse. It can always be worse. This is just some flu-ey thing that will go away. It’s not a chronic illness I have to live with the rest of my life, or something potentially fatal. New Orleans is being spared from the fury of Hurricane Michael (do stay safe, Floridians). So, yeah, all this whining for a minor inconvenience is pretty pathetic and sad, in the big picture.

Fuck the big picture. I feel sick.

I’ve been watching Season 3 of The Man in the High Castle, which is quite good. I am having trouble remembering Season 2–which I know I watched and enjoyed–but the show is very interesting…and somewhat troubling to watch. If you don’t know the premise, it’s based on a popular Philip K. Dick novel of the same title, which was an alternate history which imagined that the Nazis developed an atomic bomb, which they dropped on DC, ending World War II with an Axis victory. The United States has been divided up between Japan and Germany–the Germans have everything from the eastern seaboard to the Rockies; the Japanese everything on the other side to the Pacific coast (no mention of the Italians, which is interesting in and of itself), and the growing Resistance to the Fascist tyrants. After watching the first season I read the book, which is significantly different but equally compelling, but the show is really taking off. I do remember some terrific moral dilemmas for the characters–this is one of the show’s great strengths, frankly; when you are living under a fascistic regime, what is moral? It’s also an interesting look at collaborators, because of course there would be some–many, in fact.

I also read some more of Circe last night in my misery, and it is, as always, still compelling and beautifully written. Maybe between naps and misery i can actually finally finish reading it today.

And now to the easy chair with me.

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Love is a Battlefield

Yesterday I made an attempt to run errands; but after I went to the bank I felt dizzy and nauseous, so skipped the grocery store and came home. I spent the rest of the day alternating between fevers and normal, and so on, so I simply parked myself in my easy chair with a book, a blanket, and a cat. I finished reading Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer, which was extraordinary, and started another that I’m not too wild about. I also started watching a documentary of the history of the Papacy on Prime, which conveniently now has an app for AppleTV. I shall continue to try to read the book I’m not wild about, but it may not survive the fifty-page rule. Harsh, I know, but I have a lot of books to read.

I am hoping that I am in the last stage of this illness; I am still coughing so hard that my lungs and diaphragm hurt, and right now my eyes are kind of warm, but I think I am going to be able to hang with a quick (ha!) trip to get groceries and then spending the rest of the day curled up underneath a blanket with a book. My kitchen of course is a disaster area, but I feel confident that I’ll be able to get it cleaned up today as well. This is a big transition from yesterday, I might add, when I felt like a limp dishrag for most of the day.

Hope springs eternal.

In other exciting news, I’ll be signing and speaking on two panels at Comic Con in New Orleans in two weeks. Huzzah! Of course, this appearance is contingent on my living that long; which is a moment by moment thing. I am feeling odd again right now; not sure what that’s about, or even how to describe it, but I guess the easiest way to sum it up in one word is fuzzy; like I am out of my body and observing but not participating. It’s unnerving, and it definitely needs to stop.

All right, I think I might need to lie down again. Heavy sigh.

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Running with the Night

Paul has been ill since Sunday; he woke up not feeling good but like a trouper went to the movie with me, only to feel worse upon getting home. He stayed home from work both yesterday and today, which is an obvious indicator of how ill he actually feels. Naturally, my secondary concern was that I not get sick; there is nothing worse than being sick over a holiday period, and I have too much else to do over my four days off that I cannot possibly spend it sick.

So, of course, I can feel it starting with a tickle in the back of my throat which is making me cough. Fucking fantastic.

I suppose I can attempt to head it off by getting DayQuil and liberally dosing myself with Vitamin C. I hate being sick; I always feel betrayed by my body when it happens. I should consider myself lucky that it doesn’t happen more often, I suppose.  And now that I’m getting older…heavy heaving sigh.

I worked on a short story yesterday; I am very excited to be almost finished with the two that I am currently working on. I hope to get this draft finished today, and then I need to do another run-through draft of the other. If I can stave off this illness, I should be able to get both of these stories finished this week and sent off to where they go. I also want to get some other things finished this week so I can spend my four, hopefully healthy, days off writing on book manuscripts. I have fallen behind yet again–I never seem to learn from past mistakes, do I? But some serious focus and I should be able to get caught up and be back on track to get things done by the time I wanted them to be.

I am now obsessing with this young adult novel about Alabama, which is not something I should be devoting energy or time to. I need to get all the in-progress things finished before I can start another project, which would be madness. Absolute madness. But I can’t get that book out of my head; it’s been floating around inside my brain for a very long time, and now that I’ve actually figured out how to do it…now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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