#58: Sick, bro

Actual updates

I’m not a person who gets sick.

I mean, I’m not the sort of a person who gets sick. I get regular types of illnesses, of course; I’ll catch a cold if you’re offering, and I’ll get food poisoning if you’re offering me a meal from that one place by Forest Hills we ordered from one extremely regrettable time¹, and if you want to argue that getting poison ivy counts as getting sick, I suppose that counts too. But I don’t get really, flat-out, knocked-on-my ass sick. Even when I had Covid, I had one really miserable day (during which I worked as normal and just felt like shit while I did it) and the rest of the course of the illness was like a medium-bad cold.

Partly this is because I just don’t - robust immune system, I guess - and partly this is because even when I do, I don’t. If you’re the point person for your household, you know what I mean there. If you were ever an oldest daughter, you probably do too (the venn diagram of those two groups is probably a circle, anyway). It means that if I’m physically able to get up and do the things that need to be done, I will. I can’t give in to having a little case of the sniffles. Or: sure, it hurts, but so does being alive. Let’s go. Or: why would I tell you I had a headache? I don’t expect you to fix it. These may be familiar refrains to you. You too may be used to the terror that comes with the idea of not being able to contribute, of being stripped of any value by not being constantly useful. You may realize you feel a greater job insecurity for all your unpaid jobs than you do for your paid one(s). Or maybe you just had a cool as hell grandmother who disdained doctors and rode her bike to the barn every day and made about two entire meals every time there was a family dinner in case someone didn’t care for one component of the menu and would not dream of quitting and putting the work on someone else unless she was either dead or physically restrained. Maybe all of the above! Who can say.

I did this time, though. I had some garden-variety cold that I had picked up from Hap, the same one that made him miss the third day of school with an out-of-nowhere low (for him) fever. I had had a few days of ordinary sniffles and sneezes and coughs, and then it was Porchfest.

Last year, we practiced a set for Porchfest, and then it was raining on the date, and neither we nor anyone in Matt’s band could make the rain date, so we just didn’t wind up doing it. This year, we practiced a set (just about the same one, actually, since we never used it anyway), even though it stresses me out every year and the actual show doesn’t feel the same as it used to back when I was in a real band and played in venues, and even though we desperately need a rhythm section because 50% of our little act speeds up when they play standing up - and then it was raining day-of but the event organizers announced that the shows were still to go on. So we went on!

Playing our own little set was fine. I have a little to say about it later but it isn’t germane to me and my disease, so let’s put that aside for the moment. The thing was that it did wind up raining all day, in greater and lesser amounts, and I did wind up standing outside in it for a lot of the time, and the rest of the time I was doing restful things like chasing a herd of children out of my basement (really. REALLY!! Why are you in my basement if you aren’t there to do my laundry or scoop my cat litter? Get the hell out! And whose kid are you anyway??) and so what I think happened is that somehow standing around in the chilly rain all day kicked my cold into overdrive. It sounds like a real 19th-century way to approach disease, but no one else in the house got sick this way! And there’s now more evidence to support the idea that getting chilled decreases your body’s ability to fight off infections, which puts paid to the idea that cold season is only in the winter because we’re indoors breathing each other’s germs - it’s 2024, we’re indoors breathing each other’s germs all year round, we have office jobs and the internet. So I think my immune system flashed red, ADDITIONAL THREAT!!, and cranked up the defences, and then tried to cook it out of me for 4 days.

I don’t get fevers, especially. I was astonished to find that I had a real fever-getter of a kid on my hands considering that I could not personally remember the last time I had had one. Even when I got Covid, I got the least of little low fevers (and felt like crap with it) and it only lasted a day; this was solidly 101F (38.3C) whenever the Tylenol wore off and lasted for four days. It kicked my ass up and down the street. The first day, I didn’t have the option to sleep all day, because it was the day after Porchfest and I had to clean up from it, plus I was woken up early for some parent stuff. So no rest that day until after I had put Hap to bed and I could conk out early on the couch. But the next day I took off work, and once I came home from school dropoff, I too dropped off. I mean I crawled into bed and dozed until nearly lunchtime, after which I decided I should have a cup of tea and see if I was up to reading a book. An ideal sick day! So, naturally, I decided the next day that I was fine and could work.

Fool. Clown. Utter ding-dong. Of course I wasn’t fine. I got to about 5pm - not the end of my workday! - and was routinely laying my head down on my laptop for little rests. The next day I was smart and took another sick day, slept all morning again, resolutely refused to work, and finally sweated the thing out overnight. Since then, the fever hasn’t returned, although I’m not done coughing yet, and boy, am I! I’ve pulled a muscle quite badly in my chest, under my lowest ribs (to be fair, on me, this is actually stomach, I have no torso), and it’s hot knives if I cough without preparing for it; I think the way my shoulderblade area is sore is also related, or at least I made whatever it is worse. An hour or so ago I had an explosion of coughs so fast and intense they sounded like a photographer’s shutters clicking, and so violent that my ear popped. But I’m a normal temperature, I have enough energy to operate my body all day, and the coughing fits don’t come frequently. I lost 5 pounds in 4 days, which even someone who lived through the dark era of the 90s can tell you is too fast.

It wasn’t Covid, according to the test I took, and I’m inclined to believe it: it felt totally different than when I’ve had it before, which was very distinct. What was it, then. Well, I don’t know. Does it matter? I’m getting over it.

Why was it seems the more interesting question. Why did I get sick as a dog (sick sick sick) this time, but not other times, even when other members of my family did? What I’m thinking is this. I think I was basically an object lesson of the adage “take time to rest, or your body will take it for you.” I think this was my body taking it for me. I think I’ve asked too much of it for a long stretch, and it couldn’t really hold up anymore - and faced with a slightly tougher bug to fight than the average cold, it fell over. Let’s see what I learn from this!²

Speaking of what we’re learning from. I got a nice compliment after Porchfest, from a friend who lives to be in bands and is never without one and whom I guess would know; he praised me for the ability to do that particularly country-music warble, which is an affectation I was deliberately doing - so it’s nice to hear that first of all, it worked, and second of all, it sounded good. The thing is this: I might remember this compliment for a while (I hope I do! It’s not every day I get them!), but I know already I won’t remember it as long and as vividly as the unsolicited feedback I got after one of my old band’s early shows.

A guy - an acquaintance, in another band in the … “scene” seems like a strong word, but in the group of bands that often played bills with each other, in various combinations. He wasn’t my closest friend from that band, but we were friendly! And after my band came offstage, he came over to tell me what he thought.

“You often sound like you’re just talking, not singing,” he said, and advised me that I’d want to watch that - and then hastily backpedaled “-unless that’s what you were going for, of course!”

Naturally, I think about that every time I open my mouth on a stage or even just when practicing. And I wasn’t even trying to impress this guy in particular! But he wasn’t impressed, and god forbid someone goes away unimpressed. This was probably 8 or 9 years ago now, maybe more, I didn’t do any math, and it still sticks with me. Criticisms versus compliments.

Of course this isn’t to say that no one should ever criticize anyone - but I do feel like the “who asked you, buddy?” of it all factors in; if you’re not a critic writing for your publication of choice, and you’re just some guy, and nobody asked? Shut up! Don’t walk up to someone’s face and tell them in detail why they suck. Go complain to your friends! This is why some gay person invented group chats! If someone’s asking for criticism, then they’re emotionally prepared (or they think they are, and are about to find out otherwise, haha hoho), and if you’re in a situation where critical feedback is expected, sure! But you’re going to leave footprints on this person’s psyche, so you have to tread carefully.

What am I reading

Like everyone else, I’m reading The Saint of Bright Doors, by Vajra Chandrasekera. I ought to be about half done it by this point, but instead I’m just about 50 pages in or so. Still, it’s already got me hooked; the world, with its normalized magic (but also cars and therapy and social networks), the main character, and I’m curious to find out what he’s going to do and why he’s going to do it (and what does it have to do with this character and that).

Also, things get gay nearly right away, so you don’t have to worry you’re in one of these books:

To give you just a little bit of an idea of what it’s, you know, actually about, we meet the main character, Fetter, as a child. He’s being trained by his mother as an assassin. His father is the charismatic leader of a religion, but has abandoned them; Fetter has the ability to float above the ground and sees fantastical creatures that no one else (maybe?) sees. We then rejoin him as an adult, when he has moved to a new city and is part of a support group for other un-chosen ones - scions of various religions who did not get the official stamp of successorhood or divinity. So far, that’s where I am - he’s learning a bit more about his fellow unchosens and getting the hang of this town (and the titular bright doors - everywhere, locked, not corresponding to the architecture of the building or wall they’re set in, mysterious, and beloved). The book thrums with possibility at this point, and I just know it’s going to go somewhere interesting. Besides, everyone loves it so much, imagine if it didn’t!

Some links

I was going to say that this article takes a hard twist pretty early on, but I suppose the title tells you where we’re going with this. It’s an important, unflinching read for people who want to think of themselves as abolitionists but waver when it comes to people who do truly terrible things. How Sparing the Parkland Shooter’s Life Changed Florida’s Death Penalty

This is heartbreaking to read, especially in the aftermath of Helene, and as Milton approaches Florida. It’s about a tornado, not a hurricane, but it’s similarly a storm that hit a place that isn’t used to getting that sort of storm. Also, the last line is a knife. The Town That Blew Away

This is how I found out that Maria Branyas was no longer the oldest person in the world (because she died, I mean. It’s not like someone can pass you on the track). All of these supercentenarians seemed really normal. They lived a long life for normal reasons. I don’t particularly want to live that long - 42 is already longer than I expected to live, imagine having to do it again almost twice over! - but it’s nice to see that their secrets to longevity weren’t “kale smoothies every day and go bonkers in the gym,” or anything full on wacky. It’s just lucky genes and being sensible. Hard Work and Fizzy Drinks: What It Takes to Live Past 110

The headline makes it seem like this is mostly about Russia, but it’s actually mostly about a small Norwegian town near the border, and how both the Norwegians and the Russians do friendly and unfriendly spying on each other from there. It’s really interesting, actually. Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic

Ok, this might not be the most rigorously scientifically researched thing you’ve ever read in your life, but it really does seem that cultures all over the world refer to the same constellation as depicting seven girls or sisters or princesses, but if you look at the actual sky, there are only six stars in that constellation. So why is everyone talking about there being seven? Well, what if the story was old enough that there did used to be seven? The World’s Oldest Story? Astronomers Say Global Myths About “Seven Sisters” Stars May Reach Back 100,000 Years

Not quite as ancient, but still pretty cool - but also, why was the Pharaoh’s sword lying around in a military settlement? I feel like there are a lot of unanswered questions here! Sword With Pharaoh’s Mark Found in Egypt, Still Shimmering 3,000 Years Later

This is Good, Actually. The only point at which it becomes not so good is when the scam results in no bikes available for other people to use when they need them. These types of tools - publicly available rentable bikes - should be helpful to the people who live in a city, and if you can make a buck off the big company that runs them while not taking the bikes away from other folks who need them, why shouldn’t you? The Hustlers Who Make $6,000 a Month By Gaming Citi Bikes

This is pretty cool: a decommissioned offshore lighthouse is becoming a place you can pay money to stay at, if you’re the sort of person who would enjoy a hotel that’s only reachable by boat but not at all luxurious (I… might be that kind of person). The water it stands in is very shallow! You can look at sharks! The stars, at night!! But the most interesting line of the article was about what they could have done with the place, being as it’s in international waters. Am I going to write something about a pirate brothel one of these days? Who can say… who can say. I Stayed at This Coast Guard Station in the Middle of the Ocean. So Can You

Pennies are dumb! Pennies are also expensive! Dump him!! But also this really opened my eyes about the insanely large role Coinstar plays in American banking. But either way: drop the penny! America Must Free Itself From the Tyranny of the Penny

I’ve been to Niagara Falls once, and of course we didn’t go in the boats, because that costs money. Standing on the walkway peering out over the railing is free (and still pretty impressive!!) And then we got back in the car and kept it moving. I’m sure my dad has slides of it. The Mighty Sights of Niagara Falls

I have not, on the other hand, been to Yellowstone. But honestly, given this article and others like it, I’m not sure I want to. If, instead of seeing the things that make it remarkable, you’re just seeing other people, all of whom are thinking about whether they could get away with petting a bear, why go? If you can’t enjoy watching superheated water fly out of the ground - an insane thing that really happens on this planet!! - without having to line up behind the most annoying person in the world, why go? I don’t mean that the outdoors has to be empty to be any fun, but turning it into a conveyor belt kind of sucks the wonder out of it. Why Does Yellowstone National Park Turn Us All Into Maniacs?

DELICIOUS. Donegal Farmer Uncovers 22kg Slab of Ancient Bog Butter

DELICIOUS!! Oldest Cheese Found in 3200-Year-Old Egyptian Tomb Hides a Pathogenic Secret

So, in the 1930s, the Resettlement Agency was trying to build new communities out of whole cloth for people whose farms had gone under or who had lost jobs, but you can’t just put a bunch of people in homesteads together and expect community to form magically. So they decided that the answer was going to be music. And these women were sent round to all these communities to collect and share folk songs, and you haven’t heard of them, because men who did not do the actual work stole all the credit! Government Song Women

You’ve heard, or maybe you recall first-hand, how the Y2K issue wound up being a non-issue due to a great deal of diligent work leading up to the fateful date. Well. This is not that. This is the story of a documentation initiative/make-work project so that a big international agency could say they were prepared for Y2k, which you’ll note is different from actually being prepared for it. The author was hired as part of the group doing the documentation. It’s a terrific read. The Contingency Contingent

This is actually kind of funny. New York used to forbid garbage cans (because… vibes? unsure) and the one good thing Eric Adams did other than revitalize the internet meme industry by getting indicted for hilariously inept corruption and also just being a generally insane person was UN-FORBID them. And now all the fancy shops want to make sure no one steals their trash cans. The Branded Trash Cans of Madison Ave

There need to be more articles about the people who make it possible for other people to do their jobs. This is about childcare workers - mainly nannies, but I believe some of the people profiled also worked in daycares. One of the most precarious, underpaid, and necessary jobs there is. The Workers Behind the Workers

This is a description of the executions, by electric chair, of two people, a man and a woman. The title, and most of the piece, focuses on the woman, because when this was originally published (1928!), a woman getting executed was still a novelty. But it feels like the author goes in full of morbid curiosity and comes out subdued, seeing what exactly it is to be killed by the state. A Woman Burns

A very literal illustration of the ways that colonialism has shaped our lives and our history, even if you’re not a person who thinks of themselves as colonized. Also, a little bit of a story of bureaucracy, bad maps, and sailors. To Understand Mississippi, I Went to Spain

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

Someone I follow online evidently also took in a steady diet of Neko Case and posted about how her lyrics are on another plane of reality than your standard pop song, and that’s true in general (not even in terms of being “better,” just completely different), but I’d like to submit for your consideration this sweetly-delivered line from this very song³:

I mean!!

Another one with a favorite lyric:

This song is 10 minutes long, but first of all, none of you click on these anyway⁴ so who’s it hurting. Second of all, sometimes a song needs to be 10 minutes long. Sometimes a song is big. Oh, and if we’re doing lyrics for each one, the line “All your money keeps your horses fed” is a pretty good one here.

This month’s top 5: Times I have been “sleep all day” sick in my life

1. This time

2. When I had the months-long mystery digestive bug in college, and even then it was only on the most severe days

3. I assume when I got my tropical disease when I was 5 and living in Indonesia (each one of us got something, at some point; my dad got Dengue fever but that’s the only one that had a name)

4. Those are literally all the times I can remember

5. Because this doesn’t happen! If I get sick, I fight it off or I power through it!

I had other interesting stuff to put in this stinger, but all I’m doing right now is watching Hurricane Milton approach Florida, worrying about how it’s going to get steamrolled. Not that being on high ground is necessarily going to save you - see: North Carolina in Helene, and the dambreaks and mudslides and washouts that occurred in the mountains there - but Florida is nearly featureless, topographically. It’s nearly underwater already, and it’s going to get absolutely wallopped. Evacuating is a privilege that not everyone has, and I’m just watching with dread in my heart for everyone who’s going to be in harm’s way.

_{1 Achilitos Taqueria my enemy!!}

_{2 hint: it’s not going to be much}

_{3 idk what’s up with the up-the-nose shot here but anyway}

_{4 of course i have analytics on this, this isn’t amateur hour}