You Give Me Fever

When I worked at the law firm there was a parking lot on the adjacent block that was developed into an office building. (Dec 2007.)

I’ve never been able to understand people who get sick all the time and say things like, “this is my fourth cold this winter.” How can you get 4 colds in one winter?

It took forever for them to pound those beams into the ground. (May 2008)

I’m the kind of person who gets sick about once a year. Sometimes I go an entire year without getting sick and every once in awhile I might get sick twice in one year. Once I get sick I know I’m done with it for awhile which is why my entire world was turned upside down when I woke up a couple of nights ago coughing my face off and discharging quarts of goop into tissues that piled in a heap by the bed.

I haven’t been back over there in awhile and walked over there last week.

Remember I just did this? I was sick for most of the month of November. Never in my life have I been sick for 3 1/2 weeks and then healthy for 2 weeks and then gone back down again. There I was, back on the couch, nostrils returned to their chapped state. I huddled under my blanket, whining and complaining, and drinking peppermint tea.

And it’s not like I’m engaging in high risk activities. I don’t run around outside in the middle of the night in my bare feet, eating Doritos and drinking beer. I don’t let small children put their fingers in my mouth. I don’t suck on the door handles of public places.

Building is finished and there are people in there. They’ve got a Starbucks which is a huge relief because it means that in a 5 block strip of that street, there are 3.

I do not understand how this happened. I’ve been going over it in my head and trying to figure out what’s different. Aging? Well, maybe. But you know what else?

I quit taking vitamins.