Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

I'm kinda back; I'm not fully back. As such, this post will be brief. (I wanted to compose a good long one, but circumstances have dictated otherwise.) This subject is also of importance to me as well, as I have been "sick" for the past couple of weeks (just a bit of a different kind of "sick" that won't be detailed here). So I will try to think of some past instances when I've been sick.

One problem is, I don't get sick. I had chicken pox when I was in kindergarten. I don't recall ever having the flu. I used to get a cold once a year when I worked in the library; since I don't deal with the germs inherent in working in a place like that, I don't even get colds too often- it's been probably close to two years since I've had a full-blown cold (I do have some allergy problems- but that doesn't count). The funny part about that is, I always think I am sick- I've always been a bit of a hypochondriac. I have, in the course of my life, diagnosed myself with everything from heart disease to brain aneurysm to pleurisy to skin cancer; and, of course, I go to the doctor and absolutely nothing is wrong with me. The upshot to that is, I see doctors regularly, so I keep up on my physicals, tests, etc.

I have only two relatively funny stories about sickness: In 1999 I took Ryan out for lunch for his birthday to a Chinese buffet (which still exists- it's the one in the Lake City Mall, Wangdong or whatever it's called). I was violently ill the next day. This was also less than a week into my new job, which was my job at the library, of which I had to already call in sick. I think I went back to that restaurant once, again with Ryan, but I seem to remember not eating much if anything.

A few years ago I had a cold, and this cold was accompanied by a persistent cough. This cough literally kept me up all night. I didn't want to call in sick the next day, after already having missed a day due to the cold, so I went to work a zombie (that day was my day to drive children's books to the various city daycares, so I drove that huge old library van (Steph, you know which one I'm talking about- the monster) up to a bunch of kiddie daycare places in a total stupor luckily not killing myself or any kids etc.). It was also the first and only time I drank one of those energy drinks, which made me so hyper that I had the shakes for about half an hour and then I pissed for five minutes and then felt even more tired. So that night when I got home, I just wanted to sleep. And I was going to take some cough suppressant that I just bought (I was so tired at this point, I didn't care about the cough anymore, but I was still fightin' it), and I was gonna sleep like the friggin dead. So I got home, and of course the first thing I did was take the cough suppressant (it was Robitussin). And as I went to go to bed, my roommate at the time came home. And, us being close, he wanted to talk. I wanted to go to sleep, but he wanted to talk, about something, a girl or something, you know, so I sat there for twenty minutes and let him talk. And, being so damned tired, I forgot I had already taken my medicine and I took it again. Five minutes later, I thought I was going to die. I could barely move or get up, my tongue hurt bad, I got the cold sweats, and my roommate was getting primed up to take me to the hospital. A minute later, I puked. After which, the cough was completely gone (from the puking- I don't give the tussin the credit for that). It was the last time I ever took Robitussin.

That's all I got. I sincerely hope everyone who feels sick starts feeling better soon.