In honor of the strangely sad drama that is my immune system at this point in time, I have named the fever Chris. This is just demeaning.

Child

When I accused Child of giving me bronchitis, he speculated this might be a hitherto unknown yet strangely compelling superpower. I told him that the reason we don't have cats is because I didn't want it proven he was a future serial killer. He seemed surprised I used the word 'future'. The really sad part, that's not even the incipient fever type of conversation.

I have picked up a bad habit due to the internet and Child; he gets in the mood to ask me questions (like, unanswerable ones: "Are there any female Reavers? How does that work if they rape and eat everyone?" What the fuck, Child? Don't make me think about that.) in endless barrages of 'why'. This was fine before he was literate and the existence of wikipedia, but now it's just to annoy me. My most recent go-to answer is "Because they hate you", which by the way, doesn't actually work except in changing the nature of the questions, at least as it relates to Firefly as Child observed, "Joss Whedon kind of his entire audience" which I cannot say isn't true, so that went well.

Child's bff and my sister's first ex-husband's son is over for a few days before he goes back home, which is always kind of disastrously adorable, as they're both teenagers and yet have been friends since the age of four, so regression is both inevitable and hysterical. Step-Nephew is also at the hilarious age of discovering girls and the shocked realization after years of comfortable acquaintance that my youngest sister, me, and his father's female friends are, y'know, girls. Child has been fucking ruthless about noticing really verbally whenever possible despite retaliation during X-Box tournaments. This doesn't end well for Child. He really doesn't seem to care.

( child and things, at length )

Ouch

I am less amused than anything at picking up bronchitis up now. I haven't actually been feverish as it's been just a really goddamn irritating cough and surprisingly mild congestion, which is actually fairly typical at work right now with everyone. It's much, much worse when I want to do stupid things like sleep, but seems to go away completely when I have to work or talk to people, which is the most inconvenient illness in history. I honestly don't see the goddamn point of being just ill enough to not sleep well and have a sore throat but can still test a program and have to carry on conversations. It's just stupid.

Me-Ness

Okay, so I am less filled with personal tragedy atm, but just know there's like, a very low possibility that in five days you will not see me enacting new and dramatic renditions on the unfairness of life as I know it.

This is the full sense approach to post-bronchitis (sort of) life; this will be my reminder why I don't smoke.

1.) taste - here are the the things that taste bad == EVERYTHING. In the spirit of experiment, and because let's face it, I do this shit when I'm feeling particularly sorry for myself, I have licked sugar straight from palm and salt straight from palm to see where this could be going. Despite the fact they were noticeably themselves, my taste buds are registering them as Unholy Evil. Also Unholy Evil: broccoli, coffee, pepsi (which is also--I don't know how this happened?--no longer sweet), hamburgers, bread, butter, candy, air.

2.) smell - we are not even talking about this. I'm either not able to smell (see congestion) or I'm picking up likee, mold and the stench of death and destruction in a post-apocalyptic world. IDEK.

3.) other stuff - nausea, yeah, and weird nausea wiht no particular focus. Like a--floating nausea, if you will, that only comes by when doing tasks like fixing one's hair, showering, or expressing an opinion on the Weather Channel.

[...yes, I have had the weather channel on for a few--days now? It's very soothing.]

4.) fatigue - okay, yes, I know this is a normal thing and I'm lazy, so I shouldn't notice this? Yet I do.

5.) weight loss

( this is fairly specific to me )

Right. Done with that.

Ted Kennedy

From tzikeh's LJ, quoted from GQ

He has been an ally of blacks, American Indians, the poor, the sick, the aged, the mentally ill, starving refugees worldwide and immigrants. He has been an outspoken liberal, unafraid to take the controversial positions—on issues such as busing, abortion, gun control, the Vietnam War (late but forcefully), the nuclear freeze and capital punishment—that other senators clearly avoided.

I don't know if in all the world there's a greater way to be remembered.

So.

I'm going to show you my privilege.

This is the sixth time in three years I've had bronchitis. It's the fourth time since I was twice hospitalized for atypical pneumonia, which is still an unending mystery in my medical records. I am one of those in America who can afford to get sick. I can afford to get sick and afford to get well again. All it takes is a card I carry in my purse and my social security number.

There are some--truly amazing things about death courts and not having control fo your health and just--right, sure, I know that's important things going on there. But here is where I will explain what was the most importnat thing to me in my life.

In November 2006, I got out of bed still groggy, crossed the room, and realized I couldn't catch my breath. When I sat down, I couldn't draw a deep breath. On the drive to my doctor, I started losing consciousness in the car. When my mother half carried me to a seat, she took my purse, my wallet, and she took my medical card, and in less than a minute, I could breathe again. Thirty-five seconds of that was me not able to understand what they were trying to do with that goddamn mask.

I could breathe, and I was taken to an ambulance, admitted to a hospital, and handed over to every specialist who thought my x-rays looked cool. And there was delicious food. I'm going to say now, for the uninsured, this is not typical. I know because one of my earliest clients as a welfare caseworker were a Stage Four liver disease, a schizophrenic, a pregnant family, a cancer survivor, a single guy with a shitty job.

Let me shorten this: here is what I cared about that day I woke up and the pneumonia struck. I didn't actually give a really good shit about anything but remembering what it felt like to breathe. So you know, if someone, somewhere, will tell me how we can achieve universal health care that will be bipartisan? I am all over that. However, I'll be honest; I don't actually care.

We have waited, and we have hoped, and we have watched, and we have been promised, and we have been failed. We have been failed. This is the meaning of duty: to do what is right when it is not easy; to do what is true even when it is hard; to do what is needed rather than what is desired; to recognize your own weakness and try to be better; to be afraid and then stand up and do it anyway. Pass the health care bill. And shove it through the teeth of opposition to get it there.

So as it turns out, we have moved into bronchitis, which is, y'know, requiring of drugs. So if you have been following along here for about two years five months, or know the standard treatment, I have a pile of antibioitics, steroids, and okay, new thing, codeine cough syrup.

So I? Have two good things in my life. If I could breathe? There would be three. But codeine does make up for a lot of things.

In order:

Winterlive!

winterlive has Merlin icons up here with many pretty icons, including the one I snatched that I am using now, which is tentatively Prince With Migraine in Repose, or Right After Merlin Discovered the Deliciousness of Wine. As one does.

Fiction!

shinetheway wrote a whole bunch of potential endings to Efficient here.

transtempts adds one here.

thearchpoet writes a lovely Morgana one here.

The Plague!

I went to the doctor to slump sadly in a chair until I became bored, then played with the reflex hammer. In case anyone is curious, my knee reflexes are in fact working quite well. After kicking for a while, I kept using the foam to clean my hands off so as not to transport my death germs to other people and I think started getting a skin-related high from the alcohol content and carried on a spirited conversation with the doctor that in no way required her to actually answer. Bet that was fun for her.

So here is what we know. I have no lung congestion ("You have no congestion in your lungs!" she says in surprise. "I had pneumonia," I say grimly, leaning over to cough deliberately into a paper towel. "I cough." "Still..." "I cough with a torture device from Seton," I say, coughing again. "There will be no lung congestion. The food was terrible there." That's a lie. Their chicken lasagna was quite acceptable.) I have head congestion and sneezing and a note for work about my tragedy. I have bronchitis, which--okay? I mean, I am not going to argue or anything. I start something called Z-Pack antibiotics, but first I need to find my very special anti-nausea medication, because that shit is not on, and I remember the last time they gave me mysterious antibiotics and the death-nausea. I think this is throwing off my thyroid medication, but honestly, my entire immune system is in some kind of rebellion, so the only surprise at this point is that no one started making worried noises about x-rays so there could be more marveling at the odd that is my body.

Fool-proof way to cough is to laugh, and earlier, I told my mom the bear joke that svmadelyn told me. I am not in fact insane; she laughed very hard and I coughed. It's very hard to explain, but just, "you live like bears" is for some reason the funniest thing in the world.

And that concludes my Friday. I'm going to go look for merlinrps now, because I discovered my feelings on rps are like, directly proportional to how much non-rps I have to read and I am running out of things to read.

I also have tissues now a day after using paper towels and my nose hates me like some cats hate water. (My cat never did. So it's weird to say that.)

ETA: Sweet Child o' Mine by Taken by Trees is literally now the creepiest song I own. Also, it should be vidded.

I apparently have a cough and a fever (but no congestion, which is good except I am afraid because where is it, then?), which has sent my health paranoia into overdrive. To quote amireal:

seperis: I have a cough but no congestion and a fever.
amireal: I understand.
seperis: I am disconcerted.
amireal: probably a mild virus
seperis: I'm supposed to be writing toppyMerlin.
amireal: not everyone gets sick and then immediately needs the hospital
amireal: you are just special like that

Which is, you know, depressingly true. Also, the last time I went to Chicago and saw snow was also the reason two or three weeks later I had multiple doctors marveling over my x-rays and getting up close and personal with oxygen nose things and developed a delightful sensitivity to latex. However, let me point out, I still finished my remix while feverish and I forever feel I get huge points for writing a remix while vaguely hallucinating and clinging to an inhaler.

(And let me say, healing up the latex--thing--was a bitch. The remix was pretty good. I read it later and was really impressed how I kept like, sentence structure and all.)

Of course, svmadelyn was much more sensitive:

seperis: I have a fever.
seperis: This is not of the good, yeah?
svmadelyn: dawww.
svmadelyn: chicago vs. jenn
svmadelyn: chicago: 1; jenn: 0
seperis: Chicago - 2.
seperis: I picked up my second bout of pneumonia there in 2007.
seperis: Ami says normal people get fevers and don't need to go to the hospital.
seperis: *bewildered*
svmadelyn: this is true!

I feel loved.

Well, mostly, I feel no longer a vibe for writing porn, but an unbearable urge to write a long, long, long h/c where Arthur has a fever and Merlin takes care of him with like, ten pages of nothing but cuddling under blankets and drinking mulled wine and burrowing for warmth. Wow, that's not transparent at all, is it?

...or perhaps one where a terrible plague hits Camelot and Merlin is locked up in Arthur's quarters while Uther is out of the city and Arthur is left as regent and they burn the dead in the streets. Oh please. Like no one saw that coming.

*curls up* No congestion. We will go with that.

Randomly.

Child: Mom, who's that big guy on Stargate?
Me: Ronon?
Child: No. On the other one. The big black guy?
Me: Teal'c?
Child: Yes! HE IS SO COOL. Can you get me all of Stargate?
Me: *looks at amazon, pales: ten seasons* Uh.

Child went on to wax lyrical on Teal'c and John Sheppard. I--never thought they were all that comparable. Until you ask Child. Child's ideal team is now Dr. Who, John Sheppard, and Teal'c. He hasnt' chosen a fourth.

...you know? That team has possibilities. I wonder how Child will like Cameron Mitchell.

*mulls*

(Sometimes, my favorite part of any discussion with Child is his complete openness to crossovers. As far as he's concerned, Boa Versus Python and Jimmy Neutron can not only happen in the same universe, they really *should*.)

Less Randomly

Child and I have doctor's appointments in the morning. There really doesn't seem to be that much worry about a relapse so much as precautionary.

( hmm )