So Jenny and I have been just stupidly sick for days now. Jenny has had a cold more or less since Christmas, and I’ve had one for about a week.
Jenny’s had clearly developed into a sinus infection, so we went to the emergency room on Sunday to try to get Jenny some antibiotics. After staying long enough to see the Jets go from up three to disastrously trounced, we realized they were simply never going to see Jenny. So then yesterday we went to the doctor and Jenny got antibiotics, while I got codeine cough syrup as a consolation prize, having merely a viral infection.
We both went to work today. I spent the morning throwing up in my office bathroom, then managed to hide in my office and fall asleep in my chair — always a classy move — only to be awakened by Cheryl, one of the secretaries, coming in to give me my new UN ID. I was obviously startled, confused and unwell, and Cheryl told me several times, in several ways, that I should really go home, while I semi-coherently insisted I was fine.
It took me about five nauseous minutes to realize the Cheryl was right. I checked in with Mr. Yoo, who told me to take a couple of extra days if I needed them, and then headed out the door, taking a woozy cab ride back to Brooklyn and the comfort of my own toilet to vomit in.
Jenny also came home early, feeling wiped and having little to hold her at the office. She took care of me, cooking me some ramen with miso and then going out to get me tomato soup and Nilla Wafers. I took a nap, during which I managed to have two archetypal nightmares at once: I was chased from my bedroom in Marin into the Lower East Side by an oversized bogey-man sexual predator, who managed to follow me to the grad school in the dingy building where I couldn’t find my classroom and hadn’t done the reading. Eventually I escaped the building, the bogey-man still in pursuit, and ran in search of a police or fire station. But when I saw two firefighters, it turned out they were just gay guys in firefighter jackets. Then I remembered that I should wake up.
I have had weird nightmares before, usually during fevers: menacing triangles, menacing a capella groups. I can’t ever remember being chased by the bogey-man, and I’m just completely baffled by the eruption of psychic homophobia, which has really just never been my big problem. As for the creepy grad school — complete with a girl I didn’t like from my DoubleClick days, who had done all the reading — this is my first school nightmare since the one back in 2001, in which my boss at DoubleClick made an appearance and told me to stop worrying about school and get back to work.
It’s been a lovely few days. I’ll be staying home tomorrow, and hopefully no disasters will befall.