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Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002 / 11:52 a.m. ~Enjoy National "Hack a Lung Day"!~ I've been forgetting to look at my guestbook as I sift through my email (my ISP's 'spamguard' is malfunctioning so I'm being inundated with offers to increase my penis size and get a better mortgage and try some new drug and marry Russian women and well you know the rest), but I just looked and WOW! Thanks you guys! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I love you, man! All of you. This place can be so great, this Diaryland, this Interweb thing, it can feel like one big interdependent organism, or a big happy family, or a network of friends, or yeah. I'm still sick. Sorry. Why am I apologizing? Okay, I took three Echinacea capsules with each meal yesterday. Normally I take two a day with dinner, take it down to one (which was my big mistake the night before I came down with this thing), then none if I'm feeling good. This prevents me from succumbing, normally. Normally. And I took an extra gram of Vitamin C. Two grams total. I swear, this is really silly, but I thought I'd be cured today. I'd thought my body would fight. What's wrong with my body? It's really letting me down. Caroline got sick and took a couple days off work (one or two?), briefly mentioned a cough, then she was all better. How come I'm still sick? And how come I'm such a big baby about it? And don't you resort to saying "how come?" instead of "why?" when you're sick and feeling like a big baby? I know I do. At least I still have my sense of humor. It never went away. There must be something else to write about besides my virus...... yeah, what about this sniper dude? And you know how we're all calling him a 'he'? Know why? Because a woman wouldn't do that. I hate to be all sexist and everything, but you know I'm right. It's not a woman. A woman might lose her cool outside a shopping mall and shoot a group of people, but she'd break down after she did it, she wouldn't keep going at it for days. I just really don't think so. Seriously, from the beginning, this shooter has been referred to as 'he'. I called in sick Thursday, as well as Wednesday, though it's all a bit of a blur today, and I lay in bed for a long time watching TV. The most interesting thing to watch on a weekday is CNN, of course, and there was some talking head, or talking head and torso actually (in a tight turtleneck, natch), who referred to 'him' as the 'snooper' before she corrected herself. I'm guessing she was thinking 'shooter', but she was supposed to say 'sniper' on account of that's the 'buzzword', but she said 'snooper', and as in most tragedies, it's best to find some humor so you can laugh off a bit of the tension, or not, but I laughed. The 'SNOOPER', tee hee! I know, it's not funny, it's SO not funny. I know, don't hate me. You had to be there, lying in bed sick as a dog (why 'as a dog'?), trying to find something to watch on TV, picturing all these good old black and white movies, like "Thin Man" or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or something, but there's nothing on so you're watching a tight turtleneck flub her lines and call this 'dude' a SNOOPER. Look, it made me feel better to laugh at her. No, I can't imagine. Just trying to fill the tank and bam. That's it. Poof. And what's with Michael's craft stores? Is this a disgruntled employee? And why did he take last weekend off? Will he take this weekend off? Does he only shoot Monday through Friday? Someone referred to his pattern of shootings taking place during 'workers hours'. The Blue Collar Shooter. Snooper. Sniper. Horrible. I should call my friend Amy. She's in the D.C. area. I wonder if she's scared...... I would be. I really would. Oh, today. This is the 30th Anniversary of my sister's murder. Wow. Thirty years...... I wish she were around, but I know if she were that everything else in my life would be vastly different. Believe me, I've done the 'where would I be now if...?' thing in my head a few times. 'If my mother hadn't died....', 'If my sister hadn't been killed....', etc. It doesn't do any real good, but it doesn't do any harm either. It's just a little mind game, there's no way to know for certain, and the past cannot be changed. Something to remember. You cannot drive faster than the car in front of you, and the past cannot be changed. Right. So I took Thursday off too. I had to set my alarm to call in sick, and I knew I'd be calling in when sometime in the middle of the night I was tossing and turning unable to sleep. That is such a bitch to have to wake up to call in, and the dreams that I've already called in, then I wake up and I still have an hour, and then I can't get back to sleep, etc., etc., and it was hell, really. (I made sure to tell D., the Supervisor, that yesterday, how much of a drag it is to be sick in bed and have to wake up to call in, that there should be a better way) Then of course came the search for something on TV, because it's hard to read when I'm sick, or maybe it's hard to read at home because I know there's a TV or two with the digital cable, but I ended up watching a documentary on HBO called "Skinheads USA". Horribly fascinating. I couldn't turn it off, but it was horrifying. This ringleader, I won't mention his name, to lessen the chances of search engine hits, but he's Charles Manson-like, really. He has this hold over these young boys, these boys who've run away from home, who've been abused or neglected, who feel they have nothing to live for, to fight for, and they sit and watch old tapes of Nazi marches and Hitler speeches, etc....... and burn crosses. And go to downtown Birmingham to recruit new members. They see him as a father figure. They said so. They believe this country was settled by whites and it should revert back to being all whites (post-Natives slaughter, of course). I won't expound any further, it was gross. Except to say that the ringleader dude was imprisoned in the end, and hopefully he is still locked up. Although his 'followers' wanted to take to the streets with guns and kill everyone.... I don't think that's happened yet. Although, we have this Snooper dude.... Anyway, I managed to shower for the first time in three days and made it to the store to buy 'meds', and that was a major accomplishment. Standing in the cold medicine aisle, squinting because my left nostril kept threatening to run all down my face, trying to put my finger on what exactly my symptoms were so I could buy the right drug. I settled on Dayquil and Nyquil, old standbys. I had my hand on the Sudafed for a while there, but I think I went the right way. And three different kinds of chicken soup, and yes, I believe the Progresso will be the best. Then there were the Thursday shows, the "Survivor", and thank god that Ghandia woman was voted off (troublemaker!), and the "CSI", what's with examining stomach contents without a mask on?, and the "ER", with the vibrator removal scene! Yikes! That show has gone back over the top again. It varies. It's slow, it's dramatic, then they try to win ratings and they 'take it up a notch', you know? The combo of "CSI" and "ER" can sometimes leave me feeling totally drained, cold or no cold. And.... I live with these two cats, one N and one G, and they want to be where I am, preferably ON me, when I'm home. So we've been spending, er, quality time together. Fun stuff. I sort of ran out of sick days, well I suppose I could've used vacation days, but I didn't want to call in sick another day, and I already thought no one would believe I was sick, although my Supervisor, D., finally wished me well on Thursday morning, and I did sound sick when I called, but I went back to work yesterday and Kukla just said Hello, or How you doin', or something innocuous, not the appropriate and much called for, "Jesus you haven't called in sick in two years, and you just missed TWO DAYS, are you OKAY??!?!!?!?!" Listerine had drawn me two pictures with hilighters (how do you spell hilighter?), one said, "Welcome Back" and had drawings of animals (the snake looked like a sperm, but it said 'snake' next to it) and geometric shapes, all labeled: "Triangle", "Bat", "Turtle", "Diamond". Funny, colorful. The other was of me, barefoot, with my glasses on, in a park, a rainbow on one side, two blue clouds up above, a couple of seagull-like birds, and in my hands were two cats, one in each hand, each labeled "cat". She said she couldn't remember their names. I immediately taped them up in my cube. I couldn't believe how sweet it was. Laverne came over to see them and said how she'd told Listerine she didn't know why she drew glasses on my face, she didn't know I wear glasses, and I said several times, "You don't see me. You never look at me." as she looked at the drawings and not at me. She never makes eye contact, how would she know? Listerine asked if I was going to make it, throughout the day, and I remembered asking her the same thing, recently, as she's been sick too, and it may be her cold I have. I told her our workplace is a writhing petri dish of viruses and bacteria, and she gasped. Well, it is. It made me sick. I read all day, I whispered on the phone (one woman whispered back, mocking me - one man told me to eat some peppers and my cold would clear right up!), and I came home and watched my Thrashers lose to Carolina. Tonight they play their first home game of the season, but I'll be watching from home. Supportive, in my own way. I intend to watch TV, maybe read if I can stand it (somehow my cube is more conducive to reading than any location in my apartment - I could've sat there all night last night and read...), and eat more soup today. Tomorrow Mark and I go to the Greek Festival, and I refuse to be too sick to go. He is telling me to cancel if I'm not up to par, but I've waited two years for this, they postponed it last year for Church construction. Even if I can't taste it I have to get some Retsina wine, and I'm considering branching out, skipping the lamb sandwich and going for the combo platter, the spanikopita, the dolmades (I hope there are dolmades!), the whole nine yards. And I think I want a book about Saints. But I'm not sure. Maybe I'll buy more icons. I love the Greek icons. Okay, I think we're all caught up now. Thanks again for the well wishes, and the cards (you know who you are!), you guys are great! Cost of the War in Iraq
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