...when a co-worker (the workforce has such perks! I have co-workers now!!) tells me that she sees me walking and wants to grab me (pinching her index finger and thumb together delicately all the while), place me in her purse, and take me home...

Today was a celebratory day. It was the first in a week wherein my mother didn't vomit. Cheap thrills, I guess...but I was so thrilled that I wasn't concerned with the price tag. I walked in the door and found her folding laundry. Knowing she wouldn't want me offering to do it for her, I dusted and polished the furniture instead. Teamwork, not charity...they call it politics.

My Aunt Rose surprised us with containers of homemade soup...my mother, father, and I sighed over steamy bowls of it. We watched old Bonanza reruns on TV Land. Mom and I talked. My dad laughed at the old show, unaware of our goings-on. It was pretty much a normal turn of events. The house smelled crisply of citrus disinfectants and Pledge. Candles were illuminated, and the dryer purred. It was peaceful and serene...and the place felt contentedly, blissfully, incandescently alive.

It sounds rather staid, all of it. I think I could handle a bit of "staid" for awhile. I could handle the guidelines holding firm for a block of time. I think I could even handle a bit of boring. "Boring" felt pretty damn good today.

Meanwhile, I am gathering her smiles and her laughter...and I am carving them into the cornerstones at my foundation to have them always.

I hit the gym after work yesterday...(Hah! "Work"! Never gets old!)

The continuing efforts to outrun this cold are well underway. Its symptom-set has turned shifty, moving from runny nose over to achy, then to absurd feverish tendencies, and now over to a sore throat and the ever-present frog that resides there. I tell you, I've never felt more attractive in all my life. Well, not since my foray into search terms last year. It's good to see that I put my best face forward...and so aptly, too.

I finished my bout on the treadmill yesterday and staggered to the back room to stretch out my quivering legs. I sort of go into autopilot in the stretching, and I suppose it tends to look rather yoga-ish to the onlookers. I was doing a simple forward bend from cobbler's pose...similar to "butterfly stretch" if you remember the days of elementary school calisthenics. A large man entered the studio then, a room I had, until that point, had to myself.

He wasn't overly tall, but stout...or stocky. I saw him only out of the corner of my eye, my face being pressed to the mat as it was, but I was shocked to hear his voice as he spoke to me. It was high and English-tinged in a dye of utmost sophistication. I fully expected him to throw in a "hitherto" or "hence" in his soft alto. "Will I ruin your serenity if I use the punching bag over here?" he asked politely.

"No, not at all! Do what you need to do! I'll be fine!" And so, I continued with my pose, then moved to another...all to the soundtrack of grunting and punching. I reclined on my back and stretched my feet and hands as far as they would go in opposite directions and relaxed. My transient roommate took a break from his routine as well.

"You will need to write a poem. 'Sun salutations to the rhythm of the heavy bag' me thinks." With that, he left the room, and I am still left in a quandary at such a contradictory fellow. Rocky Balboa with the voice and gentility of Rupert Everett?

...it tickles the brain.

I felt a little off on New Year's Eve, you know. It was this odd sensation at the pit of my stomach, and not even grapes could sway me to appease my hunger—so you know it was serious. GRAPES!  I greeted the next day, the new year, with a raw throat and a predilection toward the unsure-footed. I had nice company to distract me from my ever-declining health then, but when I had the misfortune of waking the next morning I knew it was time for a little divine intervention. I looked to my spiritual leader, and, not surprisingly, Walgreen's did not disappoint. I was introduced to someone who might be of some comfort.

Tylenol Cold & Flu Severe Daytime was the name of the fellow, and I was smitten. For those of you who know me...I mean know me, know me, you know that I have a low tolerance for just about everything, be it caffeine, sugar, alcohol, or Clem. This mattered little to me as I downed a full dose. I was so miserable. Note that italicized "so".

Within an hour, I was feeling humanish again, and decided to change my clothing and hit the gym...I've been told that a good bit of cardio can chase away a head cold. The stairs seemed steeper as I descended, and I sought to fist the wall in my hand. Hmmm. I bent in half to tie my shoes after the alteration in apparel, and when I straightened, the room went wonky. I stumbled drunkenly in a two-foot perimeter before giving in and body-diving face-first into the bed.

I made it to the gym...eventually...I ran for an hour—and I am working to convince myself that I didn't look as maladroitly awkward as I felt. Perhaps that is redundant, but I think it pertinent to note that I couldn't even pull off "awkward" with a level of grace. The run did help, and I was breathing easier by the time I returned home...I even made plans to go see The Chronicles of Narnia. It was time for my next dose.

I had decided early-on that my previous, more dizzy state was due primarily to the cold. And, the buzzer sounds, "ENGH!" Nope, that was totally the drug. Totally. I have nearly finished the bottle now...and Brenda is due to pick me up another tonight. It isn't that I like being high, per se, but that I've never found such an effective cold remedy in all my years of lackluster immune system behavior. So what if I'm all bruised from walking into door frames, [windows], and the like? I can breathe through my nose!

I was given a procedures manual to read yesterday. (LOVE the job, by the way!) They kept telling me, "It won't make sense today, or any time soon, but we'll have you read it every morning and eventually it'll click." HAH!—little did they know! It could have read like See Spot Run and I would have had a lolling tongue and vacant expression. But hey...low expectations! Can't beat that! Whee!

EDIT:

Wow...this was very poorly written—my apologies. I blame it on my spacy cold-medicine head completely...I was to report to the job at 8...and suddenly looked at the clock and it was 7:30. Responsible-Laura took over and totally bummed out the artist.

---

So, I start my job today...exciting! As Brenda left for the day, she said, "Have a good day at work!"

To which I replied, and forgive my zany originality here, "You, too!" We stared at each other and blinked slowly for about ten seconds. Laura. Employed. New. Concept. Nodding reassuringly to ourselves that this was indeed the proper exchange in such a situation, we parted ways.

I have a cold. I'm a decent sick person...I don't get whiny, leastwise not overmuch. (Apparently, for today anyway, I have a fondness for coupled words that we English-speakers have joined together in laziness over the years...nevertheless, I can overcome this undoing!) Anyway, with my mother, I haven't allowed myself to see her. I can't get her sick. So I haven't really seen her since Thursday. It's very depressing.

Dad called me this morning to wish me a nice first day...and to let me know that he would be taking Mom into the hospital again today...she can't keep anything down. It was the same story all weekend. They figured it was the morphine, so they changed pain medications...to no end. Now, logically, they believe that it isn't the pain medication at all...which is slightly more than scary...but I can't afford myself the time to think about it. Ebb. Flow. Ebb. Flow.

But, my brain tends to live outside of its means.