Unsurprising terrible case of the flu.
My son had it last week.
My son crept into bed with me every night for a week.
My son wheezed, sneezed, coughed, bloughed, hacked, and whacked me for several hours every night.
It’s tempting to not blog. It’s tempting to take these 15-30 minutes and rest or zone out or coddle myself.
I know that if I don’t hit the lovely Day 21, when the habit is engrained, I may start to give myself lots of permission not to post. I have already hit that wonderful point where I feel slightly off until I sit down to write. It’s pushing me. That’s a great feeling.
I’m not obsessing, of course, and I have a holiday planned early June — I may or may not post then. Depends on Internet access.
But I will write every day and just post when I get back from Holiday.
But now, I’m not on vacation. I’m on Cold-Eze and Tylenol and desperately trying to function.
Writing about not writing feels like a cheap cop-out, so I’ll briefly continue.
This is my state of mind while I’m down and almost out with a low-grade fever and a dry hacking cough that I’d give an equally low grade to.
I am thinking a lot about performing. I want to be in a show again. I had feverish dreams about being onstage again.
I miss practicing piano. I will be writing about piano lessons when I can construct a thought again.
My wailing about the state of Okay, I’ll Be the Slut-Girlfriend-Nurse-Stripper-Mom part makes me want to write something with a female-focus. One-woman show? DANG, I’d LOVE to pull an Elaine Stritch. I’d love to write a Piano-Bar type show, tongue in cheek, maybe a review, for women my age.
Or a spoof of that kind of old Broadway Story, behind the scenes stuff. Could be fun.
Alternately, I would be happy having my snack van (instead of the cupcake van) and just bake things and park outside local kids’ sporting events. For the parents, of course. I know that when the time comes for me to see my kid on the bench during his millionth soccer game, I’ma gonna want cake.
Last night, I delivered the meal to the family I wrote about. Again, I don’t know the mother well other than being on the Board with her at nursery school. We packed up the BBQ chicken southwestern salad, the rolls, the mini-key lime pies and all got in the car. The dog looked pathetic enough for us to give bring him along.
We got to the modest home in a rather immodest neighborhood. The handwritten “For Sale” sign on the lawn mirrored the somber tone in the house. The mama was at work, so I met the babysitter and gave a quick hello to the girls, 5, 3, and 1. The 5-year-old, who I had taught when I subbed at school, looked angrily at me. She seemed to have an understanding of everything going on and hated what I represented at that moment. She was dragging a ratty security blanket around and made very certain that I saw she was not going to acknowledge me.
I actually held it together until the one-year-old, a beautiful, smiling red-head who had maybe 6 teeth, pointed at my dog and turned to me joyously. “Kitty!” she said proudly.
I smiled, I hugged her, I told the babysitter to please tell the Mama to call if she needed anything, said goodbye to the girls, and got in the car.
I dissolved.