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August 1, 2003

Decrepitude

My mind was wandering a bit yesterday, and I got to thinking about a particular moment back in my quickprint days. One of the guys I worked with was a real basket case sometimes. He'd come in and his hands would be shaking from the DTs and he would be coming down by way of a coffee overdose. He'd been in the business for ages and had gone from prepress, to press operator to graphic artist. He really knew his stuff. All the same, he just had those days when he couldn't take any lumps in his gravy. One afternoon, I ran across a largish post-it note slapped on his computer screen. In a hasty scrawl, the note read:

No touch.
Or moving.
Fear of loss.
Your life.

I fell in love with that note. Before I went home, I came back and retrieved it from the trash can so I could stick it in my scrapbook. I don't remember what sort of Rube Goldberg Device he was working on, but I have been there. In a variety of ways. Just like this past week.

All of us, Amanda, Giselle, Harrison, and I, have been nailed by one malicious infection or another over the past couple weeks, and I got my just desserts starting last weekend. It smacked me down good. For about five days, I felt exactly like that post-it note...well except for the point where I finally begged Amanda to chop me into a couple dozen pieces and toss all the bits far enough apart so none of the nerve endings could communicate with each other. The last time I can remember feeling that bad for so long was back in the chemo days. The endless migraine style headache finally broke Wednesday and I was able to get back to work Thursday. It's still that walking under water feeling, but I can function. I got an extra bonus of pinkeye. Bleah. Harrison's got the lizard-eye too, but it looks extra scary on him for some reason.

So now I've got these eyedrops for this gaping wound I call an eye. Eyedrops and I do not play well together. I hold that teeny bottle over my eyeball--can't touch ANY part of the eye! Conjunctivitis is a weapons-grade biotoxin and will befoul the medicine if it contacts the dropper--and as smidgenly as that bottle is, it looms menacingly like the Death Star over peaceful Alderaan. And as I slowly squeeze the bottle, my eye just keeps blink-flinching because I know that huge, cold marble of juice is going to nail me when I least expect it. And then it does. Right down my cheek. Fooey. I was off by 4 or 5 millimeters, so I compensate, go through the whole flinchey thing again--and moisten my eyebrow. Okay. The gunnery sergeant has got a range now. So we interpolate, and BLAM right in the eyeball. Augh I hate that. Blink blink blink. Dab dab with the tissue. Supposed to do two drops per eye (gotta run preventive measures on the healthy one too), so I just have to do that three more times. And then do it four times a day. I don't know. Maybe I'll be comfortable with the whole ordeal after I've finished the seven-day prescription. Wouldn't want to go blind after all.

So, two weeks of travel and two weeks of the blight, and my front yard is icking with the scraggles. I'm so embarrassed. Now that I can navigate again, I want to subdue my yard, but if all four of us are untainted, I want to head down to Phoenix to see Grandma without fear of infecting her.

Here's to the mighty virus!

Posted by Jeremy at August 1, 2003 5:51 PM