Fencing Bear at Prayer

I have been sick since Thursday.  I could tell I was getting sick sometime Thursday afternoon when suddenly I no longer had the will to do anything other than watch every episode of Castle , then Modern Family , then (because I was relatively caught up on those series) Body of Proof that I had not yet seen.  Between Thursday afternoon and mid-afternoon Saturday (with a break on Friday to do a bit of translating and reading for class and on Saturday morning to go pick up a footstool for the living room) I managed to watch the whole of Season 2, all eighteen episodes (and counting). Which was odd because I don't even really like Body of Proof .  At least, I didn't like the first season very much, particularly the relationship between Megan and her daughter.  But they seem to be patching things up better in the second season and, besides, Megan is finally getting a love interest (the former Captain Lee Adama, for those who follow these casting threads).  But so...

Yep, that did it .  I'm sick.  I'm trying to figure out whether this is simply a case of noticing the apparent coincidences (every so often I get sick after reading a set of applications, but then I read lots of applications, so maybe there isn't a link) or, in fact, a clear case of cause and effect: I read applications, I get sick.  But I am.  Fever last night of 101.3.  Aches, sore throat, cough, inability to focus.  Not entirely clear now how I am going to write this paper I've been asked to give.  Perhaps my body is trying to tell me something about what kind of paper I should plan to give.  I want it to be clever and philosophical, but it's more likely to end up a kind of show-and-tell.  I suppose there's nothing particularly wrong with show-and-tell, but it isn't terribly Foucauldian.  And this is a rather Foucauldian crowd.  At least I'm assuming it is, I could be entirely wrong. Do I have a self that I want to talk about?...

3:34am* Driving home late one evening and getting lost off the interstate, turning down a road with signs to an Italian restaurant but seeing only the neon signs, stopping at a house and finding three beds, lying down and falling asleep only to wake when a woman came in with her grown son who seemed to be have some difficulties, trying to decide whether to let them know I was there, but not wanting to in case they made me leave because the bed was so comfortable. 4:15am Driving with my sister to the airport to catch a flight to go visit our mother, being forced off the road by construction (no signs, just trucks in the road spreading asphalt), ending up in a bus station, helping an old woman who had fallen, who then called out, "Nona Dale," thinking how odd, that's my mother's name, and finding the old woman was calling to my mother, who was getting on a bus to travel cross country. "Oh, Mom, why didn't you tell us you were coming through Chicago?" ...

I swear I didn't used to get sick this much when I was younger. Maybe it was just because I was younger. Now, the slightest thing seems to trigger the return--and it does seem like a return, the same flu over and over again--of this achiness, sore throat, sinus congestion, dehydration, loss of concentration and general all-round fatigue. Why? Why do I get sick so much now? This past summer I decided to start keeping a list of the dates when I come down with flu. The last big bout was in late September, so it's been less than six months since I last felt this wretched. I had a brief something or other in late December, but that seems to have gone away fairly quickly. Whatever I have now is looking to hold on for at least a week. I, of course, am convinced that there has to be a reason. Could it be... a. It's the eighth week of term. I regularly get sick around the eighth week of term. But I'm only teaching a graduate seminar this term; it's not like I'...

Check out Conversion Diary for more "quick takes." Watch for nutz! 1. I've been sick all week with what I am convinced is the same flu I've had already three times thisyear . That's four weeks in total of sore throat followed by dizziness, sinus congestion, aches and pains plus that weird throbbing clarity you get with flu. I've still got the itchy-throat-with-mild-cough thing going now, but at least I can bend over without feeling like my head is going to explode. What I want to know is, why? I thought the whole point of getting sick with something was that you would be immune to it afterwards. This flu seems to have taken up permanent residence, just waiting for that moment when I'm slightly overtired to reassert itself. I know, I know, school hasn't started for me yet, but it did last week for my son, which meant waking up at 5:45am so as to be able to do my centering prayer and yoga before we set off for campus. It was just enough, ap...

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I'm home this evening instead of at fencing practice because I can feel a cold coming on and don't want to make it worse. Should I have gone to practice anyway? I don't know. I'm fairly crabby right now (and wish a certain someone weren't looking over my shoulder as I type; and, no, he's not a cat*), so it's probably doing my clubmates a favor to keep my grouchiness at home, but one of the reasons I'm grouchy is that I haven't been to practice since Tuesday a week ago, thanks to the excitement of the medievalists' conference towards the end of last week. And yet, I know that it is foolish to push myself when I'm feeling like this--just dizzy enough not to be able to think clearly (note the syntax of this post!), plus a little itch in my chest and throat that could, if I push myself, turn into a full blown sore throat and (possibly) laryngitis. What to do? My mother sent me a video link a few days ago that I only just watched this morning...

Diagnosis: flu. I hate being sick. Every muscle aches, nerve-endings stretched taut, A mask of pain across my cheeks, my throat On fire with pins. This sucks. What happened to My holiday? I had plans, things to do, Places to go, books to read, friends to see. Instead I'm stuck, here on the couch, dream-ridden, Lethargic, my sinuses an aching mass Of snot. Do you wonder that I'm pissed off? At least this year it's just the flu. Last year I wrecked our car on the ice. Some luck, eh? Still working on those iambic pentameters.

Some people would pay good money for this experience. My tongue is black; I've spent the last two days huddled on the couch when I wasn't in the bathroom; I've lost eight pounds since Thursday, albeit most of it water; and everything that comes out of me now--yes, everything--smells sweet. No, I haven't been at a spa undergoing colonic irrigation and sauna baths, although my body temperature did crest at something over 103 degrees Fahrenheit. I've had the flu. What interests me most, other than the prospect that being so sick may really have knocked off a pound or two, is the smell. I've been reading for years about late medieval mystics who starved themselves, living only on the Eucharist, but I had always thought that the reports of their bodies smelling sweet was simply one of those hagiographical tropes. Now I'm not so sure. Yes, what came out over the first fever-filled, whole-body-aching night (boy, was Thursday night interminable) smelled the w...