Yucky

I've never felt sympathy for aliens before. But here I am, lying in my bed, sniffling, mouth breathing because my nose is clogged, my face sore from sneezing and being swatted at with tissues, feeling that if jason, the sweetest man on earth, saw me like this, he might reconsider his epithet "my pretty", and I feel sorry for those aliens. You know -- the ones in that movie that were slaughtering all humanity on earth, zapping them into dust with lasers or grinding them up and using their blood for fertilizer, from that awful remade movie with Tom "Can I Be Any Weirder" Cruise, and the little girl with the very memorable shriek. We had a common enemy, me and those unbelievably nasty aliens -- the common cold.

Rascal is looking at me as though asking what I've done with the girl that normally feeds him. She's here, curled up into fetal position inside this body possessed by cold bugs. When I have a cold, I feel insulated from the world. As though my head is burried under large heavy pillows. Sounds are dulled. My brain is fuzzy, as though operating on low oxygen. I'm more thoughtful, more introspective, though the thoughts come more slowly and are punctuated by a refrain of "ughs" and "icks".

Who likes being sick? There have been many days that I've foolishly wished I was sick, to have an excuse to stay home and clean house or lie around with Rascal all day. But the actuality of a sick day is more frustrating than relaxing. You stand up to do some chore or other, and you get tired much too quickly, realize you're making yourself dizzy or your throat feels worse, and soon you're back in bed, cursing the bugs again. Feeling wrathful like a lazer-wielding alien.