Derrick and I both have the same illness.

Or, at least, that's what I surmise. We both had exposure to walking germ-factories (i.e. kids) on the same day, and came down with our symptoms exactly 3 days after that day at the same time.

This is an interesting study in how our respective bodies deal with things.

I'm usually the one who doesn't get sick, and I'm a bit irked that it didn't skip me this time--but my symptoms are incredibly mild compared to Derrick. Our symptoms started out the same, but they've since evolved in two different directions: I wake up with a sore throat/ears from crap draining out of my sinuses (Green crap! It's actually pretty fascinating how florescent it is...), but during the day the pain is minimal and ignorable. My sinuses feel pressure-y, but I don't have a particularly stuffy nose to go with it or anything, and the headache-feeling is cured with a little sudafed.

Derrick, on the other hand, is home sick today. He was up all last night coughing from draining mucus (green crap!), and he has a sore throat, stuffiness, and nose-drippage. He's also miserable with a headache and body aches.

His world is ending! He's dying! Everything collapses into a pit of sickness and despair!

Golly, I hope any potential future kids get my immune system.

Wow! I haven't written here for a while. Not that there is anything interesting to report, but I kind of forgot about this place for a while.

Most recent news that I can think of? My cat Zrinyi died a week ago. She's the black cat in the avatar I am using. Advanced kidney disease. There was nothing that could be done so I had to put her to sleep. I miss her.

Haven't done anything artistic or anything so there are no updates on my art gallery. Haven't been recording my dreams either because I either do not remember my dreams or they are so complex or fragmented that I can't make sense of them to write them out.

I don't know. Things are going okay I guess. As always I struggle with my many issues, but things aren't bad right now. Or maybe I just feel that way because the doctors increased my meds yet again. Not feeling much of anything really, but I guess that means the meds are working.

Whatever.

Liv and Thom are in the other room watching something called Thankskilling. Figures that Thom would be able to find a slasher movie about Thanksgiving... He and Liv are horror movie buddies and they're laughing hysterically at this one. Of course, I do have to admit having a killer turkey puppet killing everyone and screaming, "GOBBLE GOBBLE MOTHERFUCKERS" is pretty funny.

There is so much to be thankful for that I can't enumerate it all, but know that I am counting my blessings accordingly.

On the health front, I've been slooooowly improving. I know that it is a long road back from where I was, but things are better. My last Xrays showed the congestion in my lungs is resolving and the partial lung collapse has cleared itself up too.

Yes, partial lung collapse. I didn't know about that either until he let that one slip. I did a little research and found out that it is not uncommon for a lobe or area of the lung to get blocked by the secretions from Pneumonia and it will deflate. It is something that should be watched but not life threatening unless a large area of lung goes down.

Mind you, I was a little freaked by this diagnosis. I have watched enough episodes of ER to know what happens when someone presents with a collapsed lung. They get slammed up on the exam table, an extremely hot doctor like George Clooney or John Stamos shoves something like one of those stiff, pointy Capri-Sun straws through your chest and they reinflate you.

Obviously my insurance does not carry the "George Clooney" rider. I must look into that next open enrollment.

Mind you, I was just thinking that even if I went to the hospital, Morton Plant has an amazing array of hot doctors. And then I recall that every time I've been there I've been concussed, so who knows what they really look like.

And as a side thought, one of the Alphas leaned over to me Tuesday and said, "Your mother has never had a collapsed lung. She must be seething!"

Hehehehee. Yeah, and I'd be tempted to say, "Beat that, Mom" except she'd probably make an effort and that can only end in tears.

***********

In other news, I got the most terrifying email one can ever imagine the other day. It said, "**name of ten year old nephew** is now following you on Twitter".

Luckily, I don't do anything on Twitter. I don't even know why I have the damned thing because I pretty much loathe Twitter. I just find it impossible to narrow down my pervy, obscene thoughts about dipping Orlando Bloom in dark chocolate and licking it off to 140 characters.

Thank God. His parents (My sister and her spouse) would never speak to me again if they knew that their ten year old son was being corrupted by me. They won't even let him watch most network TV or anything that hasn't been recommended by their church.

So during Thanksgiving dinner tonight, I looked at him and said, "I don't update on Twitter, you know." He looked at me, glanced at his parents and then turned back to his food with rapt attention.

Oops. Turns out they didn't know he had a Twitter account. Turns out I just ratted him out. Turns out I forwarded them the email so they could see he's had a Twitter account for almost two months and sits there posting about the girl who plays Bella in the Twilight movies (which is a reassuring thing since he spent the entire night chatting me and Liv up about cooking. Turns out he loves Food Network and has started cooking and wants to swap recipes with me. He also wanted to tell Liv how much better he bakes than she does, since he now knows how to make Black Forest cake--it's alright. Liv cooked almost everything for me tonight, including from scratch red velvet cake with homemade buttercream icing. Mmmmm.) (And I have to admit that the first thing that ran through my head was that if he turned out to be gay, his parents would freak out, this had better be a phase)

I suspect there will be tears tonight in their household.

*****

Kittygeddon continues. Evan is growing, Luna still wants to kill him. We keep them completely seperate and play musical kitties by giving them rotating access to the main rooms of the house.

Don't think that Evan is the helpless victim in all of this. He spends hours sitting in front of the French doors teasing Luna.

I'll be working in bed and hear loud THUMPS and SQUEAKY SQUEAKY SQUEAKY noises, come out and find that he's sitting right in front of Luna and he's either ducking down under the door frame and popping up at her, or he's swatting the glass right at her nose.

This, of course, drives her apeshit. The thumping and squeaking is her throwing herself against the French doors and trying to dig through the glass with her Soft Paws. She also tries to reach the door knob, dig through the floor, and break the glass with her face. She does all of this with a bottle brush tail and excessive panting. Evan reclines and grooms right in front of her while she does this.

We've taken to calling him 'The White Terror'. Luna still calls him 'Dead Meat'.

We've tried the Feliway, the calming stuff in her water, feeding them in sight of each other, anything and everything. The only thing that will work is time... as in time enough for him to get big enough to fight back. Which the way he's growing, isn't long.

I even got this thing called a "calming collar" which had some kind of super phermones in it. I put it on Luna, who has never worn a collar in her life, and she went into the "OMG YOU'RE CHOKING ME!!!" complete with histronics and flailing while I made sure I could put three fingers in between her neck and the collar.

She then proceeded to sulk for several hours. Said sulk occured under the covers on Thom's side of the bed (since she prefers Thom to all else of course). Said sulk under covers resulted in collar getting nice and warm and outgassing whatever was in it, which then resulted in my finding her in our bed with pupils the size of dinner plates. She was also amazingly affectionate, drooling and hungry.

If only that had lasted.

Ah, well. Life goes on.

And I hope all who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful one.

Jason Segel = my boyfriend:

I'm freaking sick of this being sick shit.

I've been told it takes forever to recover from Pneumonia, that it can take months. I get that. But now I'm actually starting to feel worse again--the cough is worse, the fatigue is worse, I think I pulled a muscle in my chest coughing, I'm using the inhaler again...

Grrrr. I'm going back to the Dr. tomorrow and I'm not really eager about what he might say.

Went on an coffee date from OkC. Total fail. The hour we were together, she asked me one question. One! Maybe it was an off-day for her, and I give second chances when people are contrite, so here was my debrief message:

----
Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to come out. I don't know what happened there though! We had total date fail! I knew it was over as soon as I said I was a programmer :) And man, those were some heavy silences during breaks.

Since I don't know you, and I don't know how you are normally with new people, so maybe you were nervous, or didn't find me hot, or who knows what. Maybe if we met again in Seward with clearer expectations it would go better.

The impression I got from it all was that you had no interest in finding out anything about me, and that mostly your head was somewhere else. Correct me if I'm wrong. Else, good luck finding a new pad!

Cheers,

[Me]
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Also, I think my bike frame just doesn't fit me that well, which has been more of an issue since I got clipless pedals. So I dislike riding it. And I couldn't find my baklava so my ears were cold.

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EDIT: A Response!

it was somewhere else and it has absolutely nothing to do with you. and you didn't ruin it by saying you were a programmer. i was just over tired today and i am stressed out about finding a place. i apologize if it seemed like i wasn't interested in you, i am. i do find you attractive, i was just elsewhere today and i'm sorry for that. this morning i actually thought about canceling because i sort of foresaw what happened. if you want i would live to get together again sometime.

[her name]