Moose: Dropping the Ball Since 1978
Posted by Moose on August 14th, 2008. Filed under: Daily.I can smell the mold growing in my airless shaft of an apartment. It’s a bit disturbing, and I would be on my hands and knees scrubbing out every last spot, only I’ve declared myself patron saint of Those Who Watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer While Snuffling Feebly Into a Napkin Because All The Kleenex Is Gone. It will be hard to fit all that on a medallion, but I’ll write small.
Describing the tasks I’ve ignored in the month of July – and now August, seeing as it’s halfway through the month and how the hell did that happen? – would take a color-coded spreadsheet and about six hours, so I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say, I have mold to eradicate, papers to organize (set on fire), thank you notes to write, a sink full of dishes to tackle, a career to unearth, and a cure for bronchitis to find. And I’m still stuck either at work, or in bed smelling mold. It’s making me twitchy.
But it’s been rather invigorating to make it through illness as a single person. One of the benefits of having a partner, especially one in the same house, is having someone to make soup, pour orange juice, dispense tylenol, and generally just fetch shit when you’re on the couch wondering how the remote control works. You swear it worked yesterday, but today the buttons seem to be written in Yiddish sign language.
But, hark! IT’S AMAZINGLY EASY TO HEAT UP MY OWN DAMN SOUP. Toddling out to the drugstore for cold medicine while trying to keep the contents of my nose from fleeing toward my t-shirt is not the epic act of courage it once seemed. I might be less smug if I’d been felled by pneumonia or recovering from being hit by a bus or something, but I can handle your basic cold. Check that one off my life’s list of accomplishments.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:21 am
This may be totally paranoid of me, but is it possible that you being sick is directly related to the mold? I’m reading a book on toxic mold right now so I’m just doing a totally pulled out of thin air diagnosis here. I think you should tell your landlord (in writing! have proof!) about the mold problem as well as your sickness. The mold and you being sick may not be related, but it’ll probably put a fire under her/his ass all the same.
If it makes you feel better, my new place that I was cooing over not two weeks ago, has a cockroach problem*, I’ve come to find out.
*not to mention a “gang members shoot eachother dead in the street problem”.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Good for you, Moose! You go girl!
August 14th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Georgia: I was getting mold headaches when I moved in (they’ve since stopped, thanks immune system!), but I’m pretty sure this is the same cold that’s felled half of my floor at work. I might be tempted to take pictures of the mold (BEFORE DECIMATING IT WITH MY SCRUB BRUSH) first. Just in case.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I’m with Georgia: better to get rid of the mold, just as a precaution. But, yeah, pictures, first, would be awesome!
Feel better soon, Moose! Just isolate and hibernate, hydrate and recuperate. I certainly hope you don’t reach that specific low point of physical suffering, the one where you start bargaining with God that you’ll never have sex again!
August 14th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Definitely think you should get the mold checked out.
Being able to take care of yourself during an illness is a wonderful feeling. I multiplied that feeling by 1000 last Christmas, as I recovered, alone, after surgery to repair my ankle that was broken in three places.
Hobbling around the kitchen, up the stairs to shower, and taking care of my dog while people were out of town was a strength-defining moment.
Get well soon!
August 14th, 2008 at 10:43 am
What season are you on? I like the one where she slays a vampire while making a pithy, pop-culture inflected comeback.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Greg: Season Three begins TONIGHT. Along with can #37 of chicken noodle soup.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Being sick alone may be empowering but it still sucks.
Hope you are better soon!
August 14th, 2008 at 11:41 am
when i had food poisoning last week…the husband and kids were in wisconsin at my mom’s and i was all alone. it was so sad to be sick alone…but then i felt awesome that i did it all. on. my. own.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I’ve been recovering from surgery mostly alone all week and while it’s nice to not have someone asking me what my pain level is every 3 minutes, I’d still really like someone to get my juice for me. And, also, I want a burrito.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Soup and toast, life’s perfect sick food. And handily enough, easy to make when you’re sick! Get well soon!!!
August 14th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Ha. I’ll loan you Scott to eradicate the problem if you wish…after all, he’s President of the Moose Mania Fan Club.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Damn, I got the plague too! Maybe, the plague is one of the souvenirs I accidentally took home from San Fran when on a vacation?
August 15th, 2008 at 5:53 am
I too immediately thought on reading this that the mold and the respiratory problems could be related.
Living alone for about 6 years after being married for 8 helped acquaint me fully with the sick alone thing. And I was sick a lot. But, now that I have a boy around again, it is a CRAZY LUXURY to be taken care of now–had minor surgery last week and I was like “wow, YOU’LL help me? you’ll do that FOR me? WOW.”
August 15th, 2008 at 6:23 am
You really do need to get the mold checked out…I would hate to have you go and die on us.
How’s that for a pleasant comment?
Good for you for taking care of yourself. I have done it in the past and felt like Superwoman. After the plague left, of course
August 15th, 2008 at 8:08 am
It’s always great to have another person join the ranks of Buffy fandom!
And, wow – you people seem to have much better “other people” than I may have experienced. I much prefer being sick alone; my husband – although wonderful in many other ways – lacks that empathy for illness. When I get sick, he seems to disappear; and when I stagger downstairs to warm up my soup or find some tea he looks baffled: “Are you still sick?? It’s been a whole day, I though you were over it.” Then he disappears into the depths of the house, never to be seen again.
When I had appendicitis (which we did not know at the time) and was throwing up violently for an entire day, he avoided me so carefully that he could not hear me shouting at him to tell him I needed to go to the emergency room. I had to throw breakable items over the side of the staircase and let them crash on the kitchen floor to draw his attention. Then he asked if I needed a ride.
(I’m leaving out the part where my sister-in-law was staying with us too and was equally baffled that I was making such a fuss over a silly little burst appendix.)
(I’m also leaving out the part where I was in the hospital for a week and the two of them parked my car with expired license plate stickers (my fault; I was getting to it)on the street, ignored the warning notice the city parking police left on the car, then came to the hospital to tell me that the car had been towed away. Thanks guys!) It was truly the best illness ever!
You may just be better off taking care of yourself. At least you still have a car at the end of it!
Get better soon. Keep watching Buffy – it definitely helps with illness-fighting.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am
If you make it all the way through Buffy I may, possibly, own the entire DVD set of Angel.
Also, if you make it all the way through Buffy and are still sick you should probably go beg for some antibiotics. I had to do that last month. Actually there wasn’t much begging, the doctor basically just looked at me and started prescribing things.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:32 am
My bedroom is a disaster area right now not to mention the phlegm all up in my chest and throat and possibly coming out of every orifice on my face. It’s really attractive.
Question: how is it that we seem to be experiencing things simultaneously?
August 16th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Buffy heals all wounds. Especially if they are vampire inflicted. But even if they aren’t.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I am so proud of you for taking care of yourself! After living with people my entire life (i.e., parents, boyfriend) the thought of being on my own and knowing that one day, I will be ill and have to take care of myself, frightens me. Anyway, I hope you’re feeling better…
August 18th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I was sick alone once. ONCE. In a foreign country, at that. It sucks, but yeah, I also felt kind of proud of myself for getting through it. Hope you’re feeling better soon!!
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I hate being sick alone. Sometimes I want to call my mom and make her come over so I can whine and she can go buy me OJ because I do not want to move.
Way to go!