Saturday, May 08, 2004

A Week Without Coffee

(But plenty of tea. Green or peppermint, spiked with honey.)

I am so tired. And for what? I don't know. I'm still getting over a cold, which I didn't mention because I haven't been particularly loquacious this week.

I woke up Monday with a nasty cold. I got my ass off to school only after pumping it full of ibuprofen and cough drops. I filled several snotrags with grossness over the course of my two-hour lecture. Then I met my groupmate in the faraway lands of the Montlake parking lot to haul gear up a steep hill and to the third floor of the building where equipment lives and bailed. I told her I was going home and not to expect me in class.

I thought it was just baaad allergies or the beginnings of a sinus infection, but it wasn't painful enough.

I took a nap. It sucked, because there was a show Kevin and I wanted to go to Monday night, but neither of us were up for sitting in a loud, smoke-filled room until the wee hours of the morning. And I had to work opening on Tuesday.

Tuesday was equally hellish. By that point, I'd procured groceries after my weekend away and off-brand nondrowsy antihistamine (without pseudoephedrine, which makes me feel unpleasant) and was drinking water nonstop. Usually I don't drink nearly enough water, so having to pee all the time comes as somewhat of a shock. Heh. At least all I had to do Tuesday was sit at work, and even then, I went home before the second half of my shift. To nap. Perchance to dream.

It's hard to sleep when you're breathing through your mouth and wake up every couple hours with a need to expel mucous and drink water and wish your nasal passages were clear enough to breathe so you would've wake up with such a sore throat. But it's worse if you're on drowsy meds.

By Wednesday, my symptoms were cleared up enough that I made it through the long-ass day without bailing on anyone.

However, eating was somewhat difficult because in addition to the now-raging sore throat, I'd managed to bite my tongue in at least three places and get a cold sore on the roof of my mouth and on the gum between my tongue and a back molar. Yuck. The cold drops, which were nice for the throat, stung the sores; everything that required effort from my tongue hurt the bites.

You sure like my details, right? I knew you did.

I came home on Wednesday night and was the first person there. That never happens, since I work until 9 p.m. So I was stuck with garbage duty and I had to do a huge pile of dishes since I was finally conscious enough to do it, but Kevin decided to reorganize my freezer at the same time because he wanted to store his nine tubs of organic tofu in there until he went home, and it's a federal disaster area so that wasn't possible as-is, so I had a pissy little meltdown, got over it, and did the fucking dishes.

Also, Kevin stupidly let his car run out of gas completely--the second time I've known him to do this--and took my car home again. Which annoys me, even though I don't use the car *that* much, but I could've needed it.

And did. Because on Thursday, I ended up having my mom, brother, and brother's girlfriend up after my brother's lesson for a sort of mother's day brunch and had to go to Whole Foods and buy supplies to make brie and apple stuffed french toast. On the fucking bus. Meaning it took an hour and a shit-ton of walking when it would've taken 20 minutes by car. Grrr.

But that's okay because driving is bad for the envirrrrronment and gas is expensive and I have a bus pass! Why do I feel guilty for not wanting to waste that much time? Why?

The food was all right, though. It was nice to host dinner; I enjoy doing that. I don't have many opportunities to do so. I think the last time was when I lived in the apartment with Jenny and I made mom salmon on the George Foreman with tzatziki, which she loved. The french toast could have been improved upon, flavor-wise; the wonderful brie was out of place. It came out like more of a french grilled cheese than anything; it was bland.

After dinner, though, I put on Johnny Cash's Live from Fulsom Prison record--mom loves it--and mom started singing aloud the line: "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die." Which elicited confused looks from the brother, of course. When the side was finished, he told me, "Uh, your Johnny Carson CD is broken." Hee.

Friday I dragged my ass again because I knew I had to pick up equipment, but we didn't have specific plans to use it. I'd wanted to cancel it, but I hadn't been able to consult with my groupmates. So I picked it up anyway, and we decided to go back to the Muslim Student Association. The guy took photos--he's quit being a slacker and takes direction well--and the artist and I talked to two of the sisters and got a lot of footage (or at least audio) of one girl saying a lot of great stuff.

We were going to drop by the Northgate Mosque Community picnic this afternoon, but the weather is less than grand and our interviewer didn't feel the need to interview more people. All we'd definitely like to get now is video from the Northgate Mosque, or at least some video of our tour guide from last Friday, who was great.

There's still this terrible elephant in the corner of learning to use the editing suites and looking at our footage. I'm afraid it's all going to look and sound unusable and I won't be able to handle the editing or anything... but we'll cobble something together, I'm sure. I should get some cut-away footage of the mosque and Northgate area or something, just in case the interviews look terrible but the sound is good, so we can have v.o. or something. I don't know. This is hard; I've never done it before! But I did want to learn, so there you go.

I was so tired this morning that I woke up after 8 and even still felt so tired that I went back to sleep until 11 or so. At which point I fully awoke so I could listen to This American Life, of course. The last story told of a boy who can't eat. I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

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