Tonsil painting was a really remedy at one time. If you got a sore throat your parents painted your tonsils with Merthiolate, a disinfectant which has fallen out of favor due to containing toxic mercury. Oh, where have the good old days gone?
This picture is horrible, but for some reason I hate it less than the last one. I think it really captures the feeling of being sick and having to resort to painting your tonsils with heavy metals.
This is… 4 or 5 years old? I went through my sketchbook the other day and I figured I’d post some of the drawings I was more proud of. It’s not often I finish a drawing, haha.
I finally finished something! My little horror comic is all done. See how cute and horrible it is. Joel is definitely me, going to work every morning. Witness the melodrama.
https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/last-minute/list?title_no=276285
Being sick actually helped get this done. My brain was in a weird fog. I spent a long time sitting in my car in the parking garage because I got distracted by the weirdness of my tongue in the rearview mirror. It’s such a horrible gross alien, all twitchy and purple and veiny and sluglike. I just stuck it out and moved it around and marveled that I was in control of this thing. After a while I realized, I’d been doing this for god knows how long, and I needed to get a drink of water, and drive home.
Then I got home, and Don said something about the cat doing something, I don’t know, I don’t listen to him much 😉 and I thought about saying, “It wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility” in response. But I got mentally hooked on that phrase and was like, how long did that take just to say in my head. It’s the longest possible phrase. I say that all the time, too. Did I say that just now? I’m not sure. Why don’t I just say maybe. Could I find a LONGER phrase than “It wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility?” Could I BE any dorkier?
But when I called in sick, I just spent all day staring at the computer screen with the paint bucket tool, connecting lines, clicking fill, connecting lines, clicking fill. The whole damn thing got done. I am really amazed that I got anything done in the state of mind I was in, but if I were in a normal state of mind, I probably wouldn’t have done jack.
I didn’t used to be affected by colds this way. I’m not sure if this comes from getting older and being just more susceptible to everything, or if it is simply a matter of me not being as repressed, so I allow myself to get emotionally and mentally affected by things. It was kind of fun, except for the occasional drowning in my own excretions.
After the manner of Vermeer: a beautiful redhead in silk performs her household chores in quiet peace. She squats before a litterbox, scooping feces and excrement, but the fortunate child does not grimace, as she cannot smell anything. This is rendered apparent by the artist’s acute attention to detail: notice the watery snot dripping from one nostril, straight into the bag of scoopings. Her eyes are distant, as if imagining a sunny pasture far, far away, or perhaps she is writing a blog post in her mind. A shaft of light from a household 60-watt bulb basks the scene in a warm glow, drawing the viewer’s focus toward her nostrils, which are brightly limned in variegated reds.
Yes, dear ones, this is my current reality. Remember, it is a sin to envy another’s situation. I’m sure everybody wishes they lived in the domestic bliss of a Vermeer.
That was last night. This is today:
I tried to draw for Inktober tonight but it was so abysmally bad, even I am giving myself a break. Mostly I’m just happy to still be able to talk, and breathe. It’s been an increasingly gross day. I’m watching this virus bloom in the warm culturing agent that is my body. My throat is closing up, a tiny series of trap doors, and with each one I lose another note to my voice. My coughs are coming more frequently now. Sometimes I have a sudden unpleasant awareness that I’m running out of air, drowning in my own fluids.
Why can’t colds leave as fast as they arrive?
Going for a walk with sick coworkers
K sounds like she has no nose
Uncharacteristically pepless.
H is physically weak
She nearly falls over trying to take a photo.
I cough and rasp my way through each sentence
But talk a lot more than usual.
Together we walk our fifteen minute break
Slowly
Cackling like old hags
Trying not to laugh too hard at ourselves
Lest we spur on another pulmonary problem.
“Flash forward thirty years,” I say,
“And this will be our constant reality.”
Let the healthy young men and women beware
The three plague sisters.
Flee from their slow, repulsive approach!
Fresh Hell 