Cough and Cold

Remember when I was talking about that cold I had? Yeah, well, it sort of exploded into something horrible. Not "horrible" like "my lung collapsed," but "horrible" like "It's kind of hard for me to breathe without coughing up something really terrible, and I certainly can't breathe through my nose at this juncture and, ow, my back hurts and my legs hurt and my arms hurt and even my hair hurts, though I'm not quite sure how that's possible, and my nose is getting all raw from blowing it all the time, and can I take Advil with Mucinex D AND vitamins and tea, because I think I can but I also think that's the reason I'm all shaky and can't seem to focus."

Yeah, that's what I mean when I say "horrible."

Which is troublesome for a number of reasons. Let's go over them in list form, shall we!

1. I have a very busy week planned. I have dinner tonight, I have my dad's birthday tomorrow night, I have plans with Billy Wednesday night, I have plans for drinks on Thursday and I have BIG plans on Saturday. A cold, if you'll notice, was not in my Palm Pilot for this week.

2. My birthday is next week. I can't be sick for my own birthday.

3. That James Morrison CD I ordered? I got it Monday of last week, and it's been on constant repeat ever since. I love, love, love it. But now that I'm sick, I can't sing along. And that makes me sad.

4. Why can't I sing along, you ask? Because I sound not unlike a prepubescent boy when I attempt to sing along with anything. My voice cracks and splits, its various changes from low- to high-pitched completely out of my control.

5. But when I talk? I sound like a man, baby. Deep and raspy, distinctly mannish in my tone and even demeanor, I sound like a truck driver, not a 25 year old girl. It's awful.

6. My big plans on Saturday include dancing. I can't tell you how not sexy or appealing it is to dance for a few minutes, cough. Dance for a few minutes, cough.

7. And I don't cough like a dainty maiden. This is a doubled-over, whole-body-into-it kind of cough. The gross kind of cough that produces the quite unwelcome presence of mucus in my mouth. The kind where, when I'm finally done hacking, the look on my face is pained and disgusted because not only did the coughing spell hurt, but now I have to spit somewhere.

8. Being sick makes me all squishy and romantic. Despite how gross I am right now, when I'm sick like this, I just want to curl up in bed with Billy, put my warm head in that perfect niche between his arm and his chest, where I lay with my head in the soft area of his shoulder that seems like it was made just for me. He'll kiss my forehead and rub my back and I'll fall asleep and probably drool all over him. Before I do that, thought, I'll speak to him in a small voice, and I'll need him desperately all day long.

9. I won't see him until 9:00 at the earliest.

10. It's just embarrassing. Because I'm pale and sickly, because I keep blowing my nose, because I sound like a man, because of my horrible cough. I feel like I have the plague. And that, my friends, is horrible, no matter how you look at it.