2005-11-20 - 11:17 p.m.

Recently I was down for the count with a nasty cold that kept me in bed and IN-sane.

I was too sick to work�but since my �office� is just across the room from my bed, I couldn�t really rest either. My desk kept calling to me. I kept thinking of things that ABSOLUTELY had to be done immediately. The phone kept ringing. My computer kept saying, �You�ve got freakin� mail� (because I have it programmed in a �Dr. Evil� voice from Austin Powers). I was cranky, feverish, and half-delirious from lack of sleep and from desperately trying to treat my symptoms with every cold remedy known to man.

Your mind starts playing tricks on you when you have a cold. Maybe it�s just me, but when I have a rotten cold, I feel like I�m never, ever, EVER gonna feel good again. I can�t even imagine it. I had the chills. Every bone in my body ached. My eyeballs were burning. My throat was killing me. I was sneezing green mucus�and coughing up sludge.

You have nothing else to do but feel sorry for yourself when you have a cold. I was hungry, but felt too dizzy to get up and make lunch. I wanted more tea, but the thought of walking all the way to the kitchen�then walking back again when the kettle boiled�was just too much effort. So I just lay there like a dog and drank lots of water and blew my nose until it felt like my brains were gonna squish out.

So, here I was in bed surrounded by two weeks' worth of newspapers that I'd finally gotten around to reading. Every time I moved or adjusted the blankets�the papers would crinkle and crunch or fall off the bed altogether�

�Whatever.
Who cares?
I�ll NEVER feel better again.
I�ll just lay here in a pile of recyclables.
Then they�ll find my rotting corpse here�surrounded by newspapers�as if I were sleeping in the subway.�

By now I hadn�t taken a shower in 48 HOURS and, with the fever and the sweating, this was an olfactory nightmare. I just kept talking to myself�OUT LOUD:

�I�m disgusting.
I STINK.
I have no energy.
Why can�t someone just make me some soup?�
I�m all alone.
I have work to do.
I want to kill all my clients.
They don�t care if I�m sick.
Why are my big toes SO big?
I have 'square' feet.
Look at them...my feet look like bricks.
My skin is so dry and scaly.
I�ll just put more shea butter on it.
Eeewww�GROSS...moisturizing a dirty, smelly body.
This is repulsive.
I feel like I�m covered in dust mites.
I�m wallowing in my own skin flakes.
What a revolting existence.
Why don�t I just shoot myself?�

My hair was totally greasy and tied up in a demented ponytail. My bangs were held back with a bobby pin. I was wearing an old green sweater over my �American Lung Association� tee-shirt and thermal leggings. I put big gray socks on my freak feet. I wore my �at-home� glasses. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror�

�My hair is way too long.
Gotta get it cut if I ever feel human again.
What�s with my skin?
It looks green.
Why are my pores so large?
Seriously, my skin looks green.
I look 'plague'-ish.
I feel like one giant GERM.
My nails are so long and dried out.
My gray roots are showing.
Gotta color this damn hair.
Wait�I think I just dyed it last week.
What the fuck?
My hair and nails have grown SO fast.
Maybe I have some weird accelerated protein surge.
�or maybe I�m turning into HOWARD (fuckin') HUGHES�in his strange and ugly Las Vegas hermit years.
I look like a �bag lady�.�

Now it�s been like 60 HOURS of feeling sick and sorry for myself. The floor around my bed is blanketed with used Kleenex that have missed the wastebasket. My bedside table is a field of empty cereal bowls, sticky yogurt containers and protein bar wrappers�the only foods I�ve had the energy to �prepare� for the past two days. Of course, the sight of this bedside garbage heap reminds me of a funny story.

Most of you know that I�m a pretty serious INSOMNIAC. It�s a major problem. I absolutely cannot sleep like a normal person. My brain doesn�t shut off. As tired as I am�the minute my head hits the pillow, I�m wide awake and churning with anxiety. So�for as long as I can remember�I�ve been taking Ambien in order to catch at least 3-4 hours of sleep a night. Of course, Ambien has at least one disturbing side effect�memory loss.

Well, for weeks I�d wake up in the morning and find a spilled cocoa cup on my night table, or cookie crumbs in my bed, a container of almonds or an empty cereal bowl. Evidently, AFTER I�d taken my Ambien�I would get out of bed and stumble into the kitchen to fetch a bedtime snack to eat while I read myself to sleep. In the morning�I TOTALLY didn�t remember getting up�or eating in bed�or ANYTHING. Elizabeth referred to this as my �sleep-eating" phase.

One morning I awoke and the entire left side of my mouth felt weird and heavy and PARALYZED!! It was just hanging there, all crooked. I completely froze�afraid to even TRY to move, because I was convinced I�d had a STROKE. �Holy shit�this can�t be happening to me..!!� I cautiously attempted to move my left foot. It MOVED..!! Phew..!! Left arm�also working fine. So I tried to talk�figuring, okay, of course, the stroke must have affected by speech.

�MOTHERFUCKER..!!��I said aloud.

YESsssssssss�..it�s a miracle. I could talk..!! But as I did, my lip still felt weird and big and heavy. So, I jumped out of bed to look in the mirror.

OH. MY. GOD. There was a Saltine stuck to my bottom lip. I must have conked out while �sleep-eating� some crackers. So there it was�a cracker just welded onto my lip with saliva�as if Martha Stewart had attached it with her hot glue gun. �I�m a goddam walking-talking collage..!!�

Well, since then�I�ve stopped taking Ambien and switched to Klonopin, which reduces anxiety without turning me into a nocturnal cracker-munching zombie.

Okay�so back to my miserable cold. On the THIRD day, I arose again from the dead�took a shower�and tried to scrape some of the barnacles off my hull. I was ALIVE again�and desperate for a salad and some fruit. I felt as if I�d spent the last three days in steerage and was five minutes away from scurvy or pellagra or something.

Off to the Village Den I skipped�la, la, la...New York Post in hand. Ordered up a BIG Greek salad with everything, including anchovies and extra feta cheese. A large glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice�AND a fresh lemonade. Ahhhh....!!!

I felt HUMAN again. And where does a New York human best renew herself??...at her favorite Greek diner, of course..!!

�Hey, Alex�gimme a rice pudding to go. ..!!�

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