Illness Update

(Ah, there's an attractive subject line.)

Thanks, everyone, for your good wishes and advice yesterday. After braffing* it all morning, I went in to the city to see my doctor in Soho, who took one look in my mouth and said "Strep." While I was waiting for the text to prove him right, I could hear a woman and a man talking in one of the examination rooms behind mine, and she was saying quite earnestly, "He's got a three-picture deal from Warner Bros. but he doesn't know if he should take it because, you know, he doesn't want to be tied to only one studio . . ."

My doctor came back in the room then, so I didn't get to hear any more and suss out identifying details, but I was apparently in the presence of a sick celebrity wife/girlfriend or something -- ah, glamour. It was strep, so I picked up my antibiotics and got back on the train. A small, wiry black man wearing deelybobbers and a large golden butterfly on his forehead and carrying a saxophone also boarded the train, which was going express, and as soon as the doors shut, he announced, "I am Zargon from Galaxy 17! My spaceship crashed here on Earth, and now I am taking control of this train! Ha ha ha ha ha!" He then played the saxophone for a while -- not badly, but not any tune I could recognize -- stopping only to laugh every time the train skipped a station: "You can't get off the train! Ha ha ha ha ha!" As we pulled into Delancey Street, he walked through the train collecting money, but he didn't change cars; rather, when the doors closed again, he said "I am Zargon, and I have been sent here from Galaxy 17 to take George W. Bush back to my home planet and end his reign here on earth!" At which point a lot more people gave him money -- the man knew his audience. He repeated the saxophone/laughing performance into Jay Street-Borough Hall, then said "I control this train! Doors -- open sesame!" The doors opened, and he got off. A nice little New York Nutcase moment.

And then I came home, took my pills, and was sufficiently exhausted to sleep the rest of the afternoon and evening. My sister is here taking care of me, and I'm feeling much better this morning (drugs -- yay!), but still staying home to rest up. Thanks again for all your good thoughts.
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* braff verb, intransitive to lie in bed staring into space and listening to music, preferably of the hipster or emo variety; after Zach Braff, star of the quality film Garden State, where he performs just this action in one memorable shot.