Wednesday, March 22, 2006

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.
______
* 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.

9 comments:

  1. Yay drugs. Needless to say, barbeque and soup dumplings would cure much of what ails you. Also, because I like stating the obvious, you should definitely finish your course of antibiotics even when you feel better.

    Oh, and definitely drink lots of tea with lemon and honey. I find that helps a lot.

    Regards to Lissa.

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  2. I, for one, think the world could use more laughing, sax-playing nutcases from Galaxy 17.

    Regular braffing sounds like a fine way to improve and/or maintain one's health and well-being. Sort of like flossing, only not so tedious.

    Hope you feel better soon!

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  3. To me, as a California dweller where we drive to the corner, the New York moment is that you took the train to the doctor. How long did it take you? Did you have to walk far? Was there "weather"?

    The "three picture deal" lady does sound like an LA moment. As silly as it seems to me it must hard it must be to have such choices. I mean what if one of the pictures is Gigli? Or Six days, Seven Nights? What if the studio releases your movie on the same day as Half Blood Prince? Oh, to have such problems...

    Glad to hear that you are feeling better!

    Marilyn

    --
    Light your fire
    And never fear,
    Life was made
    For love and cheer.

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  4. Glad you got the antibiotics you needed, strep is a one nasty bug.
    Thanks for sharing the subway guy story, he sounds like a pretty cool crazy guy.
    Angela

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  5. A cocktail of antibiotics and DayQuil are quite lovely. NyQuil for the evening hours.

    Hope you recover soon!

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  6. I note that "text" in the first paragraph should be "test" -- but I will leave the typo there as an editorial Freudian slip. ;-)

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  7. Once at my doc's (and please note, I'm in LA and in "the biz") I overheard people talking about a Very Successful Series and one of them was talking about getting an offer on it for a 10 week arc. And I'm mildly interested because I recognize the person's voice... but I can't place it. A big actor, I'm thinking. But who? As I come outside, I figure it out: the voice belongs to one of my son's after-school teachers, and he's a stuntman. Ahhh, LA. What a great place.

    With chicken soup in Cali...

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  8. Strep is going around "up here" too. My son had scarlett fever two weeks ago and was diagnosed with strep again this week.

    I sure hope you feel better soon . . .

    And, um, I hope no sax-playing Zargon's take you away to Galaxy 17

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  9. Well, if it had been anywhere other than NY, I would have thought you were hallucinating from a high, strep-induced fever! :-)

    Glad you got some meds to help you feel better. You'll be up and around in no time . . . so enjoy the braffing (personally, I'm a Scrubs fan) while you can!

    And, may I just say that it gives me hope to know that you are human and make a typo now and then! In your defense (not that you need me to defend you), you had just endured the encounter with Zargon from Galaxy 17, AND you were ill at the time of posting! Unfortunately, I don't have those excuses . . . I make typos all the time (probably many errors in this post). *sigh*

    Get well soon, and thank goodness for the kindness of sisters! WE all need to be cared for now and then.


    To make typos is human, to edit is divine!

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