Monday

I guess my eyes were so accustomed to the dark, they relished it. Lying in bed with a book, recovering, it feels like the old days. The winters past.
The words "bad", "nausea", "trembling" - they sound so light in my head. It's like when you've gotten hurt a few days ago and you're looking back at it, thinking "Yeah, I could take that again." But the fact is, I don't remember any other time when I've felt as physically horrible as I did yesterday. I'm still sort of trying to find a good reason for writing it up here, as if it was a sin to share the bad along with the good. It is a bump in the everyday life, so why not reflect on how it offered change, no matter how slight? That, and writing it down in my notebook wouldn't have been as satisfactory. If it would have been one of the kind I scribbled in a year ago, with the lovely format and fascinatingly shiny covers, the documentation would have felt superior to this, but I guess the one I have now doesn't seem to capture whatever I try to write down. Maybe it's because it has thicker pages and wavy lines and four different openings that repeat themselves. The design simple and a pleasure to look at, but it seems to be made for just that purpose - to be looked at. Not to harbour the wonders and dregs on the mind.
Yesterday Rudy called and asked if he could stay here until his parents picked him up. I don't know exactly what was the cause, but the result was feeling like "a pretty fountain", bent over the toilet bowl. He arrived about an hour and a half later, and I took joy in being the caretaker instead of being the one taken care of. The poor thing. And then, another few hours later, I was hit by the same thing. That, and menstrual cramps. Only these were the kind that make you moan out loud from the pain. At the end of the day I found myself on the bathroom floor with my eyes watering, clutching a blanket and hoping I'd pass out. This I didn't do, and after a while I summoned the resolution to get back to my bed. Painkillers offered relief, and sleep came, at length, interrupted by visits to the ugly pink bucket on the shelf at the end of the bed. Rudy was gone, I'd wished for him to stay, but then again, being sick is something you can only comfortably be at home.
I woke up at 10am, feeling more or less like a human being, and after calling Rudy, it appears he was feeling the same. The day has passed in reading and worshiping water, and I feel I've enjoyed it. I might brave some yoghurt later, but for now I'll take my slightly perverse joy in being thin and pretty - the wane beauty of sickness.

"Stories", edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantono.

Hope you feel better, sweetie.