Siege Interrupted by Sick Days

SECOND OF TWO SICK DAYS today. I hate being home and doing nothing. My ordinarily inviting apartment becomes a tomb after two days of quarantine, and the Internet is a grim hallway of stale content not designed to be viewed 1,000 times per day by a shut-in.

Worst of all is not going to the gym. My last visit was Wednesday morning, when I woke up with a scratchy throat that surely foreshadowed a cold. My nutrition intake for the previous four or five days had been scattered, so my muscles were a bit weaker than I would have liked. Going to the gym Thursday morning — by which point the cold had hit full force — was out of the question. Though it's not the most serious cold I've ever had (no real fever at all, little nasal congestion), it was still enough to knock me out for 12 hours or so between Wednesday and Thursday (aside from waking up briefly to call in sick). Indeed, I'm contemplating a nap right now.

This is my first stretch of sick time at the current job, and it couldn't have come at a worse time for the magazine. But I can't help that. Sick days are there to be taken when you're sick. People who go in ill are crazy. All you're gonna do is make others sick catch something worse yourself, do crappy work with little attention on anything besides your own miserable physical shape, or all of the above. I've shaken off a couple of run-down stretches where I successfully repelled others' travel-induced illnesses, but this time, there was no sense in gritting my teeth, going in sick, and struggling to do even a mediocre job for what might end up being a half day anyway.

Besides, I have an event for which I need to get better as soon as possible. Not just Christmas, which I shall spend with my parents. I got a call last night from Felix's best man, who said that the groom-to-be's bachelor party would be this coming Saturday. At this stage, it seems the monstrous neon chaos of Atlantic City will get the nod as venue. With any luck, all I'll be doing by that point is coughing out the last of the congestion and not picking up some grim virus from the casino chips. The next 12 hours will be critical in seeing how fit I am to indulge in stag duties this third time in 2007. Keep your fingers crossed — it's been a while since I placed any money at risk, and I've got the yen to joust with chance. Also like Moe Szyslak, to eat a steak the size of a toilet seat.