Being sick is like being in a time warp. Hours, days, even weeks are just taken from you while everyone else seems to go on living out their lives. One attempts to foggily submerge in a book or a handful thereof, in some sort of visual media, in something sufficiently distracting to keep the focus off the pain and on something that’s not pain.

And then, eventually, after a set amount of time, one starts cracking back in to real time, catching up with the events and liveliness that everyone else takes for granted, becoming a real person again. Much as though one had been abducted by aliens or had some other reason for missing time.

I’m not back yet, though I’ve looked at computer news and e-mail and things for the first time in days. I spent a good chunk of yesterday (it feels much longer ago) at Princeton’s clinic, wearing a swine flu mask that made me hyperventilate (I don’t have the flu, but I have been mighty short of breath), breathing through a nebulizer (felt oddly like I’d imagine smoking would), getting a chest x-ray (turns out no pneumonia), and an EKG (hey, I have a prior undiscovered irregular heartbeat – neat!), only to be told that I probably just have a bad and strange cold. Even my ears are behaving this time around, which is pretty impressive work for their usual standards.

What I really don’t understand is why people tell you to get plenty of fluids when you have a cold. As far as I can tell after three decades of experience, deliberately dehydrating oneself at a level just above life-threatening is the appropriate reaction to cold symptoms. This tactic probably doesn’t speed recovery any, but it sure minimizes one’s experience of draining, congestion, watery eyes, runny nose, etc. Without the fluids to grease one’s face, a cold is mostly just exhausting and annoying (once the sore throat phase, which this cold pretty much mercifully skipped, is over). And certainly every time I’ve dallied into cold medicines, all I can feel them effectively doing is dehydrating me. So why get a chemical to do what oversleep and underwatering can accomplish?

I’m not all the way back and I’m hoping very much to avoid the quick relapse that so often accompanies debilitating illness. This is my first real attempt at writing anything (other than my last post) in the better part of a week, which is frustrating but not maddeningly so. I’ve pretty much made peace with having just under a month to finish the book and while it’s going to be hectic and a little scary at times, I think I can do it and be ready. Plus sitting at the monitor while exhausted, annoyed, symptom-riddled, and unable to concentrate isn’t going to do me any good and I’m well aware of that. I handle being sick worse than just about anyone I know, so I’m well aware of when it’s time to just cut bait and hope to crawl out in a good mental space on the other side.

So I’m taking it slowly, preparing to prepare myself. And in the meantime utilizing instant Netflix to further my filmic education. Or at least help me get into the next dehydrating session of sleep.