Tag Archives: sick

DSL, Sprained Ankle, and a Punch to the Face

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We’re going to get a DSL connection here at my parent’s house. This will enable me to do work for my new job (did I mention that it’s a telecommuting position?) without having to put up with the 30-second lag time that I sometimes get when working in a telnet window. Hopefully, it will be in within a couple weeks and I can stop surreptitiously working from the tek room. That’s my news. Now on to the rest of my family:

Annie sprained her ankle at work. It was bad enough that yesterday she went to the doctor, who gave her codeine, a brace, and orders to stay off her feet for a few days. She’s currently doped up and sitting in my Dad’s armchair, watching comedy central. But she does seem to be doing well, and the doctor thinks she’ll be doing alright in a matter of weeks.

Ryan gave us a call a few nights ago, letting us know that one of his so-called friends had punched him in the face to convince him not to get married. Apparently, he has a small group of these friends who are convinced that getting married to Molli is the worst possible thing he could do, and when trying to talk him out of it failed, they threatened violence. One of these friends came to visit, and after letting Ryan buy him a drink, walked outside with him and punched him in the face. Then he ran away, shouting profanities behind him. It’s a big mess, and basically we’re all just confused about what’s going on. I’m sure ryan will post the details to his journal at some point, so I’ll let him tell the story on his own.

Plus, Steve’s been sick all week, Miles is on the verge of being deported, and my Mom’s having troubles with her boss. HAPPY OCTOBER, EVERYONE! Things can only get better from here!

The First Rain

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It’s raining outside. I love rain. But more importantly, I love the first rain after summer. There’s just something great about getting sick of the heat, and then opening your window and listening to the sound of the rain.

I’ve been feeling the itch lately. About once a year or so, I get an urge to redesign all my websites. If I’m really lucky, I end up getting a burst of inspiration at the same time, and I can produce some excellent new designs. At the moment, I’ve got a new idea for my homepage and portfolio, as well as some new skins for all the KillingMachines sites.

Annie’s sick right now. She came down with some sort of nasty cold, and is home sick for the second day in a row. She does sound much better today than she did yesterday, so hopefully, she’ll feel better tomorrow, when we’ve got a day trip to the beach planned with Steve and Stephanie.

Now, that’s truly a Pacific Northwest experience: It’s pouring down rain, so we’re going to go to the beach, where it’s also pouring down rain! People in Portland learn how to have fun in the rain, because if you wait for the rain to clear up, you’ll be waiting a long time.

My friend Daniel Achterman once described the difference between Oregon beaches and California beaches to me. He said that on a California beach, you put on your swim trunks, wade in the ocean, and play frisbee. On an Oregon beach, you put on a windbreaker, go for a walk, and poke things with sticks.

In Which Scott Gets Sick and Watches Lots of Movies

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Ugh. I’ve been sick. Urn had a cold, which somehow Annie caught. So of course, now I get sick, too. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if Annie hadn’t used up all the Kleenex and taken all the cold medicine with her when she went home for the weekend. Oh well. On a weekend when I had no larger plans than to stay home and be anti-social, I guess this is a better time to be sick than a normal workweek, when I can’t afford to miss work. If I’m going to be miserable, it might as well be in the comfort of my own home.

One thing I’ve noticed about being sick is that my attention span gets even shorter than usual, and I get even more apathetic that usual. I don’t feel up to doing anything more than sitting on the couch and watching TV, and I don’t even really want to do that. As a result of this, when I get sick, I tend to watch a lot of movies. But due to my extremely short attention span, I can’t handle movies with a great deal of plot. So I end up watching a lot of BAD movies.

This weekend, I rented The Sixth Day, which was about what I was expecting (Arnold blows things up and makes bad puns!), and the first Highlander, which was a lot worse than I remember. I also saw most of Muppet Treasure Island, which has some really funny pirate songs. Then there was some horrible made-for-TV Mission To Mars knockoff on the sci-fi channel, a police chase documentary, about 15 minutes of Wyatt Earp, in which Kevin Costner makes a lousy Wyatt Earp, but the guy they got to play Doc Holliday is pretty cool. Add to all of those a couple hours of just channel-flipping, watching 10 minutes of Star Trek here, and 20 minutes of VH1 there. Sadly, I couldn’t find any Bob Ross episodes anywhere. Bob Ross is the best thing to watch when you’re sick. He was an amazing guy. And, of course, I watched Iron Chef. It’s just about the best show ever.

Addendum, 10 minutes later:

I forgot to mention about 3 episodes of Saturday Night Live and The Replacement Killers, which was much much worse than The Killer. Being sick, I wasn’t even able to enjoy the fact that Mira Sorvino or however you spell her name left her shirt unbuttoned for the entire movie.

Being Sick with Bob Ross

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I think one of the worst parts about getting sick is trying to make up for it afterward. I tend to skip class a good deal. I’ve been doing it less than usual this term, but I’ve still skipped a couple times. So on tuesday, I got sick, and I missed all my classes (and work) on Wednesday. Luckily, Thursday is already my day off, so that didn’t affect me, but then this morning I wasn’t quite up to classes either, so now I’ve missed two class sessions for a real reason.

No big deal, right? Just go talk to the professor and explain that I was sick, right? Well, the boy who cried wolf syndrome works both ways. I’ve used sickness as an excuse to get out of class so often that I’ve stopped even believing myself. To the point where more often than not, I’ll just not talk to the teacher when I miss class, whether it’s for a valid reason or not. This time, I’ll have to talk to all three profs, since I missed a major assignment in all three classes and a test in one.

*bleah* When I got sick, I actually thought I might get some homework done over my two days off… but I forgot that being sick means that you have no energy to do anything more than sit on the couch and stare blankly at the TV, regardless of what’s on. Daytime TV blows. Except for one show.

The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. I don’t know if your public TV channel carries this guy, but he’s fucking rad. He does a half hour show on oil painting that’s nothing but him standing in front of a canvas and talking. Sounds boring, right? Well, it’s not! I don’t even like painting, but this guy is fascinating. He talks constantly in a really soft-spoken voice and says things like “We’ll just paint a happy little tree over here. Do it really lightly, you just barely want to see it. Yes. And we’ll give him a little friend over here. I’ve been painting for 30 years and I think everything needs a friend. Now we’ll do my favorite part, we’ll clean the brush. Just swirl it around in your water can and then just beat the willies out of it on your easel’s leg (followed by several seconds of brush-whacking). Boy I enjoy that. I just get all my frustrations out.”

For a half hour! This just goes on! He just quietly babbles to himself, and finishes an entire painting in that time! It shouldn’t be interesting, but it really is. And when you’re sick, you get so into it, that for a half hour, you forget how miserable you are.

He died several years back, but I’m glad that they’re rerunning his shows. Wherever you are, Bob Ross, you rule. Thanks for the show.

I Crapped My Pants On Thanksgiving

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Last year I went to Seattle for thanksgiving. My girlfriend and I were visiting her family in Tacoma, and then got on a bus to go to Seattle to meet my parents for thanksgiving day. I felt alright when I got on the bus. I had felt a little odd when I got up that morning, but nothing that would prevent me from getting on the 45-minute bus ride. Within five minutes I knew I had made a horrible mistake. But it was too late to do anything. All I could do was sit there and pray that the bus would miraculously pull up to a public restroom. I had my eyes shut tight and I was curled up in a ball next to my girlfriend focusing all my energy on not losing complete control of my body. I felt sure that if I stopped focusing on this for even a second, horrible things would erupt from every body cavity I have. After approximately 20 years, the bus pulled into Westlake Mall. I bounded off the bus and had to drag my girlfriend away from some people she was trying to give directions to. She was irritated that I had done that, having no idea the emergency situation I was in. I think I muttered something about not having any time and hauled her up the stairs. The mall was within sight, and that meant restrooms. She seemed to have caught on to my situation and was taking me as quickly as we could walk. About 50 feet into the mall all my concentration was for nothing. I lost all control of my body. The worst feeling in the world is walking through a crowded public place and crapping your pants. I was almost crying. My body had betrayed me. I was trying so hard, and it wasn’t hard enough. My girlfriend kept taking me in the right direction, and then I headed into the restroom. I did my best to clean up. Miraculously, the damage was mostly contained in my boxers. I cleaned myself up the best I could, and pulled my pants back on. They were only slightly soiled. I left a pair of horribly befouled boxers lying on the floor of a stall in Westlake mall for some poor janitor to discover later. I was in no mental state to deal with them. I made Annie take me to some store and buy me a new pair of pants. I threw the other pair away and we went to meet my parents at their hotel. By the time we got there, I was feeling much better, and actually ended up going to a movie and dinner with them. I have no idea what brought this horrible event upon me, whether it was some really brief illness, or if I ate something really bad for me. But I can safely say that the feeling of my body betraying me that short a distance from the restroom was the worst feeling I had ever had.