(continued from October is the best month - part 1)

I hadn't seen Katrina in a while. The last time I had was at her place when I tried to help her out by cooking dinner (one of my pizzas) since she was still just out of hospital and couldn't cook herself, and her family weren't yet home to help her out. That was at the start of August, while I was still in some sort of deal with my work that I could spend my Monday afternoons visiting her in the hospital.

Katrina has just been discharged then. She put out a plea for help, and a tonne of her friends answered the call. I thought to do my bit too, so used my last Monday afternoon off to visit her at home and make her dinner.

It's always weird cooking in someone else's kitchen: nothing is where you expect it to be, the microwave seems to operate on some completely foreign logic, and the knives are always too sharp or too blunt. I planned to make one of my pizzas there, and brought a tonne of my own stuff along since I was warned beforehand that Katrina's family's kitchen isn't the best stocked kitchen on the planet. So with some help from Andrea, long-time friend of Katrina and someone who I had talked to a bunch but never really hung-out with a lot before that day, she brought over some extra things: rolling pin, oven tray, baking paper because the oven tray had been severely 'seasoned', like a wok from a lifetime of use.

I had never used baking paper with my pizzas before, and the pizza base I rolled was a bit thinner than I'd normally make, so I think it was those 2 things that combined to create my stuff-up of the day: cooking the pizza and having it stick so hard to the baking paper that the 3 of us spent most of the dinner trying to tear the paper away from the pizza base rather than eating it, and because the base was so thin you actually ended-up losing a lot of it in the tearing process. Actually, Andrea and I spent most of the dinner trying to tear the paper away, Katrina had only 1 fully functioning limb (a left arm) so Andrea spent even more time tearing paper away from Katrina's pizza, and I eventually gave up and just ate the damn paper. Hey if red pandas can eat bamboo, then I can stomach a re-purposed tree.

Om nom nom

I felt pretty bad about what I'd done afterwards. I went out there with the intention of helping out, only to add some unneeded plant fibre to a cripple friend's diet. It didn't help that Katrina spent the next couple of days telling everybody about it, and Andrea made it a point to rub it in my face the next time she saw me.

So that's how my last encounter with Katrina went. I'd been meaning to visit again, but the fresh guilt from that last incident kept me away. With over 2 months since then, what better time to try make amends than with my day off?

I met both Katrina and Andrea for lunch at a bakery not far from the hospital where Katrina would be finishing one of her physio sessions - just one of many she was undergoing those days to help put weight back onto her legs. When we went to order lunch, the girls surprised me by paying for my meal :D

As I was eating my free lunch, they surprised me again by giving me a birthday card and presents - a cookbook written by Pete Evans, one of the hosts of My Kitchen Rules (which is a show I watched very closely this year and mentioned a couple of times), and a book about chocolate which is part recipe book and part history/background of chocolate. I was actually reading through the chocolate book last night and it made me so hungry for some sort of dessert that I went out of my way to make a chocolate cake at 9:30 in the evening!

And just as I finished my lunch and thought all the surprises were over, one of the bakery folk came over with a slice of chocolate cake that had a birthday candle in it, and the girls started singing Happy Birthday.

I went home happy that day: a bag of presents in one hand and a birthday-boy grin on my face. The feeling followed me all the way back home. Once I got back home however, the sickness I had been pushing away and ignoring all lunch time pounced back on me. Suddenly I had only enough energy to make it to close the door and collapse on my bed, bag of birthday presents still in hand, and sleep for the second time that day.

I woke up maybe an hour later, still feeling tired, the stuffy nose really sticking this time around, and with a new symptom: a sore throat. I went to my computer, answered all the birthday messages / e-mails / text messages left for me, and that pretty much concluded the day of my birthday.

(to be continued...)

The Rugby World Cup was over a week ago, but remnants of it still remain throughout the city: the World Cup logo still flies prominently beside street lamps, country flags are still visible in shop windows, cars still carry the All Blacks flag proudly attached to passenger-side windows, and the aftermath of the parade - ticker tape and streamers all the colours of the visible light spectrum - occupy cracks in the footpath or are still tangled in the power lines that give life to our fleet of electric buses.

I've been walking through the city a tad happier than I normally do, a small smile making its way onto my face if I allow my mind to wander and think about everything that happened in October.

The biggest thing for me was of course my birthday.

Birthday cat is not amused

Yes, I'm one of those October-born people, throwing all our birthdays into one month of the year to make peoples' calendars look super busy and to annoy gift-buyers. I passed my last birthday milestone a long time ago, which I reckon is the 21st. After that, card-makers stop being specific about your age and you find yourself receiving a lot of non-numbered birthday cards until your age starts resembling a new decade.

I didn't really know what to do this year for my birthday. I've already written that my normal birthday traditions have gone out the window, so I thought to do the only other thing I could still continue to do - take a day-off from work - and see what happens after that.

Melissa was in the country on the day of my birthday for the first time since... 2003? She took me out for breakfast, meaning that on my day off, I had to get up early. On any other day I might have complained, but I thought I better get as many waking hours as I can out of my birthday. That, and I'm not one to turn down free food.

Free breakfast on my birthday; a good start to the day :)

After I walked Melissa to her work so she could start her day of working and I could continue my day of not working, I went to my favourite place in the city to kill time: the library.

When I sat down to read through my current book, I found myself unable to stay awake. Sure waking-up at my normal time on a day when I would have normally slept-in might have taken away some valuable sleeping hours, but I didn't just feel sleepy: I was sniffling a bit more than usual, and I felt really tired already. Oh no, I thought to myself, don't be sick, don't be sick, not now, not today...

The only other thing I had planned for the day was to meet-up with Katrina, who I hadn't seen since she was discharged from hospital, at which time I tried (and failed) to make her dinner since she was unable to cook herself and needed help until her family were able to come home (they were all away at the time). I needed to be well enough to travel some 20km to visit her at the hospital after one of her physio sessions, and my stuffy nose was looking to ruin that.

I didn't catch-up on my sleep at the library (I didn't want to look like the homeless guy sleeping in the library since there was already one there in the far corner), and I didn't want to catch-up on my sleep on the train to the hospital either (I didn't want to miss my stop, which I had done several times before when I'd slept on the train), so with a few hours to go until I had to meet Katrina, I went back to my place, collapsed on my bed, and fell asleep.

I woke up with time to spare before the train I planned to catch, without that nagging fatigue I had at the library, but I still had that damn stuffy nose. So this is how it's going to be huh? Fine then. I told myself, and off I went to the train station with an extra handkerchief, just in case.

(to be continued...)

Living in the city has made me weak.

I spent the last week-and-a-bit living in the family home out in the suburbs to make sure the place didn't fall into disrepair while my parents were away on holiday in Australia. That included doing things like: watering the plants so they maintained the colour of chlorophyll rather than the colour of the sun, and keeping my brother company so he wouldn't do things like scroll large prophetic and doom-impending messages on the walls with his own faeces.

So 2 weekends ago I brought a bunch of my stuff over there so I wouldn't die of boredom, and in that first day I was subject to the first of several things that I have not missed since moving into the city: hay fever.

I've had hay fever since I was 8 (may have been 7 at the time, you know how all those long-ago memories start to merge and mingle), and I remember the visit to the doctor then and being told that there wasn't anything I could take for it. That itself was a shock to me because every other time I went to the doctor a visit to the pharmacist always came afterwards. The doctor's advice: I might grow out of it.

Almost 20 years later, I can say with absolute certainty that I didn't grow out of it.

There was a time when I thought the hay fever would leave me, and that was during my late teens when I was getting used to, of all things, cigarette smoke.

No I don't smoke, but around the same time I was diagnosed with hay fever, I also learned that if I spent too long around smokers (my parents did have some friends who smoked, and of course they'd take my brother and I over with them and then get all of us kids to mingle, ie: leave them alone, while they hang-out, and over the years some of my friends did pick up the habit), I would spend the next 48 hours vomiting. This was proved time and time again, and followed me well into high school. Towards the final days of secondary education, I remember being at a party and talking with people outside, some of whom smoked. I was dreading the thought of having to find that vomit bucket and get it ready for when I woke up the next day after inhaling all this cigarette smoke, but when the next day came and my urge to throw-up was well below my urge to punch a kitten in the face, I had genuine hopes for losing other long-lasting afflictions, like my hay fever.

I find it odd that I got more used to cigarette smoke, which will likely kill me, than I did to pollen, which won't kill me but just make me miserable for a few weeks in a year. I often took antihistamines to combat the symptoms (and have a certain former-pharmacy friend to thank for telling me about the cheaper-yet-just-as-good-as-the-brand-stuff antihistamines), but since living in the city I haven't really needed to take them since the ratio of things that produce pollen versus things that don't is very much in the favour of hay fever sufferers like myself.

So when I got back to the family home and went out into the backyard to look over my dad's garden (he's got a few of my basil plants growing there now and I wanted to see how they were doing), I triggered the hay fever bomb and spent the rest of the day blowing my nose into tissue paper that was 1-ply too thin to contain the force of snot as it sped out of my head.

Thus began my week of house sitting.

As holidays for relaxation go, the New Year's one I just came back from would probably top them all.

Relaxing views

Around late November 2009, I started complaining about a persistent headache. Now my headaches are usually of the hit-and-run nature; strike me down when I fail to take care of myself like not eat lunch or lack sleep. This this particular headache however stuck with me for about a week before I decided to do something about it.

Firstly, I crowdsourced some answers via Twitter/Facebook as to what medications people take in order to control their headaches. My first stop, a paracetamol-based product, didn't seem to be cutting it. Answers ranged from doubling the dosage to drinking margaritas. I tried the first couple of suggestions (doubling the dosage, using a codeine-based painkiller) before I went to the doctor to see what they would say about the headache.

Funnily enough, the doctor suggested everything my friends did, except margaritas, and also suggested I see an optometrist - since I wear glasses, although very rarely - to see if there's something eye-related that's been causing the pain.

There were no answers at the optometrists either, but some good news did come out of it: my eyesight doesn't suck as much as it used to, and I can get weaker-strength lenses... once I pick-out some new frames to go with them (have had the same frames for a long time, so it's time for an overhaul).

The headache has been trailing me all throughout December. While not a strong pain anymore, it nags at the back of my mind like the feeling you forgot something important to do.

So what has all this got to do with my New Year's holiday? Well, I didn't experience any headaches during it.

More headache-free views

What did I do during that holiday that might have solved my headache woes? Well, I didn't really do much of anything: afternoon naps under the sun were the norm, I read the book I had borrowed from the library, I went for swims in the inlet/ocean, I played my guitar, I went for long walks through NZ bush, I threw a frisbee, I caught a native bird, I slept-in every day save the last, and I just had plain old fun.

Nowhere in my itinerary was there mention of a computer or screen to stare at, or a deadline to meet. Meaning that either my headache is computer or 'staring-at-a-screen'-related (which if it is would absolutely suck because it's what I do for my job and for much of my non-vacation downtime) or just work/stress-related.

Now I'm back home and staring at computer/TV screens again, I think I may have caused a relapse, but it just doesn't feel the same as I remember it. Tomorrow, I head back to work (albeit only 3 weekdays in this working week), and if the headache makes a comeback either this or next week, then I might have some serious work/life balance choices to consider.

Wish me luck.

I've just come back from watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with some friends. I organized the get-together and screening as a birthday present for one of those friends, Claire (the same Claire as previously mentioned in this old story e-mail), and wow, much better than all the previous Harry Potter movie adaptations that came before it.

I give it a thumbs-up for the story-telling: where all the previous movies had a rather disjointed method of telling the story (eg: the 5th movie using those newspaper-esque montages to advance the plot, yet still relying on your prior knowledge of the book to fill-in any gaps), this one cut-out the right bits from the book such that what was left was a good enough story it's own right.

So Happy Birthday Claire! I hope you enjoyed it - I certainly did :)

Anyway, today turned-out to be an interesting and fun day. Not just because of said movie screening to end my day, but also because of the way the day started...

---
I visited my doctor this morning! Yes, exclamation mark! It's been years since I last saw the family doctor - whenever I get one of those run-of-the-mill illnesses (winter cold, the flu, SARS) I tend to just let the illness run its course and cheer my body's defences on. I'm still familiar with the whole process of visiting the doctor, but with the swine flu scare gripping the country and wringing every last modicum of usefulness from the national health system, today's visit was a bit more... interesting.

It started like any other early morning visit to the doctor. I entered the building to the reception and waiting area, a little surprised to see that there were many others here already. It may only be 8:35am, but it looks like things are already in full-swing. I made my way towards reception to let them know I've arrived.

Me: "Hi, I'm here for my 8:30 appointment [yeah, I'm a bit late] with Dr Watson."
Receptionist: "OK, I'll just add that in here..."

*receptionist types/clicks a few keys/buttons*

Receptionist: "Now, have you been experiencing any flu-like symptoms?"

Well that's new. I don't remember having to answer questions like that, or any questions at all actually, when signing-in before. When I rang-up to make this appointment last week, it was about some itchiness in my joints. But in the weekend between then and now I developed a headache and sore throat. Headache's gone, but sore throat is still there.

*cough cough* Flu-like symptoms? Me?

It makes sense they'd ask that, being worried about swine flu and all. I better answer the lady's question.

Me: "Well, I have had a sore throat recently..."
Receptionist: "OK, I'm gonna have to ask you to wear a mask then."

*receptionist brings up a box of disposable mouth/nose masks*

For a sick person being condemned to wear something that would advertise my sickness - I might as well have worn a sandwich board with "Swine flu party right here!" written on it - I didn't actually mind complying. In-fact, I pulled the mask out of the box with too much enthusiasm, and then proceeded to ask the receptionist for instructions on how to properly wear the thing. Sure, I knew how it works, seeing all those pictures on the news with people wearing the masks, but I was so stoked at the idea of actually putting one of these things on and joining the millions around the world who also have them.

So I took a seat in the waiting area and put the mask on, wearing it a bit too proudly - probably just as well that it covered my mouth so that nobody could see the stupid grin on my face. I looked around at the other patients in the waiting room, and found myself somewhat alone; the only other person in the room with a mask was a small boy who didn't really wear it, but had his mother put it up to his mouth when he was coughing.

I turned to look at the the children's playpen which was situated next to me, only to find it devoid of all books and toys. A sign above the pen stated that: "Books and toys have been removed for the duration of the flu season." They're really taking the whole flu thing seriously.

I wasn't all by my lonesome for very long. No, the next few incoming patients didn't declare any flu symptoms, but one of them turned out to be my friend and sort-of neighbour (she lives up the street from me) Clare (not the same person whose birthday it was and who I'd be watching Harry Potter with later tonight). After she told reception that she was here for her appointment, she looked around the waiting room for a place to sit, and overlooked me... twice! The damn mask has made me all but anonymous, reducing me to a member of the generic group of Sick People Who Need To Wear Masks.

Where's Waldo?

I pulled down the mask, said her name, and waved at her. Then she noticed me and sat down in the chair across from me.

Neighbour Clare: "Hey Em. I didn't notice you with your mask on."
Me: "Heh, I'm actually finding it a bit too fun! I'm expecting news cameras to show up any minute."
Neighbour Clare: "Haha, yeah. I wish I had my camera here so I could take pictures of this."
Me: "I already tried to do that with my cellphone, but the battery's low. And to think, I got this mask when I was just coming in for an itch!"

We talked for a bit until the doctor came out to find me. I followed him into his office where I immediately noticed that he was wearing a mask too, albeit much cooler looking than mine: his looked to be made of much tougher material and had what I'm guessing is a filter (a small cylinder that jutted-out the front of the mask just a little).

After seeing the doctor, I made my way to the pharmacy about a block away to get my prescription medicine. Not only did the doctor get me something for the itches (turns out it was some pretty weak eczema) but also the sore throat (tonsillitis, whoop whoop). I handed over my prescription to the pharmacist, and as I was killing time by browsing the products at the pharmacy, I came across something called "mp3 gel douche".

Play your music, and become a douche, in gel form?

When time came to pay for my medicine, I was expecting to have to fork over epic amounts of money for each of the meds. I was just taking out the credit card when the pharmacist said, "That'll be $9".

NINE DOLLARS! NINE NEW ZEALAND DOLLARS!! I quickly stuffed the credit card back into my wallet and paid in cash instead! Looking at the invoice, the government subsidy on prescription medicines reduced each item to $3. Yay for state-funded drugs! :D

For just 9 bucks I was able to transform my backpack into my own personal medicine cabinet, with supplies to fight bacterial infections and skin irritation for a month! Just like when I bought a McDonalds Apple Pie to discover they had cut the price of it in half, the $9 price tag for all this medicine made me feel like I had just won something. And to top it all off, I managed to get away with a souvenir: when I was paying for the visit to the doctor, I asked the receptionist if I could keep the mask.

She said yes.

My new Facebook profile pic

So around the time I was coping with my own battle against swine flu, I spent a lot of time just sitting at home and doing nothing. I tried to do some programming, but thinking on that level became tiring. I thought I could give my art a go, but I wasn't feeling particularly creative. All that was really left for me was to vege out on video games, so at my brother's recommendation, I played Dead Space on his Playstation 3.

To summarize, Dead Space is a sci-fi survival-horror action game set on a large spaceship that seems to have been overtaken by grotesque alien monsters. If you need comparison materials, think Doom 3 meets Event Horizon.

Anyway, as is expected of games in the survival-horror genré, you see a lot of blood, strange writing on walls, undecipherable symbols on walls, said writing/symbols drawn in blood, and any other combination of the above. When the blood on the walls started showing-up in Dead Space, I didn't really think much of it. But when the blood-soacked writing and strange alien symbols started showing-up, I began wondering: "Where are the pictures of dicks?"

As gay as that sounded, let me take a step back to write about an observation I made several weeks before.

The internet is notorious for its childishness. Given the chance, people will create usernames which allude to sex or dicks (case in point: my brother has registered the username 'PhallicThunder' on some forums), create banners depicting dicks (eg: first time my friends took Mario Kart DS online, they competed against others with dicks on their banners), or creatures shaped like dicks or boobs (eg: Spore Creature Creator).

While this isn't a dick creature, it turns out boob creatures aren't allowed

This obviously isn't an internet-only thing. Just the other day I walked past a construction site with grafitti of dicks on the walls. And when taking the lift up to my floor at work where the covers used to protect the walls against scratches are installed, those covers have their fair share of phallic pictography (same thing at my mum's work I've learned).

When I saw our elevator covers with their dick pics, I started to wonder, who in this building would do this? I mean, this is a workplace where the average age of employees is somewhere in the late 40s. If I had to accuse anybody of drawing those, I'd quickly point the finger at myself because a) I'm one of the youngest there, b) I'm pretty childish myself, and c) I really have a hard time imagining my middle-aged managers taking out a pen and scribbling pictures of dicks on the elevator wall covers while they giggle childishly.

So there I was, playing Dead Space, staring at a wall of blood-soaked words, wondering where the hell the dick graffiti was...

I imagine that, with your dying breath, writing warnings or hints to potential survivors about 'cutting off their limbs' or how to survive certain alien attacks takes precedence over posting phallic imagery on the walls of a spacecraft. But then again, when you're on your last legs, why the hell not?

(slightly unrelated, but my favourite example of vandalism has to be the one where they removed some letters from the sign PUBLIC PARKING, such that it read PUBIC KING)

A cold southerly chill straight from the antarctic - and maybe even the cold vacuum of space - is currently blasting my poor little country into submission. As an avid fan of cold days, I've prepared myself to handle the temperatures. Right now I'm wearing with my usual attire, socks, another long-sleeved tops, fingerless gloves and a just-purchased-today beanie, with my legs resting on my 9-fin oil heater while I chow-down on chips and chocolate biscuits. On any other day, this moment would exist in some permutation of my own personal heaven, but there's one more details which puts a big fat dampener on whole situation: I'm sick.

It is approaching winter, it is getting cold, and it just happens to be the month when my sick leave gets reset, so of course I would get sick. This particular sickness has been lingering at the back of my throat for several days now, waiting for the perfect opportunity to rear its ugly head. It started-off as a pretty weak thing, but I think it's been fueled into the major annoyance it is now because of my state of mind this past week.

"It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black."

You see, on Wednesday morning as I was reading the paper while eating breakfast, I came across an article which said the Dymocks on Lambton Quay is closing down (for those who don't know, Dymocks is a chain of bookstores throughout New Zealand, and Lambton Quay is a street name). There have been a lot of retail closures throughout the country because of the recession, but Dymocks, "The booklovers bookstore" (as their motto goes), came as a major surprise to me. Dymocks has been as much a part of Lambton Quay as blue is to the sky and as far as I'm concerned has existed in that spot since the English settled this country.

Not only is it a landmark, but it's also a bookstore. While I'm no bibliophile, my love of writing is fueled by my enjoyment of reading and the feeling a good book gives me that is the urge to go out and start telling my own stories. I don't even buy books that often (I'm more of a library slut, and my last book purchase was from a competitor), yet to hear that this particular bookstore was closing down was like a stab to the book-loving part of my heart, and so without the kindle for my writing fire, I began to despair.

So there I am at mid-week, both sick and sad, one possibly the cause of the other, but I have no idea which one it could be. On the one hand, I become more susceptible to illness when my mood is particularly negative; it's like being emo allows my immune system to become more porous and thus permeable to bad bacteria and viruses. On the other, being sick causes me to feel worse and tints my entire world and outlook with a drab palette; unejoyable days at work feel longer, every wind chills to the bone, and even my favourite foods can lose their taste. One paves the way for the other and vice versa, creating some sort of feedback loop that decided mid-day Friday to explode.

Friday night had a dinner with friends to use-up 2-for-1 dinner vouchers we had accumulated before they expire, and a sort of well-wishing for one of us who is headed-off overseas to represent New Zealand in some sport I still don't completely understand. I was looking forward to it the whole week, but around lunchtime on Friday everything started to go downhill from there.

Lunch didn't feel all that great because my throat started to feel like it was swallowing sandpaper, and the shopping afterwards for a new beanie, gloves, and jacket for an upcoming ski trip left me noticing how cold it was getting outside and how useless my jacket was to protect me from the elements.

Back at work, the new project I'm currently assigned to just didn't hold the same excitement as it usually does, and so the afternoon dragged. When work ended and it was time for dinner, I didn't head straight to the restaurant. Instead, I took a bit of a wander in an attempt to lift my mood before I had to face everybody. It wasn't a complete success.

Long story short: I managed to muster enough energy, sarcasm, wit and one-liners to last dinner without looking too ill, but after that I had to take a back seat to proceedings lest I collapse or something.

Spent

That, and told myself I had to get home and let whatever sickness I had run its course. I've already been nicknamed 'ebola monkey' at work for my ability to be the most cold/flu-stricken person and the most likely vector for infecting others with said cold/flu. I didn't want to give this group a reason to continue the nickname here.

So I'm looking for a scapegoat, but it's like asking about the chicken and egg situation. Now I've just been told that I should get some more sleep because I look like a zombie. That compliment just made me notice my throat flare-up again.

It's a vicious cycle...

"Before you sue me for defamation, in my defence, teasing or joking is one of the ways I show my affection. It's only with my friends that I joke about their mothers, so the fact that I just joked about yours, and written about you twice in the past 2 weeks, goes to show how much I like you."

And those were my last words before dial-up girl - tired of being misrepresented in my blog - killed me with her cold hard stare. Yup, I'm blogging from the afterlife which, oddly enough, looks a lot like work, so I must be in hell.

SPARTAAAAAA!

So what do you do when you're in a temporarily ethereal state? I dunno about you, but I start thinking about the hard questions: Why are we here? If you were given the opportunity to travel back in time and talk to yourself when you were much younger, could you go through with it? What would you say? OK, so I never really thought about that stuff, but instead I thought about how I've slipped under the radar.

All this reflecting was started by a dream I had a few nights ago about my dance classes.

Come the end of May I'll have attended ceroc lessons for a year. In the dream, everybody whose name I know and is still attending classes (which isn't a lot) is going to some private dance party that I didn't know about.
When I went to ceroc last night, several things hinted that my dream might actually be true; a couple of people asked me if I was going to some dance party that I had never heard of. I intended to ask my ceroc friends about it, but just forgot. So when I got home I did a bit of Facebook stalking and it turned-out that yes, my ceroc friends were going to this previously-unheard-of dance party.

I didn't really feel surprised - not getting blindsided by surprises is a skill that comes with age - but I did kinda feel left out. It also reinforced a slight 'on the outside looking in' feeling I've had when I see some of the groups at ceroc.

My 2 ceroc friends have managed to make a big impression with many of the others there and so are very much a part of those groups. I guess it helps when you have some redeeming or memorable traits: one of those 2 is the ever cheerful hug nazi, the other looks like the spitting image of Edward Cullen from Twilight.
As for me, I don't exactly do anything to draw attention to myself: I dance well enough, I don't look like any actors, and I don't grope my dance partners or stare at their chest all day (I've been told of some creepy guys who do).

That's not to say I haven't been a total social failure: I've made another 2 solid friends through dancing (one of whom is amazing baking girl), and maybe twice that number in acquaintances who'd I'd stop to talk to if we ran into each other on the street. But the rest of the time, I'm just another familiar face.

I'm not really complaining here - just stating facts - as I do bring this upon myself: I don't go to every event on my calendar, I tend to stick with the people I know, and I do enjoy a quiet night at home. I'm more of a 'go where I'm needed' type.

I think I do this because I focus so much on the few friends that I do have. It's this core bunch that I will travel long distances for, re-organize my schedule to meet with, or go to a movie or exhibit again despite having seen it myself so that they have company when they go. Sometimes it requires a lot of effort, which is probably why I keep the number of friends I do have to a low number lest I get gray hairs or other sign of aging from trying to make too many people feel like they're worth their weight in gold.

So yeah, I think about them a lot. I try not to give them too much to worry about when they think of me, but I can't really stop that when it comes to it. The last time I ever think I worried them was several years ago when I had a seizure. My friends were organizing some get-together, and when they were unable to reach me, one of them tried ringing my house:

*phone rings*
My dad: Hello?
Friend: Hi. Is Em there?
Dad: Uh, no. He's in the hospital.
Friend: Oh...

The thing was, my dad never elaborated on why I was in the hospital, letting my friends' imaginations come up with all sorts of possibilities. The truth of it was that in my flu-induced state, my temperature reached an almighty high (40C / 104F) to which my body responded by shutting-down and resetting itself, a by-product of which was the seizure.

I tended to downplay the seizure because, well, it wasn't that bad. Before the seizure: my head hurt, I felt warm, colours and lights were swirling in my vision, and I couldn't even guide a spoonful of food into my mouth properly (the seizure occured over breakfast). Afterwards: my head was clear, my body felt cool, my vision was restored, and I could tie my shoes - the seizure was the best thing that happened to me during my flu!

I'm not suggesting everybody who's sick go out and have a seizure. A few years after that incident, I witnessed what a seizure looked like from the outside when a lady at my favourite bakery (which I have dubbed 'The Pie Shop' for having won a Best Pie In NZ award) collapsed and seized-up while making an order. It didn't look pretty - it was actually quite frightening - so it's not the sort of thing I'd be encouraging people to go out and experience.

I like to show I care by making jokes and sharing a laugh - I basically live by the motto "the day your friends stop making fun of you, is the day they stop caring about you." But to prevent myself from imploding, I only extend this philosophy to a close-knit bunch of people.

So I'm one of those quality over quantity freaks; sue me.

So I mentioned several illnesses in yesterday's post - the common cold, winter flu, and tonsillitis - all of which I do nothing about as I let my body just battle it in its own time. In the case of the cold and flu, there really is no cure, only several medications to alleviate the symptoms and the general feeling of crappiness. Regardless, the result is that whenever I get one of them, I'm knocked out for several days.

The common cold is, by definition, the sickness I get most often. I can tell it's upon me by the stuffy nose and sore throat that usually accompany it, and I usually get about a day's warning before it really hits.

The flu is like a super-charged version of the cold, which is probably why several work places have free flu vaccinations every year... which I never participate in. As I said, it solves itself given enough time, so I never bother doing anything about it. That, and it hasn't killed me yet (which when I think about it is a rather stupid philisophy because of the Catch 22 in that sentence). Flu usually knocks me out pretty badly: all the cold symptoms are there - stuffy nose, sore throat - and sometimes a headache, but the worst part is that it causes me to despair and feel like nothing is right in the world. That's right; flu makes me emo.

Flu: ready to slit her wrists

So I said that, given enough time, each of the above will resolve themselves. The problem though, is the amount of time needed to do just that: a cold can knock me out for 2 days, whereas a flu can take me out for 5. Calculating the frequency of either multiplied by the number of days, and I end up with a number that is much larger than the 5 sick days work gives us every year.

Falling ill over a weekend helps dampen the blow to my sick leave (at the cost of making my weekends suck), but every year since starting full-time work, I have blown my 5-day limit out of the water. Our team leaders have the ability to sign-off on additional sick leave from a small pool of it given to each person, but recently I learned that I've used-up all of that too and have gone into NEGATIVE sick leave. Nobody else I know at work or in my team has done this, so from a management perspective I must be some sort of statistical anomally. I bet HR is keeping a close eye on me as well, making sure I'm not faking my sicknesses and using the days off to sell company secrets to the competition.

To HR, if they're reading this (which isn't easily possible because this site is blocked from work): I'm actually being sick and I get sick a lot. Please double my sick leave allowance so that I don't spend 4 months of the year waiting for my work anniversary to roll over so I get my sick leave reset.