Letters to Holly

Friday, December 9

Lingering Effects

I'm still reeling from the Clearance Sale bug. My understanding of fermentation is that yeast eats sugar and makes gas. I think I'm making beer in my stomach. I am swelling from this stomach souffle. It aches. Antacid doesn't work. To break the foam, I'm eating despite a complete lack of appetite. My stomach feels full, and my brain says I don't need to eat, but my mouth misses tasty things. I have to remind myself to eat.

Before the Great Unpleasantness started Monday, I was interviewed for a podcast on Saturday. Some online friends have a regular show called Sarcastic Voyage, and each year they open their show to an exchange of audience questions. But the submitters must answer a randomly selected question. And so it was that I was recorded via Skype and asked about '80s cartoons. You can download the episode here. I come on at the 21-minute mark. If you go to the 1 hour and 20-minute mark, you'll hear someone answer the question I submitted:
The category of "art masterpieces" is cumulative. What was considered a landmark of art in the classical ages is largely still considered so. As the centuries unfurl, and more work is added to the pantheon of great art, we become buried under what is considered the best of all time. I say we need to limit the great works of art to a set number. And so I ask YOU: If you had to eliminate a famous piece of art from the status of "masterpiece," what would it be and why?
I wouldn't mind doing this on a regular basis.

I'm giving the t-shirt shop until Monday to return any of my three requests for confirmation they got my initial files, and I'm continuing to make art on the off-chance they are so blown away by my material that they forgot to call me back. I'm also making art for other online buddies for Christmas.

Picture of the Day
That's Frawn-ken-steen.

Wednesday, December 7

Wracked With Sickness

He got the third shot Friday and picked up a stomach bug Monday. I was at work for maybe 20 minutes before the daycare called me due to his throwing him five or six times. I was livid. It didn't help that the employees told me after I arrived that "he seems fine now, but he has to go home." He wasn't fine, turned out. Neither was I. Three hours after I got home, I was hit with it. 

I haven't thrown up in years. Maybe a decade. There were times I wanted to, yes. When I got swamped on Two Buck Chuck at the neighbors a few months back, for instance. But this was monstrous. The waves of nausea wouldn't crest, so I forced myself to throw up as a curious toddler a few feet away on the other side of a hallway gate. It was so violent, so massive, that I thought I pulled muscles even as I knew I wasn't finished. I was almost too fascinated by the experience to be upset by it. I felt immediately better as the toilet flushed before the cycle started again a half hour later. The sidekick and I had a few similar episodes throughout the day and evening.

I called Your Sister around 6, asking her to bring home some Gatorade. She suspected something was up before that because the boy as sporting reddened cheeks. He had also coughed up some breakfast over the weekend, but nothing that rang our alarms at the time. Also, a stomach bug was tearing through her school. She got home around 7, and it was soon tearing through her. The three of us were pitiful throughout the night. I had a dehydration headache the next morning, and the sidekick kept all his meals down during the day. Your Sister slept virtually all day, and she's back at home today. I'm at work. He's at daycare. So far, so good. I'm a little woozy still, mostly muscle weary. I may also be starving. We've lived off soups and toast for a few days.

Picture of the Day
The Milky Way over Nepal.