I am home from work, having called in sick for the second day in a row. I always feel terribly guilty about calling in sick, even when it's obvious I should be no place but in bed (which I am, thanks to my laptop and our wireless router thingy). I always feel like The Boss doesn't believe me, though he has never given me any indication of such, and that he thinks I'm calling in sick to frolic elsewhere, though I have never done so.

It started Tuesday evening when I left work. Walking through the parking deck, I got very cold. It was kinda cold - well, cold for Georgia, especially after several days of springlike weather - and there was one of those bitter, biting winds blowing that chills to the bone. I couldn't seem to get warm again, despite the car heater and my leather jacket. Once home, we had plans to go to Borders (we had a coupon!) and then out to eat, so while waiting for Alan to finish work I snuggled under a blanket. But I still couldn't get warm - at one point my teeth were chattering; still, I'm a girl who loves the bookstore so off we went.

At the bookstore, I varied between thinking I was fine, that whatever weirdness was going on had passed, and feeling so cold, odd and shaky that I wanted to collapse on the floor in a teeth-chattering lump and become someone else's problem. It came in waves - fine one moment, wondering if I might pass out at Borders the next - and hey, let's be honest, since it's me, I was also wondering if I did pass out at Borders, whether they'd give me free books, and how many it might be, and calculating whether it might be worth it all. I didn't pass out so I can't answer those all-important questions.

When we were finished browsing, Alan asked where I'd like to eat. I pondered a moment and asked, "Would you mind if we just went home instead?" YES. ME, refusing a restaurant outing. Now everyone knows how sick and delirious I really was. However, since we'd planned on eating out, we hadn't taken anything out to thaw so we wound up going to Zaxby's for take-out. Once home, I ate about 1/3 of my dinner, stuck the remains in the fridge and went to take a hot bath in hopes of warming up.

At a bit less than the halfway point, I turned the cold tap off entirely and filled the rest of the bath with hot water only. I sat in the steaming water for nearly 20 minutes and STILL couldn't get warm. By 9:00 I was in bed, wrapped in wonderfully soft cotton 'jamas, underneath the sheet, the usual blankie, a quilt, a comforter and an extra knitted afghan, curled into a shivering, teeth-chattering ball complaining that it was too cold. At one point Alan stuck his hand under the mountain of covers, under my pajama top and touched my back. He reported that I was not cold, but "smokin' hot", in response to which I demanded another quilt.

Around 5:45 I woke up and needed to pee, so I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. I was so dizzy and disoriented that I nearly fell en route, and it's all of 10 feet away. I still felt horrible and it was obvious that I was in no shape to commute, much less work, so I thought I'd phone the office and leave The Boss a voice mail. Keep in mind that there is a telephone on the nightstand on my side of the bed - perhaps my fevered brain didn't want to disturb Alan, but for some reason phoning in sick involved going all the way up to the front of the house, staggering back to the study, waking the MacBook and pulling up our company website, going to the kitchen, and continuing to wander. My perambulations disturbed Alan anyway, and the following conversation ensued.

"Honey, what are you doing?"

"I'm still sick. So cold...I can't go to work. I have to call The Boss."

"Okay, that's what you should do. But why are you in the garage?"

Then when I got inside, I dialed the office number from memory, except my memory was as fried as everything else and instead of a '3' in the exchange, I dialed a '2'. I called some poor dude's house at quarter to six on a Wednesday morning. I hope he was staying at his girlfriend's or traveling on business or something and that I didn't wake his entire household. I got his machine, but only after about a dozen rings. Anyway, Jay Lakritz, I'm really sorry. I love my sleep and you can't imagine how sorry I am if I ruined yours, but I was very sick and I hope you can forgive me. Or, y'know, my number is on your caller ID, so you can call me in the middle of the night a couple of times in vengeance. I wouldn't blame you.

I slept almost all day yesterday. I was semi-okay while in bed, under the 20 pounds of covers, but whenever I got up, like to go to the bathroom or to get a water or take aspirins, I got SO. VERY. FRICKIN'. COLD. [that font is meant to be ice-blue - it's illustrative, see?] and it would take an hour or more for me to feel warm again. I got up around 2:30 in the afternoon for another hot bath and again around 7:30 to eat dinner, which was under protest but Alan said I had to eat. I ate most of my mashed potatoes and a little beef, at which point a symptom other than "cold" presented itself. A digestive issue. Since dinner until about 1:30 this afternoon, I've done nothing but sleep and poop. It's like reliving my infancy, only without the colorful ballerina mobile above my crib.

Right now, I feel a bit better but it's a sort of cautiously better. Like I'm okay now, but let's not get crazy with anything extreme like hair-brushing that might trigger a relapse. At least I'm not freezing cold anymore. I am going to see how the afternoon/evening goes but I hope I can go in to the office tomorrow, at least for a while. At the moment, the least little thing wears me out and requires a nap, but maybe I can go in and accomplish something. If not, Jay, you have my word that I won't call to let you know.