That's My Bix!

Things I have learned since being sick:

*It is possible to survive on hot tea and Dasani alone, provided that you have cleverly stored fat in your ass for just this type of emergency.

*I actually can function without caffeine, despite how much I firmly believed the contrary. However, it causes me to listen to only Emo music and I now strongly suspect that I once dated the lead singer from Dashboard Confessional, who keeps writing me these long maudlin letters and leaving them under my car’s windshield wiper.

*Ricola Cherry Honey drops work really well but you get tired of them really quickly. Airborne gummi drops work better if you don’t chew them, but watch out for the licorice flavor. Luden cough drops are completely worthless. Halls Strawberry and Cream Fruit Breezers are worthless too, but at least they taste better. Hot tea works better than any of these things, but the best thing of all is Tylenol Sore Throat liquid, which seems to be made of magic cherries.

*No one loves me like my iPod loves me.

*Tazo Calm says its chamomile but really, it’s peppermint. The Republic of Tea Panda Berry isn’t that great, but passable as long as I’m not feeling urpy. White Earl Grey in the tin is very pretty but hurts my throat, as does anything with lemon in it. The Chinese Flower version of the same tinned brand is sort of gross, but again, has very pretty silk tea bags. Republic of Tea’s Blackberry and Sage is better iced than hot, but their Honey Ginsing green tea is my best friend in all of teadom. And superfine baking sugar is the thing to put in tea, because it dissolves like fairy dust before it hits the bottom of the cup.

*Nothing is better than watching The OC DVDs. Nothing. I’m even starting to like Julie Cooper.

*When you have a fever at work, the whole thing becomes a surreal farce, a study in putty and taupes and the whirring of air rushing through commercial-grade ventilation systems. The clocks stop, then run backwards, then melt off the walls into puddles of numbers and dials. Emails arrive pre-jumbled and it takes several attempts to break the code. And then you become convinced that your cube-neighbor’s stuffed monkey is staring at you and you have fantasies of throwing the little bastard across the room, a glorious arc over the web of cubicles that pleases you and all day, you imagine the trajectory, the way its little arms and legs would summersault in the air, confused heads popping up as it flies above their cells, flying in slow motion and never ever stopping. Envisioning the throwing of the monkey becomes the only thing that gives you the fortitude to make it through the day.

And perhaps, the most important lesson:

*When you don’t eat, you don’t poop.