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I have Shingles. Mother Fucking Shingles.
It’s the chicken pox virus, a form of herpes, if you never knew. You had to of had chicken pox in the past to get Shingles, as the virus remains embedded in your nerve cells long after you contract the disease. Should it ever escape, it’ll infect one branch of your nervous system, usually around one side of your torso, and the skin above the infected nerves will redden and blister. Trust me, I know.
I felt odd on Friday night, after not being able to sleep the night before. Like the hairs on my back were glued to my shirt, and every time I moved, they were tugged and pinched. I was tired, out of sorts, and a little achy. The red spots appeared the next day.
I didn’t worry, at first. One thing about living in California is that there are always bugs, year round. One thing about there being bugs year round is that there are spiders year round. One thing about there being spiders year round is that, when the weather gets too dry, there aren’t enough bugs to eat. And so, the evolutionary crucible being what it is, California has birthed several species of Man-Eating spiders. I have become accustomed to waking up with multiple gouges most mornings, and it terrifies me that one night I will wake up and have to witness this parasitism transpiring. We all take a little bloodshed as karmic payment for the nice weather.
On day three the blisters showed up, and I got worried. Worried, of course, that I had some odd disease, but more worried in the American sort of “ fuck I don’t have health insurance, and this might end up costing me THOUSANDS” sort of way. Fortunately, I live in liberal ole’ Berkeley, and so dropped into the free health clinic. I have a right to be skeptical, as it is staffed by volunteers with marginal medical training, but still, they have to confer with doctors, and the bottom line was that I- likely- had Shingles.
And so I’m left watching this rather disgusting proliference of red patches and blistery yuck slowly work its way around my right torso, in a strip centered around my mid-rib area. I’m subject to malaise in the evenings, and I’m assured it will linger on for the next 2-4 weeks, until my immune system finally catches on and kills the little shits.
I mention all of this to complain. Just before I wrote this sentence, I had initially thought to say “ I don’t mention all of this to complain, but…” And then I realized I was lying. I WANT TO COMPLAIN, but I know it makes for poor reading unless you justify it. Let me justify it.
I decided something. I decided to embrace my misery.
I don’t want to complain (LIE), but this summer has been brutal. Break-ups, joblessness, homelessness and Shingles have all knocked me around. Still, much is of my own doing. Smoking, for example.
I smoke (currently). I have smoked for a long time. I thought is was a cool way to prove I was not a wanker that should get beat up in the hallways at age 13, and have embraced it ever since, a sort of mental wall that stated:
“ Don’t fuck me up, because clearly I am destructive enough, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE even, to not care about FUCKING YOU UP TOO.”
….Which was fine for a sort of desperate bid for a teenager, but needs to be lost before your thirty-fifth birthday.
Guess how old I’m turning next month!
I had decided on a quit date, which my friends who have managed to quit things tell me is Bullshit. I had chosen my mother’s birthday, for obvious reasons, at least obvious to those of you who know me well enough for this to be obvious. But, well, it’s going to suck whenever I do it, and I might as well be efficient about it, a move that would thrill my Ex in its naked efficiency. I’ve been moping about the house anyway, purposeless, and why not condense ugliness and pain? The quality and texture of our lives are defined by the overhang, the issues we superscribe as constant, and if I’m docketed to be miserable for the next few weeks, might as well multi-task. And for this reason, I WILL COMPLAIN. That will be all the blog contains for a while. And this is OK. Fuck it. I’m not looking forward to it, but knowing that life will be sucky for a while, well, so be it. I’m going out for a smoke while I still can.
