I woke up this morning and immediately threw up. It was one of those bad burning ones that makes your throat hurt. It was kind of a relief, because I’d been feeling bad all night, which was waking me up, and then I knew I had a legit reason to stay home rather than just “I woke up all night and now feel like hammered shit.” Sick days are precious gems and I have used too many of them already this year. But: my head hurts, my body hurts, my sciatic nerve is making a call, which is surprising because I haven’t heard from that since I was mongo pregnant.
Thing two is that I spent about two hours dreaming about something extremely trivial: Mad Men. If you don’t like or watch Mad Men, or you save them all up like precious truffles and gobble them all up after the season’s over, you may want to run away now, and just know that I am sick and unhappy and rambling about pointless shit.
So. Ahem. I like to go slow, deep, and very hard into my Mad Men, and read the online graduate seminar known as a Tom and Lorenzo recap. Among people who enjoy taking part in the wanky Mad Men Symbolism Quest of tearing costumes, setting, and flashbacks apart, much hay has been made about Don and Megan in their bedroom. “They are never on even footing!” say the posters. Don is ill with Megan hovering over him, or Megan is in her PJs and Don is in his suit. One is up walking around, and the other is in bed. I was thinking about Don Draper miserable in bed, because I was feeling like that one ep where Don stuffs his ex under the bed. Confused! And fucked up.
I am also thinking of elements of good dialogue–dialogue that is snappy, and moves the plot along, and what is happening during the dialogue. Rarely on Mad Men or in a good novel do you have two people talking and doing absolutely nothing. I’ve decided it’s pretty simple. You can’t put two people in a bedroom in the middle of the day without at least one of them having a legit reason to be there. Sickness, sleep, changing clothes. At this point, you get the feeling that Don and Megan are well over their honeymoon stage, and showing them lovingly making with the sexy times isn’t really moving the plot along, nor would it tell the story Wiener seems to want to tell this season. A lot of commentary over on Tom and Lorenzo, beyond what the recappers say themselves, is insignificant, and amounts to “Hey I noticed a thing.” Is it significant, this thing you saw? Or is it just a plausible reason to get two characters somewhere so they can talk and do the actual work of moving the story ahead? My favorite commenters are the ones who 1. remember the 60s, a la Sally Draper, or 2. Notice some shoutback to a previous episode or season. That is all.
I also had another minor revelation this morning. I’ve been kind of operating on austerity measures around here (okay that is a total misuse of that term) regarding things the girls like but rip through, and then you have to buy more in about five minutes, and it’s annoying. Case in point: cough drops. Strudel decided to raid the medicine cabinet and eat all the cough drops for no reason, other than the fact they contain sugar. Then she lied about eating them, and then I found all the wrappers under her pillow. I thought, well, it’s almost spring, and we rarely use them anyway, so I would wait to buy more until we need them. I forgot that a time when it is nice to have cough drops is right after you make a big burning porcelain phone call. Straws, also. I really want a straw this morning to pathetically sip my Talking Rain through, and I gave up buying them when I moved because I discovered the girls were going through them at a rate of approximately 17.5 a day. WHY? HOW?
This is one of my least favorite things about having children. “Say, I’d sure like an X right now.” Oh? Tough shit, some short assholes used that up ages ago and then did not put it on the list because they know they are not supposed to build crowns out of Q-Tips. Yes, they have access to 1. Actual, non-mentholated candy, 2. Lips, that they can suck water through, and 3. Art supplies to make crowns from if they wish. They even have SEPARATE art supplies because I couldn’t take the fighting anymore, and now there are art supply drawer raids, which leads to art drawer supply raid fights.
The big one woke me up at 11 last night to inform me she’d vomited all over her bedroom floor. I was kind of like “and?” since everything hurt and I’d just solidly fallen asleep. So there I am cleaning up phad thai, which I dreamt about all night, and almost vomiting myself. Vomit begets vomit in me something like 75% of the time. I’ve been dreading this day. On one hand, you are a sick kid. On the other, the 8-year-old can now make it to the toilet, or at least make a good attempt at it. When do you stop cleaning kid puke?
After I’d gotten the bulk of the steaming noodles off the floor, I rolled up her rug and left that one for her. That should be a good baby step into showing her how awful cleaning puke is. I wanted to atomic wedgie her on Saturday, because she was teasing Strudel about getting sick on Friday night, starting the chain of barf-a-rama. Franny barfed almost weekly until she was five or so, in the worst places, like between her wall and bed, into my hair, etc. I can probably count the total number of times Strudel has been that sick since she was born on two hands. She wasn’t even much of a milk spitter.
Naptime.
Sick days are precious. Sometimes I call them wellness days. Savor it!
I re-watch previous Mad Med seasons on the regular. I love the small revelations about the characters that come in tiny snips through the dialogue. Here is my thing that I look for and count: how often people say “That’s not true.” and/or “You know that’s not true.” Especially in the first two seasons, but they still drop some in.
Hope you feel better soon. Kids can be rough, but you got two good ones. My mother had to cut Sucrets cough drops out of my hair more than a few times. And one time I snipped up her good measurinig tape for sewing along every inch marker on each side just because it had a squishy feeling and she cried because it was expensive.
I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think I learned to make it to the toilet in time until I was well into my teens. On one memorable occasion I tried, which just resulted in something like a four-foot trail of puke on the rug. I don’t know, I just didn’t have the… stomach awareness? vomit-signal receptors? to know for certain when it was going to happen. On the other hand, by that point I had learned that when I didn’t feel well, it was probably best to keep a bucket or something next to me at all times.
I also used to eat pretty much everything that my mother was storing in the freezer for later. I was a pretty rotten kid.
Hope you feel better soon!
PLUS the Mad Men Style T&L do are double fab. But you knew that already! Hope you are up and doing better.