Guess what’s back? They call it…breakbone fever. Sinister! It seems unlikely but not impossible. You know you’re in a good situation when they’re testing you for weird tropical shit. I kid you not, they took about a cup of blood today, not just a couple of wee vials.

“Are you lightheaded?” asked the NP.

“Not more than I have been lately,” I said.

They also took pee and a chest x-ray. There are weird spots in my right lung and some fluid. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my past as a huffer delinquent. The NP pushed on my ankle and it left a dent like memory foam. AUUUGH x infinity.

I got tapered off Prednisone and it was awful for a few days, but they gave me more at the urgent clinic today. So I am feeling a lot better already, whew. I kind of made a resolution to go back to living life now that I’m out of paid time off and it’s been a month, but I’m not going crazy. And I’m not really doing anything at night since that’s the worst.

Did you know that you can cook a lot sitting down? I didn’t. Heh.

Strudel helped me decorate Irish whisky cupcakes and I interrogated my sister about how Irish we are. Half maybe? American mutts. My sister knows more than I do, and she remembers more from our mother. She reminded me that a lot of our family is orphans out of burned down orphanages and whatnot. I know nothing about my father’s family except that his father died of something brain related (?) when he was young.

“The Don Drapers,” I joked. I expected to feel a yearn when she told me all this, but really I feel let off the hook. Genealogy is a real rabbit hole. The girls and I buy old timey photos we like and call the people in the “Aunt Helen” or whatever and give them backstories and I hang them up. Close enough.

After dinner, which mostly cooked itself, I lay on the floor and we watched Saturday Night Fever. I’d heard it was campy and dark, but I didn’t know there was a gang rape scene in a car. AY CARUMBA. I just wanted to see some disco dancing after watching Freaks and Geeks with Franny recently.

I also made peppermint patties sitting at the table.

Strudel turned nine last week and I rallied (codeine) and took her to Benihana. She had a nice time.

“I have an electrical kit! It’s from Australia!”

I am delighted and thrilled to say the bathroom is almost done. Last week I was (almost) sleeping through the tile saws, etc. I felt bad because I was making the guys coffee every day, but I fell off when I fell off. These guys are so easy to work with, I love them. What is left is the plumber for fixtures and a couple of little tweaks.

The bathroom’s quite modern but I feel I’ve captured some of the flavor of the upstairs bathrooms. The nice thing about building a dated bathroom is that you don’t have to feel sad that it’s out of date when you try to sell in 10+ years. I realized not too long ago that I have been spending my whole adulthood trying to get back to the happy part of my childhood, which was spent in the houses of grandparents who had a bunch of 50’s and 60’s crap. Bad taste–it’s Freudian, man.