28 December 2000 ~ The fever...

It's a few minutes after one in the morning. I'm exhausted, but can't sleep. I've been sleeping all day, snoozing away to the background noise of Norman's video collection.

I'm scared to try to sleep again. Now I've got a fever, not just a stomachache. I can feel it in my head: things are just a tad... off... wrong... unpleasant... miserable... No matter how much I try to convince myself that it's just a low-grade fever, the fact that I am feverish and alone makes me absolutely certain that this is it: I'm going to die as soon as my eyes close tonight.

Watched "JFK" a little while ago. Possibly the longest and most confusing movie I've ever watched. Didn't help that I could barely stay awake. Didn't help that I could barely sit up. I'm such a wimp. A little fever and the beginning of a slight sinus infection, and I'm completely out of commission. As a matter of fact, I called into work today, something I have not done in probably a year. But they didn't want me there: I couldn't even stand up and go to the bathroom for more water when I called in. Besides, my mind is so shot that I started sobbing when they announced the president had been killed in "JFK." This is not the type of person you want working in a kitchen.

Took my temperature with Norman's thermometer. Haven't used a digital thermometer in at least ten years, and couldn't figure out how it worked. Finally, it seemed to stop at 38.1 degrees, which horrified me for a good five minutes. Thirty-eight-point-one? Dude, thirty-eight-point-one is FREEZING! Mentally, I checked back through the past few hours. Hadn't fallen into a frozen river, or consumed large quantities of ice cream... Must be the thermometer was broken, in which case, who KNEW whether or not I was consuming mercury, in which case, I probably WOULD die overnight. Took me a good five minutes to realize the thermometer was metric -- leave it to Norman to keep a freaking METRIC thermometer in his bathroom closet: probably the only person in the entire country to have one, and quite possibly the only person able to read it, although maybe it's just a cute prop to scare one's sick and terrified girlfriend.

Wish to gahd there was someone in town I could talk to. I wrote last night about being lonely, about the ceilings being too high, about too much silence. Multiply that by about a thousand, and add muscle pain, a headache, and a little bit of dizziness. I need a friend RIGHT NOW, but there is absolutely nobody around. Can't even call my mom -- it's too late. I guess, supposing I really needed someone as a matter of life and death, I could go over to North Street, a few blocks away. I know some gutter-punks who live in an apartment building there. Not that I know them very well, but we're acquainted, and at least they're in town. They'd probably offer me a beer and some weed if I walked in looking as miserable as I feel. They're good kids, although my body won't tolerate anything but water right now.

This is what I hate about being a Big Girl. I just have to live, that's all there is to it. When I was eight -- hell, when I was 17 -- and sick, my mom would go to the store, buy me ginger ale, rent me movies, bring me compresses and take my temperature every few hours. Hell, even my dad rented me movies and brought home Pepto-Bismol or Tylenol when I asked. Now, there's nobody. I have to take care of myself, change the video in the VCR by myself, take my own medicine, and go to sleep knowing there's not a soul in the world who's looking out for me and checking on me every few hours. I could die tonight, and no one would know until I didn't show up for work tomorrow. Even then, I'm at Norman's apartment (my own was just unbearably cold), and nobody but Aaron knows where that is, and everyone would think I'm just skipping out. I keep having a wretched fantasy of being unable to breathe, of choking on my own body, and having no one around to save me.

Thirty-eight-point-one Celcius is a fever of 100.6 or so, Farenheit. Like I said, I'm a wimp. But I don't handle sickness very well. I'm scared of my body turning against me so suddenly. I'm scared of waiting another two days for Norman to come back home, for SOMEONE to be around. Bad enough missing someone when you're well and happy and thinking happy thoughts in their direction, but to add a fever and the persistent thought of death, strangulation, my body rebelling against itself?

Have nothing more to do. Can't let myself fall asleep now. Have watched so many hours of movies that I can barely see. Can't quite stomach the idea of reading the book Norman lent me, which has been about death for the first twenty pages or so...

...can barely even write...

Please, somebody come save me or something...

~Helena*