October 19, 2007

Reprising My Role

I made it. I won't say that flying with a head cold was fun, or pretty, but it's over and that's that. I drank tons of fluid and went with a high powered decongestant and while there was absolutely an uncomfortable element (especially on decent) it wasn't the nightmare I had imagined. The drugs had the primary effect of making me feel high as a freakin' kite, but the secondary effect of keeping the sneezing and coughing down so that I don't believe that I passed it along to anyone on route. (The guy next to me on the plane was leaned so far away from me into the aisle that he almost took a drink cart to the back of the head. I helped him by leaning into the window. Poor guy. I must have looked like typhoid Mary.) I credit drinking as much water and juice as I could with being the biggest help...I was practically sloshing, but I felt a thousand times better once I was seriously well hydrated.

Juno picked me up at the airport, which is good, since I think I was way too stoned on the cold stuff to have found her house otherwise. I'm considering it a personal triumph that I found the door to the aircraft. I know I must have been looking just fantastic, since pretty much all she said to me on the ride was "poor baby" and "you're a little pathetic". Pathetic indeed, since I rolled just about straight into bed and woke up this morning still ill, but better. I know now that I will live, and I must be feeling better, since today, I'm okay with that.
I've been ensconced on her couch today, with pillows and a big blankie, drinking juice and water and eating oatmeal and apples, napping and knitting. If a day like this can't brace me for this evenings gig at Borders in New Jersey, and a Rhinebeck weekend I don't know what can.

The Sunrise Circle Jacket is looking really good. (Although I have managed to take a picture that in no way conveys it's charms.)

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The first sleeve is done, and I started the slightly tricky business of adding the front circle stitches at the same time as I start decreasing away the sleeve stitches. I started that part last night on the plane, but the cold drugs took their toll on my ability to count and I can't tell you of the multiple things I discovered wrong with it this morning when I was clean and sober. I ripped back the few rows I knit while I was out of it and took another run. Miraculously, when you aren't so stoned you can hardly see, the complexity of counting to five is increased remarkably. I've put the stitches for the front onto a circular needle I found on Juno's desk so you can see the odd shape it makes as it forms. Unbelievably, that small half circle ends up being the front of the jacket.

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Now, if you'll forgive me, I'm off to start getting ready to leave. Given that that the cold stuff whacked me out so badly I couldn't knit straight, I don't think that it's a good idea to take it before a speaking engagement. (I know there are those among you who would like me to take it just for the entertainment value it would provide you...but you'll have to trust me, last night the border guard had to ask me for my passport three times before I connected that he was speaking to me, even though I had walked up to the wicket. Not a good thing. Way too stupid.)

While I feel quite a bit better today, I am well aware that I look dreadful. Any woman who looked the way that I do today would have the good sense to lock herself in a closet rather than go out anywhere, but today doesn't have that option. I will therefore be drug free, red nosed, slightly sneezey and attempting to reprise my continuing and accidental role as the worlds least attractive woman. Sniff. Good thing I have practice, or I might even feel badly about it.

Posted by Stephanie at October 19, 2007 3:06 PM