For a brighter f(l)uture

The sun rose and set every day this week. I am sure it must have. Someone would have told me otherwise. I wouldn't know though, not from the artificially induced gloom of my bedroom, or from under my millefeuille bed of blankets. I watched the goings on of outside from the comfort of my bed, filtered through my laptop via online news sources. It was an important week, like most weeks, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

My horoscope arrived via email and, to my relief, at least promised me a future. Some people emailed, others called to check in, but I didn't actually see or touch another warm body for three days. I wouldn't have known so many days had passed if it wasn't for a call reminding me of a friend's birthday party. I hadn't bought a gift.

The last interaction I remembered was ordering in. I knew I was falling ill, and decided to treat myself to a giant hot chicken noodle soup cure. The delivery man, like all delivery men, got lost in my building, and I ventured out in my pyjamas to find him with only that one thing on my mind. So I left the safety of my apartment, used the last bits of my stamina to run down three flights of stairs, and realized suddenly, coldly, that I was locked out. Mine is not a merciful god.

I shivered in the frosty entrance and buzzed the concierge. When she finally answered, she seemed unwilling to understand my predicament. We jostled the conversation between French and Spanish, both muffled through the fog of my fever, and finally reached an agreement. She would lend me her copy of my house keys, but she wouldn't like it. The deal seemed fair to me.

Nearly a full week later, I've come to.

I'm a few pounds lighter, totally exhausted, and all that has seemed to change is that crying is now en vogue for U.S. presidential candidates.

Amalgam of select grandmotherly advice for general health

I'm not going to drink my pee.

Three movies, one and a half novels, an entire clove of garlic, a full tablespoon of cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of ginger, honey, five zinc lozenges, one vitamin C tablet, several litres of water, one litre of pure cranberry juice, chicken soup, two ibuprofen, all-day bed rest, and a steamy hot Epsom salt bath later, and I am finally functional again. This hodge-podge recipe for health, inherited in bits and kisses from a thousand grandmothers, contains all known elements that might purge my clammy, pale, virus farm of a body of this nasty seasonal flu.

I didn't even cheat. No vitamin-sucking coffee or black tea, and certainly none of those delicious minty chocolates my mother sent me, no matter how much I wanted my mom at my bedside, would tempt me to risk my sure-to-be speedy recovery.

Still, I knew I was missing a key element, a little TLC. Halfway through the day, I stopped ignoring my phone in hopes that a friend would give me the sympathy I so craved. Relieved to hear the loving voice of a best friend on the other end, I let loose with my whining for only a minute or two, and sweetly, she listened. Then, with a lilt in her voice she suggested I drink my pee. Some people's grandmothers somewhere have been recommending the practice as a cure for eons, and if it was good enough for Gandhi...

Antibiotics - Antierotics

I am not sure how it happened, but somehow, Adonis is topless in my apartment, serving me tea with honey and lemon, and tickling the bottoms of my feet while I try to shake this fever. Maybe I am in a delirium. He’s surely a figment of my wishful thinking.

I am also not sure how I got tonsillitis. Following the standard three-and-a-half-hour wait in the lobby of the clinic, the doctor told me what I already knew, and gave me the prescription I needed. I have ahead of me 24 hours of being highly contagious, 48 hours of bed rest and 10 days of antibiotics. I’m not sure for how long I will benefit from the tender lusting care of this young traveller, new friend, and temporary housemate, but I’ll enjoy it as long as I can, like any self-respecting single twenty-something woman should.