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March 04, 2006
Sick As A Dog
Posted at March 4, 2006 11:02 AM in Health/Fitness .
I don’t know, do dogs get sick?
Anyway, I’m suffering with a cold, a wretched and horrible cold that is frightening. Being on immune suppressants – CellCept and prednisone – makes this cold a dangerous one. I have nothing to fight with. The meds basically take down my immune system to put Lupus at bay and, in essence, I am like flypaper to anything traveling around.
I had to put a call in to my doctor on Thursday when I realized, stupid me, a cold was afoot. Typically, when I notice these things coming, I have my own little defenses to keep them away. However, because of the immune suppressants, nothing I did worked. The big dose of vitamin C was not working, the inhaling of eucalyptus oil steamed was not working, nothing worked.
My doctor’s answer to my problem was antibiotics which seem, so far, to be working. I am still doing the eucalyptus and vitamin C but my rib cage, chest muscles, abs all hurt from coughing. I cannot go out, I don’t want to infect anyone with this nasty mess I’m dealing with and I don’t want anyone to infect me with something I don’t need either. I’m a mess and I don’t need to get any messier than I am.
This has thrown a monkey wrench in my plans for the weekend and possibly my entire vacation. Bah! I wanted to cover a show today but I can’t go near the place or the people for fear I might contract something. You really think differently when you know something as simple as a cold could kill you. I cannot operate on prior thinking that I can and will just get through it. No, I might not survive it and that’s how I have to view it, if I want to live.
Secondly, I really wanted to get my hair braided yesterday. Couldn’t do it. It was raining, it was cold, and I knew the woman’s apartment would have been just as cold. I probably would have returned home an utter mess. Thus, I canceled. I had to. Another bah!
So, between juicing, sleeping, inhaling, and sleeping some more, I decided to work (whenever I could) on my various sites and try to create some organization about the mess. You will notice I have now added a menu across the top of the pages here on Pica 12. The same menu exists on my Photojournalism site. The reason for this is Movable Type. SixApart is responsible for Typepad, Livejournal and Movable Type. As such, what I do to one site I can now do to the other. This is cool.
I had to convert my Typepad space to the new MT (Movable Type) system in order to accomplish this. It gives me more options and the ability to access the CSS and HTML (or PHP) controls, which is a good thing because I got tired of my Categories and Archives filling the sidebar. Now, I have a drop down menu – that’s a good thing.
I am not completely moving away from the GLBT community either. FemmeNoir, as it was, became a bit of a hardship on me. To sit and work on Microsoft’s Frontpage to edit that site became more than a notion. Too, I got tired of coming home to surf the net to find articles of interest pertaining to the GLBT community – because I wasn’t getting articles from folks, I had to find them myself.
MS Frontpage is a program that dictated I allocate time to sit and create pages to post to. Since coming out of my mourning phase (Picasso’s Blue), I am not interested in being chained to my desk in order to update a site. After discovering Typepad and realizing I can blog from anywhere – even my cell phone and WiFi enabled laptop – I wanted something that was just as easy, in which case, as I come across something, I can post it. There is so much going on right now, we need some place to serve as a depository of information – albeit not all inclusive though I’m working on that.
The other part of why I gave up FemmeNoir is because I don’t know anyone. I believe Terry Howcott is the only person I speak with consistently. The Leaders/Legends, don’t know any of them personally – or to put it better, some, not personally, others, not very well. Too, I know very little about the GLBT community. I come from a very different segment of that community and much of what I know is still very foreign to me. As such, I honestly don’t feel I fit in and my views are very, very different. Which is why I started backing away from my own site which pained me. To have something and not be a part of it is very unnerving.
Since I have always felt this barrier to entrance – even Christine pushed me away – I felt it best to truly back away. To have a site that appears as if I am all up in to the GLBT community – a farce, if you will – was unnerving. I’ve never honestly been a part of the community and don’t know if I’ll ever be a part of the community. I’m just being honest. Simply, I don’t fit in. I’ve tried, I don’t fit.
That said, I can do only what I know how to do and that is report on things going on, events I might attend when I can, link to other sites, but to have a site that appears as an authority, like I know something – which was the impression I was getting via the emails I received – I can’t do it and I didn’t feel good about it either.
I’m one of those kind of strange people that believes if you are to do something, do it completely, not haphazardly and that was wearing on me. I like to be thorough if at all possible and sometimes I don’t make it, but I try. FemmeNoir, as it was, began to grate my nerves.
Truth is, I pretty much returned to my world. Though I am more out now than I was, the world I fit in is one that is secret. Enough of this.
I am doing a number of things now and hopefully, when I get better, I will start covering a lot of events, rallies, etc. I am also looking forward to talking about photography, some of my favorite photographers and mentors and the state of journalism today – which ain’t good.
In the meantime, whilst I try to get everything together, I’m going back to inhaling, popping pills, and going back to bed ‘cause I’m sick as a dog – bow wow!