i am a walking pathagen, my lungs coughing up snot enough to make me quesy. I shuffle around the house, half a life and do much convalesing in the sun, smelling the flowers which have no fragrance and petting my faithful dog.
and i'm sure somehow this will tie into the plague of 1924... one of my favorite realizations while living in Chicago was that the context for all those disaster flicks of the '70s was grounded not just in super-hot box office action but on real and palpable paranoia and fear (maybe). Crowded in subways, deserted city streets at night- it wasn't hard to imagine some inevitable event and the apocalypse all in one. Movies like Towering Inferno (hello faye dunaway!), Earthquake! (ah, charlton heston!) and more recently Outbreak! or Resident Evil might really happen. (who doesn't love the Red Queen?) I have secret yearnings to be a conspiracy theorist and the government really will make you disappear if they want to- it's like that one time in 1924 when the bubonic plague broke out in Los Angeles-in a relatively poor section of town. A man pulled a dead rat from the wall of his house, laughed about it, and sometime later his whole family was dead. As the death toll rose the city got wise and cordened off the "infected area" and confined, from what i remember at least 2,000 ? people to take their chances.
But the case was they weren't allowed to leave to shop for food, work or anything that would mean that they weren't doomed. All in all for a plague it was pretty tame. I think only 39 people died. And there was a woman who ran a school who jumped the barricade to help alleviate the depressed and subjected by continuing to teach school and convincing confined musicians to play and make merry- thereby giving them a sense of normalcy or lulling them to sleep, kind of like oxygen masks in a crashing plane. But i'm for a little dosing if it'll stop the uncontrollable crying and screaming. Am i right? You know I am. Anyway it lasted 2 wks and they killed all the rats and squirrels- which apparently are still to be kept a wary eye on in the hills of California- squashed. It was actually the last outbreak in the United States and can be traced back to plague rats from China that jumped ship in San Francisco back in 1919, or thereabouts. You know i'm picturing Lome reading a book about bubonic plagues right now, in an orange jumpsuit, in the middle of the ocean, with wide, wide eyes.
I think we can all say that songs no matter how morbid- with rosies and posies- give us a lift in the face of unimaginable death. As I was just a week ago stricken with a fever of 102- waking every hour and begging for the dawn- i was thinking of acting-and that i needed to remember what this felt like if i were to ever play a character who was quickly becoming consumptive- it's true i've been reading too many victorian novels- except that my friend Cath, just found out she had tuberculosis bcs some girl at her work was stricken down and the CDC was informed and suddenly everyone
had to get tested. So poor Cath tested positive, shuffling around the subways of NewYork, with heaving breath to her 5th floor walkup- with an ill appetite and watery eyes, waiting to see if it's the iron lung she requires or perhaps a very long holiday on the shores of a bright sunned place with cool ocean breezes and a sympathetic aunt to watch her thin pale frame and bring her tea when required. Suddenly all these sorts of things become real in the face of illness- and none are ever so pretty once you leave the upper classes. It's Austen to Dickens in a heartbeat. Not to mention the actual inevitable fact about mortality. But I digress.
i am a walking pathagen, my lungs coughing up snot enough to make me quesy. I shuffle around the house, half a life and do much convalesing in the sun, smelling the flowers which have no fragrance and petting my faithful dog. and i'm sure somehow this will tie into the plague of 1924... one of my favorite realizations while living in Chicago was that the context for all those disaster flicks of the '70s was grounded not just in super-hot box office action but on real and palpable paranoia and fear (maybe). Crowded in subways, deserted city streets at night- it wasn't hard to imagine some inevitable event and the apocalypse all in one. Movies like Towering Inferno (hello faye dunaway!), Earthquake! (ah, charlton heston!) and more recently Outbreak! or Resident Evil might really happen. (who doesn't love the Red Queen?) I have secret yearnings to be a conspiracy theorist and the government really will make you disappear if they want to- it's like that one time in 1924 when the bubonic plague broke out in Los Angeles-in a relatively poor section of town. A man pulled a dead rat from the wall of his house, laughed about it, and sometime later his whole family was dead. As the death toll rose the city got wise and cordened off the "infected area" and confined, from what i remember at least 2,000 ? people to take their chances. 
But the case was they weren't allowed to leave to shop for food, work or anything that would mean that they weren't doomed. All in all for a plague it was pretty tame. I think only 39 people died. And there was a woman who ran a school who jumped the barricade to help alleviate the depressed and subjected by continuing to teach school and convincing confined musicians to play and make merry- thereby giving them a sense of normalcy or lulling them to sleep, kind of like oxygen masks in a crashing plane. But i'm for a little dosing if it'll stop the uncontrollable crying and screaming. Am i right? You know I am. Anyway it lasted 2 wks and they killed all the rats and squirrels- which apparently are still to be kept a wary eye on in the hills of California- squashed. It was actually the last outbreak in the United States and can be traced back to plague rats from China that jumped ship in San Francisco back in 1919, or thereabouts. You know i'm picturing Lome reading a book about bubonic plagues right now, in an orange jumpsuit, in the middle of the ocean, with wide, wide eyes.
I think we can all say that songs no matter how morbid- with rosies and posies- give us a lift in the face of unimaginable death. As I was just a week ago stricken with a fever of 102- waking every hour and begging for the dawn- i was thinking of acting-and that i needed to remember what this felt like if i were to ever play a character who was quickly becoming consumptive- it's true i've been reading too many victorian novels- except that my friend Cath, just found out she had tuberculosis bcs some girl at her work was stricken down and the CDC was informed and suddenly everyone had to get tested. So poor Cath tested positive, shuffling around the subways of NewYork, with heaving breath to her 5th floor walkup- with an ill appetite and watery eyes, waiting to see if it's the iron lung she requires or perhaps a very long holiday on the shores of a bright sunned place with cool ocean breezes and a sympathetic aunt to watch her thin pale frame and bring her tea when required. Suddenly all these sorts of things become real in the face of illness- and none are ever so pretty once you leave the upper classes. It's Austen to Dickens in a heartbeat. Not to mention the actual inevitable fact about mortality. But I digress.
4 comments:
Tell it like it is, girl!
I am ill now. The contagion has passed to me. I am never sick, (rarely) and I have oodles of sick time at my full time job. But my co-worker who does payroll is on vacation and my other co-worker and I were suppossed to process payroll together. Even thought she should be glad not to have this contagion, I'm pretty sure I really owe her one.
exceptionally well written. sorry you're not well. don't die or anything, ok?
I am currently dosing with Walborne. It was $4 compared to the $8 Airborne. Will it work as well? I dunno. It's not a scientific test, as I haven't ever actually used Airborne.
In any case, my friend has TB from her trip to Cambodia, or India, or Africa. She worked in the Homes for the Dying all three places, so take your pick.
So far she's opted not to do the 6 months of pills that mean she can't drink any alcohol.
And apparently TB occasionally attacks your intestines, which is why I had to do the chest x-ray after surgery for the mysterious intestinal ailment. As of that point I was TB free.
Ginger is Mom's home remedy. Cut a fresh root into slices, drop them in a pot of boiling water. Turn flame to low, inhale steam. Ah.
Drink some of the infusion. Spicy.
You can add sugar if you like. Your sore throat will thank you. It will also soothe your tummy if it has become cranky. Also, slice some very thin, salt and dry. Suck on a piece when the dry back of the throat tickle torments you.
Moms know these things.
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