Day 134, self quarantine:
Sunday, July 26, 2020
So yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the sofa, playing with my phone while Gary was upstairs getting dressed when all of a sudden, I felt unbelievably sick.
Ugh, I know it makes no sense because I am in freaking quarantine, but because I am me, in the ten minutes Gary left me alone, I somehow managed to convince myself I had coronavirus.
Naturally I started panicking.
Poor Gary. He walked upstairs and left a happy, kinda normal person on the couch and came downstairs to psycho woman dripping in sweat and doubled over.
Sunday, July 26, 2020
So yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the sofa, playing with my phone while Gary was upstairs getting dressed when all of a sudden, I felt unbelievably sick.
Ugh, I know it makes no sense because I am in freaking quarantine, but because I am me, in the ten minutes Gary left me alone, I somehow managed to convince myself I had coronavirus.
Naturally I started panicking.
Poor Gary. He walked upstairs and left a happy, kinda normal person on the couch and came downstairs to psycho woman dripping in sweat and doubled over.
I guess the only strange part about this story is that it took four months to happen.
Have I mentioned I’m a raging hypochondriac?
I was just going over the benefits of quarantine in my brain the other day. I regularly get four head colds a year, with every season. Gary, who worked in a huge, warehouse type place with 80 employees, used to bring me home every virus out there.
But yeah, since the two of us are quarantined, we’ve both been in perfect health.
I immediately thought I gave myself a kinehora.
The day had started out awesome. We were both pretty chill and excited about dinner.
One of my weird quarantine habits, either because I have too much time on my hands or I’m now officially an old person since this is what old people do, is to google people, places and things from my past.
I even google places I know aren’t there any more, somehow hoping I was wrong or they were somehow resurrected.
I have no idea why I’m doing this, but anyway, Gary brought up a restaurant we ate at regularly when we were first married, which was Philadelphia’s first Asian fusion restaurant (long out of business)and I got obsessed with the idea of having a similar meal for dinner last night.
All of a sudden, I remembered a great fusion restaurant we used to order takeout from a couple times a month when the kids lived home.
So it’s been well over ten years, maybe fifteen, since we ate there.
I googled them, not expecting to get lucky, but yes! They were not only still in business, they just relocated to the site of another nearby restaurant we used to eat at all the time when the kids were little.
I have no idea why we stopped going there, either, other than we probably got sick of it.
Haha, you should have seen the rabbit hole I went down when Google maps showed me the restaurant and street - south 20th and Spruce, which is home to several cool shops and restaurants. A lot of those places were around in my teens through my forties...now, all new but still “mom and pop” which is pretty crazy for downtown Philadelphia.
Anyway, once I told Gary about the restaurant, I literally spent an hour pouring over the menu picking out our order.
We were both unreasonably excited.
And now virus girl was messing up everything.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Gary asked, alarmed.
“God no. I’ll die at home.”
No worries, Gary is used to me.
“What do you think this is? We ate the same exact thing unless you’re hiding food again.”
“No, I ate a bowl of Cheerios with some almond milk around three hours ago. That’s all I had. Can you make me some tea? I think I am having an anxiety attack. Omg, why am I this sick?”
I gotta tell you, every hypochondriac should have a Gary. He springs into immediate emergency room physician chef mode.
“What kind of tea do you want?”
“The kind that stops panic attacks,” I gasped, as another wave of nausea swept over me.
“You want the Kava Stress Relief?”
Omg, how many types of anxiety relief tea do we have? Just make me a fucking cup so I can unclench my jaw.
“Yessss,” I said instead.
How the fuck did I get the virus? Omg, I had to go to the post office for work on Monday. Did I get in from someone standing in line?
Omg, I’m the one who sent Gary to Danny’s Guitar Shop on Wednesday. Did he bring it home to me?
I wrapped myself in a blanket, shivering.
Gary walked in with my tea.
“What happened? You were fine a few minutes ago.”
“I don’t know. I was sitting here reading and all of a sudden I had a searing low back pain and I got nauseous beyond belief...”
I was literally dripping sweat. Fuck, maybe this was a heart attack AND the virus.
“Sounds like a kidney stone to me,” said Dr. Gary.
Oh. Oh, right.
How could I forget?
Especially since I have been plagued with them since age 21.
To make a long story short, once I realized it was neither a coronary or coronavirus, I made a miraculous recovery but I still felt nauseous and had no more appetite for Asian fusion food.
Gary made me his famous vegetarian chicken soup.
I swear, it’s Jewish penicillin on steroids. I felt better after one spoonful.
So that was my day yesterday.
I still don’t feel 100% this morning but if you’ve ever suffered an anxiety attack, this is typical. You get a hangover like effect for a day or two afterward.
I’m glad Gary made a big pot of his magic soup.
I’m actually going to take a page from Gary’s playbook and get off my heiny and do some housework now. It really is best to stay active physically when your brain is too active emotionally.
Live long and prosper, comrades.
