i have a gnarly cold and obviously i am the first person on earth to suffer the indignity of a common cold so no i will not stop moaning about it. last week i had a scratchy throat and then i was congested as hell and then i started coughing so hard i pissed! my! pants! and i was like “...has covid finally come for me??????” WILD because all i have ever left the house to do since march is adopt a dumb dog and sit in the car drinking iced coffee with the seat warmer on while pretending it’s a spaceship far away from this wretched planet, but still. i bring the mail in sometimes! i’ve had a masked conversation with the ups guy! what if some droplets crawled under my mask and slithered down into my lungs???
i did the online cdc screener and my results were GET OFF THE INTERNET AND CALL A DOCTOR YOU DUMB BITCH, so then i called our local hospital’s coronavirus hotline and the nurse asked me a ton of questions and when we finished she sighed forlornly and asked me how soon i could get to the abandoned barn in the middle of a cornfield where they were administering tests. i drove out there and a nurse in hazmat gear escorted me in through a side door and took my vitals and put that pipe cleaner up my nose into my brain then made me count to ten with her. anyway it was negative but i’m still sniffling, BOOOOOOOOO.
books
i cannot read when i am sick. like, literally, my eyes do not work! there is zero comprehension happening!
but i have WATCHED:
-this incredible netflix movie uncorked which is so fucking charming and beautiful and funny and heartstring-tugging and it’s about a young black dude who wants to be a sommelier?????? it’s so good even if you hate wine
-HOLY SHIT seduced (the vow is dull and bad, gtfo)
-the undoing on hbo which features a few of my favorite things: extravagant outerwear, hugh grant’s delicious accent and face, and rich people’s bullshit
-season 7 of 90 day fiancé
-autumn in new york (i do not care that you hate it, this movie is romantic and i like it a lot!!!)
-many episodes of svu on usa
-many college football games even though i barely graduated high school and have no allegiances
-this creepy ass movie the lodge
-scream (i am trying to introduce my teenage stepchildren to movies i like and two minutes in these assholes were screaming “LOOK AT HER BIG ASS PHONE” while laughing uncontrollably before immediately bouncing to go play among us)
-also i’ve been obsessively listening to many, many episodes of you’re wrong about (i started with the nancy grace deep dives and then skipped around, every episode is good) in addition to my true loves who? weekly and the read
my congestion fog lifted just enough for me to read some spooky shit on halloween and i started this book tiny nightmares which is full of “very short tales of horror.” each story is basically four pages long and creepy as hell and i love flash fiction because it requires so little commitment but somehow also feels fulfilling? my pal and incredible genius writer lindsay hunter used to host this flash fiction reading series in chicago called quickies! in which each person was given four minutes to read a complete piece of prose, no excerpts. as you may have noticed i have a problem with brevity, so every time she and her co-host teddy asked me to do the show i would spiral, which is a long way of saying that it is an art to be able to write a good super-short story and i have not mastered it. i also ordered the companion book tiny crimes, which coincidentally is also the name of my punk band.
snacks
i only eat one thing when i have a cold or the flu and it’s this soup that is so easy to make it can be done in a weakened state with a head full of unflavored cotton candy, also you can make a lot of it so you don’t have to think about lifting your arms again for at least a couple days. you need:
2 28 oz cans of diced tomatoes
2 cans of chickpeas or black beans
4-6 jalapeños (or serranos, poblanos, scotch bonnets, whatever level of heat you and your intestinal tract can tolerate)
2 small yellow onions
a jar of minced garlic
dried oregano
olive oil
cholula
shredded cheese to go on top if you’re not that sick
1 i know this is a lot of heavy cans to be fumbling around with when your poor muscles are weak as hell, but summon some strength from deep within, you can do it! okay dice the onions into large uneven chunks. drop them into a big dutch oven over medium heat then scoop out as much garlic as you like (i used two heaping tablespoons bc i don’t fuck around), then cover them with a splash of olive oil and turn the heat on low.
2 while that’s happening you can slice your hot peppers, and when that’s all done just dump them in with the sizzling garlic and onions. salt and pepper it and give it a stir, then don’t worry because it’s almost fucking over and you can go back to bed soon.
3 drain your peas or beans. now, this might be controversial but i don’t give a fucking shit: when i am actively dying of a cold or the flu i’m not carefully draining and rinsing beans, you can absolutely get that shit off your mind, so i just open the can most of the way and pour out however much bean juice i can get without losing any beans down the drain. then i flip the lid partially open and i run some water in it to “rinse” them and pour out what i can without sacrificing any damp little peas. is this actually harder than just dumping them in a colander? possibly! but, in the throes of illness, it feels like less so that’s what i do.
4 put the beans in the pot, then open the tomatoes and drop them in, then fill up an empty tomato can with water and pour that in, too. two cans if you like a lot of volume. sprinkle in some dried oregano, season with salt and pepper, bring to a simmer. then you’re basically done? i like to put some cholula in a bowl and then ladle the soup on top but you do whatever you want, and if you’re not sick therefore not concerned with thickening your phlegm you could add some shredded cheddar on top because it’s good as hell.
5 okay this isn’t about this recipe, but the last time i wrote a recipe in this dumb letter i made a big stink about shredded cheese and forgot to say why??? i apologize for that! anyway, i like to grate my own cheese if i want it to melt into whatever i’m making, like a cheese soup or macaroni and cheese etc, but sometimes i like a clump of textured cheese in/on a thing and pre-shredded store cheese is perfect for that.
softcore
my cold remedies:
-intermittent panic that i might have covid even though my test was negative and my symptoms are going away, every now and again i’ll cough so hard that my lung comes perilously close to falling out of my asshole and i’ll freak out but you know what’s good for that? ATIVAN.
-natural factors oil of oregano now i do not believe in nature, but this stuff burns so obviously it works. i started taking oil of oregano when i had thrush a couple years ago and i just never stopped because it is easy and makes me feel responsible but who knows if it does anything!
-eucalyptus shower tablets speaking of natural shit these absolutely do not work, BUT: they smell like healing and that’s comforting when snot is running down your face (i buy these at the health food store but honestly it doesn’t matter)
-halfheartedly napping while moaning about being sick
-mucinex my sister told me to try it but i don’t listen to my sisters ever so i resisted, but then my cough got alarming and i was keeping the dog up all night so my lady went to walgreens and came back with a bottle of this shit and OOH BOY, it is great.
-bontemps ginger tea i’m not a “tea person” but i like this spicy tea
-a beautiful robe that makes me feel fancy even as i’m coughing up green shit
a couple things i bought to distract myself from whining:
-this staggeringly beautiful piecework puzzle
-some peach habanero shrub because i love a drink that burns
-a turtleneck sweatshirt which is honestly all i want to wear forever
-i haven’t added it to my cart yet but i keep eyeing this brown cow version of my fave baggu and i’m in love with it
-if you are a candle person, rama won’t you please come home from ds & durga is what i’m burning right now and it’s very soothing to my germ-y spirit!
-dog clothes (i know i know, shut up!)
okay i’m gonna go be horizontal for a while but feel free to let me know things i need to watch and/or listen to while praying for the lord to come take me! xo