is the lyric that kept repeating in my head yesterday as I suffered through a nasty, nasty flu.

You know the kind... chills, fever, every tiny ache you had before becomes a massive agony... The splitting icepick of a headache that had subsided due to repeated large doses of ibuprofen comes back, but this time, it brings along its big brothers, the sinus jackhammers. Not to mention the sore, sore, throat and enough pleghm to choke a water buffalo.

This one had some interesting variants though. When the headache got really intense there was this flashing pulsating light behind my eyes, like dim lightening. At first it would stop when I opened my eyes, but by evening it just kept going. It was freaking me out. I figured either my head was so massively full of mucus that it was pressing on my optic nerves, or the fever was dehydrating me(my throat was so sore I couldn't even drink much water)or my brain was going to explode.

I finally broke a sweat, which was a relief 'cause that kicked my inner circuitry down from *broil* to merely *bake*. On the way from my bed to the closet to get a dry shirt I discovered that my equilibrium was totally screwed. I fell against the shrine, knocking a bunch of glass and metal candleholders and water bowls off. Luckily, we are a bunch of slobs nowadays and there was a huge heap of dirty laundry on the floor. It actually felt rather nice to lay on the soft pile of clothes on the cool floor, so I sat there for a while assessing my options. I decided I didn't really trust my balance enough to attempt to sort it all out, so I made a mental note on the blurry notepad in my foggy brain to ask Daniel to see if I'd broken any altarthingies next time he came to check on me. Calling to him was out 'cause my voice was currently a cross between a hoarse whisper and a ghastly death rattle. It actually seemed kind of funny to me at the time. I felt a little high, if it wasn't for the killer headache, raw sorethoat and the annoying flashing it might have been enjoyable sitting there on the floor in limbo.

Eventually, after calculating the distance to the top of the closet shelf where the clean shirts were-well, really I just glanced up and thought: 'Zan, don't even try to stand up right now.' Then rummaged about in the heap and came up with a shirt that(I hope)wasn't too dirty, got my wet one off and my dry one on and climbed back onto the bed again, feeling absurdly proud of myself for the effort.

We have(had) a pretty gold touchlamp by our bed, with glass unicorns. It was given me for christmas by an exboyfriend a long time ago when the world was young and innocent. The kind you touch and it lights up, again and it lights brighter. It just takes a nice gentle touch, which is what I thought I was giving it, but my hand reached farther than my head told it to and...CRASH! No more lamp.

The damn thing was smashed to pieces on the floor, but it was still on. Bloody hell! Clearly this was too hazardous to ignore, I had to get reinforcements. I waited a few moments, hoping my man might have heard the crash, but he was too caught up in geek night with the boys, plus he'd closed the doors and blocked them with blankets in a humanitarian attempt to keep their headthumping workin' tunes from thumping my poor head.

So I marshalled my forces and made a run for the door. Actually it was more of a totter for the door, but I made it out into the hall and croaked for Daniel. He followed me back to the scene of the crime and took care of my little disaster.

What a day. I finally couldn't stand the burning heat and the freaky flashing and I took my down comforter out into the back yard and stumbled up our three terraces to the hammock. The cold wet grass felt heavenly on my bare feet and the cold air on my forehead was a joy.

I lay dreamily curled up in the hammock for hours watching the moon and stars appear and disappear behind the clouds. I guess I drifted off 'cause when I woke up I noticed the computer room light was off, so it must be the magical witching hour when geek night was over. I wandered back in and found Daniel wondering where the heck I was.

Sheesh.

Did I mention that I caught myself on fire earlier? I was trying to make myself some oatmeal and tea. As I put the pot on the burner I had this peripheral sensation that I'd leaned a little too close and my new floppy black shirt had come perilously close to the flames. But a casual glance revealed no fire so I started to stir the oatmeal... I became aware a few moments later of heat swiftly intensifying on my hip and whipped around to find the hem of my shirt in flames! Shite! I whipped it off and doused it with the faucet. Amazingly enough I did it all so silently that the kids didn't even notice.

I decided to eat the oatmeal as it was(mostly cooked) and forego tea. I plunked my sick ass down on the couch and waited 'til the boys came home to take over kid duty so I could go collapse.

That was all yesterday. Today I feel a little better, but still like somebody kicked my ass and wiped the floor with me. I guess somebody did, zillions of little tiny microscopic opportunistic somebodies.

They sure make microbes mean nowadays.