Rough One

It's hard to say with any conviction that I'm writing this having recovered from COVID when, even though I can say definitively that I am no longer actively hosting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, my virus-free lungs and throat are still insisting on actively coughing all over my keyboard and screen as I type. It feels like bragging about sobriety because I've been able to cut down to just the occasional hard seltzer.

As experiences go, I think I'm finally comfortable drawing a conclusion here: I do not recommend it. I like to give some leeway to all manner of experiences and see things from as many sides as possible, but I'm sorry, I know this is anecdotal, but I'm really struggling to see an upside of getting COVID.

First of all, you don't feel great when you have it. It's one of the primary features of a virus spiking your full-body immune system response: you feel bad. In an effort to be constructive here, I will say all the super gross feelings would have been a lot worse had my body been invaded by this thing back before I got all those vaccination shots. So I'm happy to report that at the worst, I only felt "fucking terrible" and never quite reached the depths of "oh, I'm pretty sure this is where my lungs stop functioning." So overall, I'd say a plucky 2 out of 10.

Second, when you don't have it (which, again, according to both home booger tests and lab-run PCR booger test, I no longer do), you still kind of fucking have it. The last things to go for me have been the hacking cough (already mentioned!) and California-water-supply levels of energy. The last couple of blogs I posted are evidence enough I think of about where I was in the marshaling of resources department. The first problem, at least, I've discovered can largely be kept at bay by compulsively shoving Ricola (original flavor) in my face at a pace that will almost certainly show up as a tidy little spike on the manufacturer's bottom line come annual earnings time. The second problem... well, I guess I'll have to let you know.

Again, I don't want to be all negative. If anything characterizes public discourse in 2022 it's making an absolute pretzelian effort to present both sides of any issue, like the mass murder of school children or the obvious drift toward fascism on the political right. For example, I'm lucky enough to have a full-time job that affords me health care coverage (should I have needed it, which I haven't for this, thank god), paid sick time off and, further, a special pool of COVID-related sick time off so I didn't have to deplete my conventional sick leave. I tried to make that last week off productive by catching up on TV shows, YouTube channels, my years-long struggle to finish Ulysses and putting some thoughtful effort into perfecting my technique for coughing myself nearly into unconsciousness. I'm not sure if that last part was related to the times when I would wake up not realizing I had at some point in the previous hours fallen asleep. Either way, I have to say, my cough has a purpose to it, a timbre, a resonance, more a staccato eighth-note than the typical phlegmatic seal bark. When I really get going, you can almost pick out the Ode to Joy melody. How much irony you hear in it is really a question for each listener.

I guess it says something that I'm able to put together more than three paragraphs here this evening. The level of coherence I'm happy to leave as an open point of argument.