I found that I could not stop sneezing and sniffling and so I went home sick. Meaning that I decided it was bad enough to have had to eat cafeteria food yet again (cream soup; a horrid little tofu schnitzelor that’s what we all guessed it might have been; kimchi; and rice). I decided I would not sleep in the dormitory last night, in the hell of off-and-on air-conditioning, in a bed which I found less comfortable even than the bus I rode southward on overnight in India last winter.
I came home. I came home, took a shower, put all my clothes into the washing machine, and sat down to the computer, vowing to keep awake long enough to hang everything up to dry (and no longer).
Now, on the way home I apparently messaged Lime whining about being sick. Well, what do you know but she messaged me back, and when I called her, she was already on her way over to visit me. This, after spending all day at the hospital. When she arrived, of course, I had no idea who it wasshe hadn’t told me she was coming over, just said she had to go quickly and hung upand so I spent a few exhausting minutes pulling on some clothes to answer the door.
What do you know but it was Lime standing there. I attempted some feeble joke about, “Oh, I’m a Buddhist, I don’t want to be Christian, please go away,” before letting her in. When she came in, armed with orange juice, she made me feel a thousand times better. She didn’t get annoyed at my whininess, my griping about everything that’s happened in the last two weeks, and I think she listened with infinite patience as I rambled on about the ostensibly funny things that happened at camp this week. Through it all, wet towel in hand, she just listened and responded normally, as she mopped the tons of sweat off my forehead and chest. Then we took a nap together, before it was time for her to go home and get some proper sleep… before heading back to the hospital again. What a sweet creature, to come and comfort me that way when I was feeling like absolute crap. And, despite the fear of “fan-death”, she heeded my own desire to have the fan on me at night, and left it on.
Today I feel much better, and I did not die from having a fan blowing directly onto me most of the night. I still feel some of that “ungh” that one retains after being quite sick for a day or two, but I think I’m passable for a day. But tonight I’ll need a good night’s sleep, or it’ll start all over again.
One thing I felt badly about last night, and still feel not-so-good about, is the fact that I still haven’t given Lime the “starting-at-the-hospital” present I’ve been trying to make for her. But I think I am almost ready to get down and make it, so it should be ready by Sunday.
But before any of that, I need to get through the next couple of days. Today we’re playing a show in Kyonggi-do somewhere, at a festival. As usual I don’t know exactly where it is, but I do know that we’re playing this afternoon or evening. Since it’s Friday the 13th, I assume it will go smashingly (since major screwups today would be so stereotypical) but Lime’s warned me it’s to be a rainy day… I wonder if it will rainy up north, too? And tomorrow night, supposedly, we’ll be playing a gig opening for Sweet Pea, a member of the once-great (and in my opinion now-so-so) Korean band DeliSpice. I have no idea what to expect. Anyway… it’s a long weekend ahead, but if it weren’t gigs, I’d be at camp, so I guess I’d be busy either way, and ought to look at this as some kind of “escape”, though… well, it doesn’t feel like one.