In a world where we actually have no control whatsoever over the various forces around us, we turn to explanations, theories, and so on, to discover the ruling principles under which we so laboriously toil. Two days ago I mounted a hanging basket (sort of) on the far brick wall surrounding our patio. I had to drill holes in the grout between the bricks and sink a metal screw part way into it--this was to hold up the metal basket.
The building is 90 years old. As I drilled the first hole, I had to push pretty hard, as the grout was hard, but at some point, an inch or two in, a puff of fine, white dust shot out of the hole, around the drill bit, and right into my mouth.
24 hours later, I get a pain in my chest, and congestion. It feels like one of the final stages of the flu, whenever I used to get that, only without the preceding post nasal drip, sore throat and runny nose. Just went straight to the bronchial tube. Given the lack of other symptoms, I'm worried that the century old silicate dust (not good for you) got in my lungs and now I'm going to get some kind of exotic ailment.
So now, day 2, and I'm actually relieved, somewhat, that I now have the more commonly experienced symptoms of a virus--fever, head congestion and headache, body aches, chills, and still the crap in my chest that hurts like hell when I cough. But it's a known quantity, and at least up until now, always passes. I just haven't been this hammered for a long time. My head is swimming, and I'm sure this post is rife with grammatical errors and logic fails.
I'm looking for pity here. I don't often look for pity, but I am so piteous it's only right to do so at this point.
I should probably go out for a walk soon just to get the blood flowing and maybe clear the lungs out a little bit. The wind is blowing HARD. The basket I hung on the brick wall has vines draping down from it, and at the moment, they are perfectly horizontal, flapping and quivering like a battle flag. I'll probably stay inside.
If you're here, reading this, thanks for visiting the blogger.com site. I apologize for any inconvenience. Of course, it's not like you had to walk a mile to get here--it's just clicks and stuff. Very little energy required, though I'm about to conk out from the effort of writing.
Yikes Roy! I hope your ickies disappear quickly. That sounds spooky about the moldy old building. Maybe you inhaled dinosaur bone dust. It could happen. I guess it is human nature to try to make sense of coincidences and try to tie them together with an explanation, any explanation. I'm more of the mindset that random shit just happens for no fucking reason, and we just have to get through it as best we can. That's actually more comforting to me than the idea that some supernatural trickery is at work...
ReplyDeleteWe're always trying to figure out how and why something happened--could be that's useful information, but it's probably better and less energy expended to just take things as they come.
ReplyDeleteI went to bed yesterday at 3pm, got up this morning at 6am, which helped, but only a little.
Read about your heat wave. Not so, here. 33 degrees, and wind blowing like crazy.