I’ll Have the Influenza With a Side of Pessimism.

I left my e-mail program closed for a day-and-a-half, and came back to 825 new messages, only two of which were not spam. This? Is out of control.I have been in hell for the past three weeks. Not three days after recovering from the stomach virus I’d contracted that I mentioned a few posts back, I managed to come down with the flu. The horrible aching, 103-degree-fever, can’t stand, can’t eat, never-goes-away flu. It lingered for three weeks, but after missing two days of work they kind of threatened me against staying out any longer, which I’m sure didn’t help much with the recovery process. Every evening after work, I would come home and take a nap, then wake up and go to bed. I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything besides toast and juice, and only even a little bit of that. I lost fifteen pounds. Which is nice, but still unhealthy.

It’s only as of two or three days ago that I’ve finally started to feel like a human being again. I’m still getting tired easily and I can only eat about one meal a day, but it’s nice to feel healthy.

So, tomorrow’s kind of . . . my birthday. Yeah. I don’t really tend to make a fuss about it, even though the past few years I’ve had people drag me out to celebrate. I don’t think anybody will be doing that this year though, because none of the people I’ve been spending time with know that it’s my birthday. It’s not going to be anything special. I’ll go to work, then look for costumes for the show I’m doing and stop by the theatre if I find anything interesting. Maybe I’ll treat myself to ice cream — no, gelato. That’ll be nice.

My extremely cute neighbor (who also, unfortunately, happens to be extremely loud and extremely mean to his girlfriend when he’s drunk) apparently moved out a couple of days ago. (And the last impression I left him with was from the week before last, when he came to give me some mail that had ended up in his box and I opened the door all sick and gross with three-day-old PJs and unwashed hair, which is just, well, wonderful, really.)

The door to his empty apartment had been left ajar, so one morning before I went to work, I went in and took a look around. I already knew from my brief glimpses that it wasn’t identical to my apartment, but what I didn’t know is that it is way nicer. They’re both studios, and they both have sleeping lofts, but that’s where the similarities end. The apartment next door has hardwood floors. I have peeling linoleum. The apartment next door has a kitchen that’s in a separate room with a normal layout and counter space. My kitchen is a part of the one big room and has no counter space except for a stupid island that juts out five feet in to the middle of the living area for no reason at all. The apartment next door is rectangular and all of the walls are straight lines. My apartment is L-shaped and has walls that jut in and out every two feet for no apparent purpose, leaving me with exactly one four-foot stretch of wall that is suitable for furniture. And as far as I know, we pay the same rent. This, I believe, is unfair.

I did call and ask about the possibility of switching apartments, but apparently the one next door has already been rented. I explained to the renter-people why I was interested, and they told me that if any of the other similarly laid-out studios in the building become available, they’ll call me first. Which is nice of them, I suppose. I was really looking forward to getting a new place, preferably one with a bedroom, once my lease expires in the summer, but the way things are right now, it doesn’t look like that will be possible. Alas.