Sick-o

I'm still sick.

And now, I'm also sick of being sick.  This roughly means that I'm even less nice than I usually am.  (For those of you who don't know me well, my baseline of "nice" is already a little below average).

I'm going completely stir-crazy.  I haven't been out of my bed for longer than ten minutes at a time since Sunday night.  I can hardly stand long enough to take a shower, let alone get into a conversation in the kitchen while I refill my glass with something delicious like lukewarm tap water that won't hurt my sore throat.  I'm beginning to feel like those enormously obese people they do 20/20 specials on and episodes of Nip/Tuck about (and other shows that use "/" in their titles).  You know the ones where the person hasn't left their bed/couch in years and they're surrounded by empty fast food containers and their overweight but semi-functional children beg them to come out and eventually the fire department is called in to saw off a wall of their house so they can be lifted out by a crane?  Yeah, you know it.     

(This guy is married to a fairly decent looking (but albeit unarguably nuts) woman 

and I can't even find a boyfriend.  Really, God??)

Luckily though, my recent encounters with men I've dated since LE and I broke up have softened this blow of isolation.  I kind of don't mind having an excuse to not go out with people/respond to messages/or just generally pretend to be sociable.

For starters, I ran into Hamptons Guy on Sunday.  Luckily I had been out and about with some friends during the day before heading back to their place to hang out and not juuust bumming around their apartment in sweats, so I definitely looked WAY better than he did.  Anyway, as I was heading out of their building to go home, I heard a man call my name.  I ignored it and kept walking and he called again.  Finally, I stopped and turned around to see who it was but since I didn't have my contacts in, I was blind.  Peering in the direction of where the shout may or may not have originated, I saw a male-ish figure waving and heard him calling out to me again.  "Oh," I thought to myself, "it must be X (a friend), stopping over to see my friend's fiance, Y."  I smiled and walked towards him.  As I got closer though, I remembered that Y was out of town for the weekend and X moved to Colorado several months ago.  "Shit," I thought, "who the hell is this??"  Oh lucky me.  Hamptons Guy.  I haven't seen you since I kicked you out of my apartment that morning and deleted you from my Blackberry Messenger contact list.  He gave me a big hug and asked what I'd been up to.  As I started to respond, he interrupted me saying sorry, but the Giants game was starting in one minute, punched my arm, and headed off.  He. Punched. My. Arm.  HG?  We are not buds.  There is no arm punching...espeeeeecially after you've had sex with someone.  (Much in the same way there is no crying in baseball.) I clearly didn't see you.  CLEARLY.  If you felt awkward and didn't really want to say hi, you were already in the clear.  Flagging me down and then blowing me off sorta sends a mixed signal.  Either way, I believe mine was loud and clear: still not interested.*

The Man won't leave me be.  I've been lightly blowing him off for about two weeks now, but he's not picking up on it.  This weekend, he called while I was entertaining people on Friday night.  Um, you called me on a Friday night.  Obviously I won't be getting back to you right quick.  I didn't even have a chance to return his call on Saturday afternoon before he contacted me again with a "How r u doin?" text.  I mean really? Are you paying by the letter? I think not.  You're an adult, text me a complete goddamn sentence.  I was over at friend three's apartment lovingly "packing" her ex's things when the text came through though, and again didn't have an opportunity to respond.  Then the Man emailed me through Facebook Monday morning, asking why doesn't he "ever get a response from [me] anymore".  Now instead of being honest and saying that I'm totally uninterested in him and not even a little bit attracted, I took the gift that was presented to me and said that I was in bed with Swine Flu and felt terrible, in about 16 words or less.  He emails back saying "that sucks" and then proceeds to give me a rundown of the past week of his life: worked 80 hours last week, attended his alma mater's basketball game on Saturday afternoon, went to a black tie charity event Saturday night, laid around and watched football on Sunday.  Um, did you miss the part where I told you I have Swine Flu and imagine the part where I asked how you were? Say something sympathetic or don't say anything at all.  I could give a shit what you've been up to the past 8 days.  (If I did, you would've heard from me.)

Surprisingly, the guy to come out far-and-away ahead of everyone in this situation ("this situation" being me, sick and grumpy) is Buffalo Bill.  While the "lolcats" are still touching a raw nerve, he has emailed a looot to see how I'm doing and attempts to entertain me with old SNL clips.  Yes, of course we have opposite senses of humor in what is a funny old SNL sketch, but goddamnit the man is trying!  And I've been shut in my room like some kind of ....shut-in for so long that I'll take what I can get.  If it's some of Lorne Michaels's b-list comedy, I'll take it.  Thank you, Buffalo. You might've earned date three.  (And that's usually a preeeetty good date.)

*My bad, not clear enough.  When I just signed into Facebook, I saw that HG had instant-messaged me.  Good grief, Charlie Brown.