Being sick is one of the most dif­fi­cult things for me. It’s a psy­cho­log­i­cal mind game. Not only am I unable to be pro­duc­tive1, which is some­thing that nor­mally keeps me sane, it’s the only sit­u­a­tion in which I feel like I can’t take care of myself. All I’m left with is this mis­ery, this suf­fer­ing that men­tally wears me down. On a long enough time line (though I’m talk­ing months to years), I lose the will to live.

I started get­ting some symp­toms since Tuesday after­noon, when I was feel­ing faint at work. When I woke up the next day, the symp­toms had got­ten worse. I spat into the sink, and cheered the fact that my phlegm wasn’t dark green, which is the case when I have strep throat (some­thing that seems to hap­pen annu­ally to me). I should say that I only sus­pect swine flu, since I didn’t have a blood test con­firm­ing it, but the per­son who gave it to me told me she had it, so I’m going on her word, and my symp­toms match up with how swine flu is dif­fer­ent from sea­sonal flu.

For me, it’s been:

  • runny nose with extremely watery mucous
  • stuffed nose
  • loss of appetite
  • mildly sore throat
  • dry cough
  • headaches
  • very slight fever
  • hot flashes and sweating

This flu, though drawn out, has actu­ally been eas­ier than strep, which is so painful for me that I get fairly severe headaches. I went through two entire boxes of tis­sues, and I’m sure I would have gone through more, I had not spent almost the entire time like this:

Nose tissues

On the upside, it was an excuse to drink Neo Citran every night, which I also call Yummy Sleep.

In the five days since I real­ized that I have the flu, I didn’t leave my house, aside from going across the street to buy gro­ceries. Not a sin­gle one of my friends called me (although some of them prob­a­bly didn’t know I was sick), which was a lit­tle dis­heart­en­ing, but I didn’t let it get to me. Jen offered to pick up gro­ceries for me, but I didn’t take her up on it because the offer was enough of a morale boost.

This time, I sur­vived, I did it by myself, and I’m stronger for it.

To keep myself sane, I watched a record num­ber of movies. Usually, it’s hard for me to watch movies, because I feel guilty for not being pro­duc­tive, but this time I embraced my sick­ness. I may watch one every two weeks when I’m healthy, but this time it was nine in five days (ten if I hadn’t passed out in the mid­dle of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice). Here are some quick reviews. Warning: SPOILERS.

Rebel Without A Cause: Before The Breakfast Club, I’d say that this was the quin­tes­sen­tial teen angst movie. It’s quite enter­tain­ing to see how dif­fer­ent high-school was before my par­ents were born. Movies were also very dif­fer­ent back then, with near Micky Mousing orches­tral music and overly-exaggerated characters.

The Matrix Revolutions: I had seen this in the the­atre before, but didn’t remem­ber much of it, which usu­ally means it’s a bad movie. I put this on as some­thing to keep my eyes enter­tained while I waited to be tired enough to fall asleep (no one can accuse the Wachowski broth­ers of mak­ing a Matrix film that wasn’t visu­ally stim­u­lat­ing, if not good), and because I had since read up on the story and had a clearer under­stand­ing of the con­vo­luted plot.

P.S. I Love You: I had no idea what to expect, and even then, I was let down. I felt like a roman­tic movie, and this one was not only stiff and generic, it was bor­ing. The only good part was the hilar­i­ous char­ac­ter played by Harry Connick, Jr. who has a dis­abil­ity that causes him to speak what­ever is on his mind, unfiltered.

Ip Man: I expected a great movie, but Ip Man comes off as being a Steven Segal-type action hero with no flaws or char­ac­ter devel­op­ment. He just kicks everyone’s ass in every fight, includ­ing one against 10 Japanese black belts. It’s sup­posed to be semi-autobiographical, but the time­frame is so short that we don’t learn much about Ip that we couldn’t have been sum­ma­rized on the inside of a book cover.

Yes Man: Liar Liar, with­out the funny.

The Indian Runner: I don’t remem­ber how I heard about this movie, but it’s was excel­lent, with David Morse (who seems to have sup­port­ing roles in every­thing — see The Green Mile below) and Viggo Mortensen play­ing two broth­ers with oppo­site world­views, based on Bruce Springstein’s song, Highway Patrolman. It’s a sad story, that comes from the inabil­ity of these two. An accom­plished first-run for Sean Penn’s direc­to­r­ial and screen­writ­ing debut. Also fea­tures full frontal nudity of Viggo Mortensen.

Akira: The Japanese put the medium of ani­ma­tion to good use. I’m not talk­ing about an ani­mated film where a man wants to travel by putting bal­loons on his house, which can prob­a­bly just as eas­ily be accom­plished with live action. This movie explores con­cepts, ideas, set­tings, and emo­tions that can only be pulled off with the cre­ative free­dom of being able hav­ing any­thing imag­ined drawn on the screen.

The Green Mile: People are sur­prised I had never seen The Green Mile, since I have a rep­u­ta­tion as a “good” movie watcher, and this has a rep­u­ta­tion as a good movie. I felt like some­thing heavy, so it was per­fect when I put this on. Had me in tears at the end. Very good all round.

Planet Terror: This was the extended ver­sion of the Grindhouse dou­ble bill. I was slightly dis­ap­pointed, but that’s prob­a­bly my fault as I’ve come to expect so much from direc­tors such as Robert Rodriguez. Even say­ing this, it was an accom­plished film, with some great action, inten­sity (the scene where Josh Brolin bites down on the ther­mome­ter comes to mind), and com­edy to break up all the vio­lence. Rodriguez suc­cess­fully does an homage to B-movies. Some mis-castings though: I still can’t take Tarantino seri­ously as an actor, and Freddy Rodriguez doesn’t work as a tough-guy, which he gruffly tries to por­tray to comedic effect.

  1. I have the moti­va­tion, but it isn’t enough when my head feels like it’s explod­ing from the inside. [↑]