Holy shit. I actually slept through the night. I mean, I got up twice to pee, but no acid, no coughing. I don’t think I’m through this entirely, after last Thursday.
Hallelujah for small miracles.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 722 words, novel: Father LightningMy fault, really. I thought with my nieces coming over, I’d test out a normal meal and see if I’m capable of that.
I’m not. Not yet, anyway.
Come one in the morning and I get that stupid little cough from the dried out throat caused by acid creeping up my esophagus in my sleep. By three, that was full on verge of massive heartburn, in the vein of what happened on Saturday night.
So, I chugged two big glasses of milk and a ton of Pepto and Gaviscon, and well, by 3:30, I was back to sleeping sitting up in a chair.
Man, I hope this is done soon. It’s really putting a cramp in my style, what style I have.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 829 words, novel: Father LightningFinally. I mean, I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, because getting sick sucks, but it’s bound to happen from time to time. You can’t avoid the plague forever.
Mostly, I’m trying to use this as a measure for how sympathetic to be to others who become ill in the future. Not that I held it against them, but for some, there’s always that sense of “is it real?”
I will endeavour to be more enlightened about it in the future, if not actually gullible.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 1379 words, novel: Father LightningThat was the first night that I’ve slept mostly through, without any major coughing fits or internal scalding. Neck pain, and a few gurgles this morning, but that could be an empty stomach?
I’m not going to call it for a few days, but I think there’s a good chance I’m finally moving past this thing.
The pandemic spoiled me a little bit, isolating me and keeping me cautious about contact with other people (which, as an introvert, I’m prone to anyway, but more so).
I haven’t had a legitimate, non-mental health related illness in a long time.
I forgot how much they suck. When I think about people during the pandemic being willing to put themselves or others around them through much worse, because they couldn’t be bothered not to take a clearly bullshit meme on Twitter at face value?
Man, fuck those people.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 490 words, novel: Father LightningThis is the illness that keeps giving. After I wrote my post, I could barely function. I spent most of the morning feeling like I was going to pass out; the rest of the day in uncomfortable rumblings of the stomach. This morning, I’m already nauseous.
I’m starting to worry that this is something a little more serious than norovirus and acid reflux.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 691 words, novel: Father LightningI hope. I slept in the recliner all night last night, which while completely fucking up my neck, did keep my from having another acid attack. I’m a little feverish this morning, but that could be from lack of movement. I’m winded easily.
Fucking norovirus.
Still, at least, I’m on the track to where I’d like to be, which is better. Slow and steady, ease back in, one toe in the pool of normal living.
Teaching me all kinds of things about kindness.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 507 words, novel: Father LightningAnd then lighting it on fire. From midnight until two, I tried everything my wife and I could think of stop what to this point in my life, is the single worst acid reflux I’ve ever had. If I hadn’t felt the bile cough up my throat and burn my tongue, I would have gone to the hospital, thinking I was having the big one.
What ultimately worked is the thing I should have thought of right off the bat. Fuck Tums, Gaviscon, Pepto and the rest of it. It’s the age old secret to eating spicy foods – milk.
I don’t drink a lot of milk; maybe I should start making it part of my regular routine again. Good milk. Fresh milk. Pasture-raised, grass-fed. None of that horrible factory farmed bullshit; that should be illegal.
Hallelujah, for the almighty cow.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 667 words, novel: Father LightningYou forget how much it sucks. I’ve avoided COVID and pretty much everything else the last few years, so this is a unfamiliar sensation to me.
It sucks being down and out.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 2120 words, hip little story: Forest EdgeIn a final bout of revenge, my body shut down completely last night. At the tail end of a brutal year, my body decided it need to go straight to hell. I’ve been tossing and turning with a bloated stomach, extreme fatigue and ultimately, a feeling like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, and all he did was work the body. I slept from six last night until past noon today, my body alternating between a cold it could not get rid of, even with a heating blanket, to a fever that didn’t go away.
I intended today’s post to be about my search for a little kindness in the world; instead, The Mungk beat the shit out of me.
Such is the fickle nature of life. Every time you wish to step forward, it drags you back.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 1865 words, hip little story: Forest Edge I’ve spent the last year wallowing, essentially getting punched repeatedly, and punch drunk, like a boxer in the tenth round, I fell down over and over until I couldn’t get up again.
Somehow, in the midst of this, I wrote The Mungk, an exploration of fatalism and trauma.
I try to learn something from everything I write, and what I’ve learned from The Mungk is how easily a life can be derailed by circumstance and an unwillingness to deal with the thoughts inside your own head.
I’ve been thinking about how to market The Mungk and honestly, I don’t know. It’s a good little book. I know it. But it’s fatalist. It’s dark. It offers little to no hope. A metaphor for trauma and life eating away at us until there’s nothing left.
It often feels like there’s nothing left of me, after this year.
So next year, I am going to try to focus on something better. No more fatalism, without some genuine kindness. No more Mungk (except to sell the manuscript or publish it myself, in any case).
No more trauma. No more wearing down. It’s time to find something a little better in the world around me. It’s time to apply that presence and focus and radical acceptance I’ve read so much about for more than a few minutes a day.
So, goodbye, trauma year. I wish you long gone.
Target: 1300 words
Written: 9100 words, hip little story: Forest Edge