Yup, got it!

Yeah, that didn't take long. Of course, I don't know for sure that I have the H1N1 virus, because no one is actually testing for it unless you are hospitalized. Otherwise, you just have to hide in your home--drinking fluids, popping decongestants and analgesics, and sleeping--and make sure your classes are covered and meetings are cancelled. Though some friends have told me that I am lucky to get it out of the way early, others have said that it is no blessing and that I can get reinfected at any time. Hmm.

So, as I sit in my hole (otherwise known as our guest bedroom) hoping that my temperature doesn't go up again, I have had a lot to contemplate. Here are my random thoughts:

1. For a lesbofeminist, I really love me some guy movies. Top 5 crappy guy movies that I have watched too many times to count: Con Air, The Negotiator, Fast and the Furious 2, all the Jason Bourne flicks, and Gone in 60 Seconds. Oh, and I also like US Marshals, though I will watch almost anything with Wesley Snipes (even those silly Blade movies). The dialogue in most of these movies just cracks me up, as I noted my comments on Dean Dad's recent post. And I like some action flicks when I am sick at home.

2. Quarantine sucks. I feel sorry for people who were quarantined when life was more primitive than now, what with my wireless internet, cable tv, phone, kindle, and every other damn distraction known to humankind. Of course, perhaps they got better faster than those of us who read our kindle too long. Sigh.

3. There are some really BAD books available on kindle, and I will still read them. I have entered some sci-fantasy adventure/romance book phase, thanks to the Twilight series, and I seem to be have stumbled upon some that are more porn than romance, which is not my scene. I need to head in another direction, but still something fantastic that doesn't bog me down in real people and their messed up lives. Or maybe I will just go pick up "Straight Man" again, which is perhaps one of the funniest academic books ever.

4. Reactionary people never get less reactionary over time... they seem to stay that way, no matter what happens. They never learn to temper their responses or let them stew for a while before sharing them with the world. Unfortunately, knowing this truth about reactionary people does not make me like them any better.

5. I am realizing that I may have over-committe(e)d myself this year. Okay, so that is not a word, but I think it should be. Very PoMo, eh? Like a title of a paper when I was in grad school. "The Overcommitte(e)d: One faculty member, 365 days, and more responsibility than you can shake a stick at" (There had to be a colon, some re-spelled word, and a list of three things following the colon for the title to work.)

6. Tenured Radical is on sabbatical. (Doesn't that just trip off the tongue? It sounds like something like "eating her curds and whey" should follow...) While I don't hate her, I am jealous. Perhaps I should think of this quarantine as a mini-sabbatical, in that I am not at school teaching, but I am still working everyday. Just like my friends the historians, I am locked in a small, dark room, reading books, sneaking in little bits of food and drink, and furtively checking my emails even though people tell me not to do so.

7. I should be sleeping. My sleep schedule is a mess. I have a constant headache, my body aches all over, and I am moderately grumpy, having been sequestered from the not-yet-sick gf for days now. When I am really, really sick, I like being alone, but after days of it, I just want to cuddle up and let her be sweet and close. But I really don't want her to get sick.

8. Perhaps when there is a flu virus going around, a university and its departments should not hold their regular "welcome back" gatherings, celebrations, orientations, and the like. Had I not attended 40 or so of these in the last couple weeks, perhaps I wouldn't be SICK RIGHT NOW. Sigh.

Good news is that I have not had a temperature for about 12 hours, so only 12 more to go for me to be proclaimed no longer infectious. At least, that is what they tell me. I hope it is so, because we have guests arriving from out-of-town this weekend and I have a meeting Friday that I would hate to miss. That last part reveals something really sick about me, I think, beyond the H1N1--and it likely won't get better anytime soon.

To paraphrase an old TV line, "Let's stay healthy out there!"