12 / on mind-body dualism, kind of
ok – happy new years all <3 have some fun shows coming up in January, so scroll down if you want to see those : ) I was sick all month, which I decided to write about.
ON BEING SICK FOR UPWARDS OF 70% OF DECEMBER
December was a hard month because I was pretty much sick the whole time. Not in a super severe way – just one of those marginally debilitating colds that never actually fully goes away and instead sort of tapers off and recurs ad nauseam until like July and August, when medically speaking the sun gets enough strength to burn the evil bugs living inside me.
I get sick all the time — something between a sinus infection and a cold, though I do NOT know the difference and in my experience doctors don't either. It happens about once every six weeks, and has since at least the beginning of high school. It's pretty standard—4-5 days of congestion, fatigue, sneezing, sore throat, or some combination thereof. It's become part of my identity, something immutable about myself – I am always a little bit sick (sniffling), and I'm often a lot sick (blowing my nose into used napkins I have stored in every conceivable pocket). I always have at least one DayQuil on my person.
My beautiful medicines :) they are my "chosen family."
Not to literally beseech you but is there anything more beautiful than a DayQuil/NyQuil gel pill glinting in the sunlight? The way they literally capture the sunlight and preserve it in amber. Like hi 911 I'd like to report a metaphor.
A piece I made in a sculpture class in college made of tissues and wire and little DayQuil pills. Kind of "about" how sickness reshapes your landscape and about the precarious hope for a cure (DayQuil).
Being sick is an identity that I have some insecurity about claiming. There's a trope that when boys get sick (N.B. in many ways I am a boy) they complain about it far more than women, who are both more accustomed to being physically uncomfortable and who have been told to shoulder it without complaint. This obviously applies to me — I complain disproportionately about being sick, as I complain about everything, as I am a stupid little baby, of course in an endearing sense. I recognize how easy my body is to maintain overall, which I am grateful for — if anything more so because getting sick all the time forces me to think about what it would be like to only ever be sick.
Still, I get sick more than the average person. I've had enough friends over the years corroborate this for me (via a playful sitcom style mocking) to incorporate it into my understanding of myself. Two years ago, I went to an ENT (Ear, Nose AND Throat doctor), who convinced me to get a set of surgeries that he told me would fix my recurrent problem. They ultimately didn't, which sucks, but it did cost $5000 after he told me it would only cost $2000, which is completely awesome. There are ten million insanely fucked up things about the American health care system, but I'm always blown away that there is no way of knowing how much you're going to pay for a service before you get it. I've been given a ballpark estimate of $100 (to get benign ganglion cysts removed from my wrists when they made it hard to open doors which I've historically needed to do) and then been charged $1500. What was even more insane is that when I didn't pay it for months, and then subsequently called and asked them to lower it, they did so to $750, and then again to $500 when I again waited months to pay. This suggested that the initial cost of $1500 was.......... just a cute little scam to see if they could make me pay that much :) :) in this sense insurance and doctors are little cutie pie scoundrels.
Because I get sick so often, I have a really hard time accepting the common wisdom that I'm supposed to sequester myself and rest until I feel better. In my experience it doesn't work, and it feels truly insane to clear your schedule and commit to resting and drinking water only to wake up the next morning still completely fully sick. It makes me want to yell at my body: what were you even working on during that whole time? Like I took the day off and spent 9 hours watching sitcom clips on YouTube; you were supposed to be working on fighting disease!!!!!!
Besides, it's not only depressing to be alone (like who do you even talk to??.....) and frustrating to miss out on the fun things you could be doing in the world (drinking, laughing, going to a diner late at night and ordering a pickle and screaming as part of a joke), but also often financially impossible. I've never had a salaried job, so whenever I get sick I either choose to miss work and lose money, which I obviously love, OR to go to work, feel bad, and have everyone on the train be mad at me because I'm sneezing, coughing or blowing my nose.
I understand this anger—it's one I've felt. I would say it as equally frustrating to be near a sick person on the train as it is to be the sick person on the train. Not to sound overdramatic (too late :/ ) but it's pretty psychologically painful to be treated like a vector of disease and death. To know that death lives within you? Tough. To be denied life's purest pleasure (sharing a smoothie with a close friend)? Cruel. And trying to be or feel attractive or sexual when you're sick? Forget it. Being sexual is all about being dry and wet in the right ways and places, and being sick completely disrupts the balance. Our bodies make ten thousand fluids and when sick your body converts them all to phlegm. Trying to be sexy while blowing my nose makes me feel like an Anna Faris character.
Despite being relatively benign, colds freak me out because there's literally nothing that you can do about them. I've tried every remedy, and while some mitigate symptoms (NyQuil IS my life partner <3), most do nothing. I understand why people need to cling to Zinc or Ginger or Chicken Noodle Soup or Apple Cider Vinegar or Lots Of Water or Crushed Raw Garlic—I've incorporated all of them into my sickness routine at one point or another over the last decade. When you're sick you're desperate for a sense of control, so you take what you can get, but I suspect a lot of these work by connecting the pain of ingesting them with their imagined disease fighting properties. Like, apple cider vinegar is so gross that surely chugging it must kill some germs. I used to crush a raw clove of garlic and eat it when I got sick which was so disgusting and always gave me an awful stomach ache and a terrible feeling in my mouth and only lessoned my symptoms, like, a little bit? It truly took years for me to realize that I didn't have to do that.
When I get sick it's all I can talk about, which is as bad as the physical sensation of being sick itself. I become the most boring person in the world.
Of course, complaining about any of this is insane and delusional—noinky persoinky—but I do think about illness all the time, and I've never taken for granted that my body would support me always. Truth be told, a lot of this frustration is fueled by one potential make out thwarted by a sudden onset sickness a few years ago, when the stakes couldn't have been higher, when this boy (huge shoutout to Josh) that I'd had a crush on all throughout college was in New York for ONE night due to a cancelled flight on his way to China, where he was moving long-term. My apartment happened to be having a party THAT night and some time between inviting him over via Instagram DM and him arriving at the party, I fell completely ill and couldn't keep my eyes open and had to keep blowing my nose and abandon all hopes of flirting. Ultimately this newsletter is dedicated to him – he has an amazing Instagram—lots of moody train windows and landscapes at the intersection of the rural and industrial—and I hope someday our paths will cross again and I'll be well enough to flirt. I guess my big hope for 2020 is that my and all of our illness fall during the most opportune times <3
There's obviously tons of writing about more serious and debilitating illness that I've really appreciated:
"What's Wrong With Me" by Meghan O'Rourke, in The New Yorker – about having an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder. A lot of really interesting stuff here – about the ways autoimmune disease are underdiagnosed because they disproportionately affect women, and the ways that managing your illness is as onerous as the illness itself, sometimes to marginal returns.
"Sick Woman Theory" by Johanna Hedva, in Mask Magazine – asks the question of what political protest means when you can't do the physical work that typifies it in the public imagination!
"The Collected Schizophrenias" by Esmé Weijun Wang – a collection of essays and memoir about schizophrenia and other chronic illness. Really smart about the ways we manage chronic mental illness, and ultimately the ways we holistically value our lives? Really recommend.
A VIDEO I PUT ON TWITTER
the video is called "struck out with my shopping today" if you wanna watch it :)
SHOWS
Wednesdays all month except not the 1st / 8pm – August Exploration (Jones Beach)
My favorite show :) After our two week holiday break I'm sure Natalie and I are going to have so much to talk about. On the first show, January 8th (so far? the only one we've booked) we're joined by a really sensational lineup of Rachel Pegram, Alex Song, Rajat Suresh, and Peter Smith.
Thursday, January 2 / 8pm – Werk Night (Branded Saloon)
I'm on the inaugural Werk Night show. It's a queer show, and there's drag! Should be fun!!!
Thursday, January 2 / 9pm – Send In The Clowns (Friends And Lovers)
On the show of my sweet friends Eytan and Liam <3 I've recommended this show many times and now I'm back on it. I'm excited.
Sunday, January 5 / 7pm – Monologues With Manning (BCC – $10)
Manning is an incredible writer/monologist, so I may try to actually write a monologue for this, as psycho as that sounds.
Thursday, January 9 / 8pm – Stacy (Rebecca's)
I love my monthly show <3 this month we have Corie Johnson, Michelle Davis, Zubi Ahmed, and others!!
Wednesday, January 15 / 9pm – Patty Cake (Easy Lover)
fun cutie little bar show :)
Wednesday, January 15 / 11pm – Frogs and Lizards (Manhattan Neighborhood Network)
I'm doing a little things about frogs and or lizards on this Frogs and Lizards themed show put on by Joe Rumrill and Andrew Tisher as part of the Chris Gethard Presents series!! I may be getting a family tattoo of a frog with my mom and brother as an homage to my grandmother so I may talk about that. Time will needless to say tell.
Tuesday, January 21 / 8pm – Bright Horizons (The Shanty)
An amazing show hosted by amazing people – Sam Taggart, Joe Rumrill, Mary Houlihan, and Eliza Hurwitz. C
Sunday, January 26 / 5pm – American University
Do any of the subscribers to my newsletter go to American University? I have to guess no, so sharing this here is more bragging than anything else :D ! I'm opening for Jaboukie at American University this month! I'm really excited — performing for college students is the absolute best, and again I want to plug that if you do go to college, I would love to perform for you.
Wednesday, January 29 / 7pm – Bernie Sanders Benefit Show (Easy Lover)
I support Bernie Sanders for president!!!!!!!!! Performing at this show to those ends.
OTHER SHOWS TO SEE
Monday, January 13 / 7:30pm – Ellen Is The Only Ally (Union Hall - $10)
The best. For those who don't know, Rachel Kaly does a monthly show where she plays Ellen Degeneres but violent. This year, she's doing a year of 12 angry men, where each month the Ellen show is taken over by a different violent man. I believe that in January Rachel will be playing Mario Batali, it'll be insane. I will be there!!!
Thursday, January 30 / 8pm – Cream Of White Wine Sauce (Littlefield)
Edy is a genius. I saw this play a while ago and I laughed so so much. Edy's New Jersey world is so specific and lived in and insane and really no one makes me life quite like she does. Cannot miss.
DONATIONS
Okay to be honest it feels a little psycho because I personally spend so so so much money in December and also have almost no income for half the month because nobody wants tutoring during winter break. The fact that rent also has the audacity to be due is so deeply insulting it makes me gag. I have basically been putting everything on my credit card which is awesome because I never have to pay it back :)
Still, I am going to donate a bit to this Medical Debt Fundraiser. Basically the way I understand it is that medical debt can be purchased and then erased? This fundraiser is $12,000 from their stretch goal which is awesome, and the money goes to erasing medical debt in Flint. If you do end up donating respond to this email and I'll send you a link to one of my favorite singing performances on YouTube.
THAT'S ALL
bye :)