Weekly Update - 6/26/24 (Patreon)

Spoiler: I'm not dead.

I want you to know - this was not a given. Most of the last week, I've been mostly lying in bed, trying to sleep, fighting off the heat, desperately trying to rediscover how to breathe easily.

It wasn't Covid. It was one of the worst head colds I can recall having in decades. My flatmate jokes that when I'm sick, it can be judged on the SoupCon scale. Soupcon Five, the lowest end of the scale, I respond to the suggestion that I should drink some soup with "It's not that bad." SoupCon Four, I'll consider soup. SoupCon Three, I'll get soup once. SoupCon Two, I have soup a couple of days in a rown. SoupCon One, I don't do a meal without soup. We were at SoupCon Two last week, but yesterday it felt like it was starting to break, and this morning, I began to feel the congestion start to drain down my throat. About an hour ago, I regained the ability to hear out of my right ear, which I haven't done since last week.

So I'm alive, but like I said, I wasn't so sure I was going to be.

I tried to write a few times during the week, albeit very briefly, and it was totally useless, descriptions of giant fields of cornstalks with eyeballs poking out of them, and dialogue that even Lewis Carroll would've gone "dial it down a bit."

More than a few mornings, I woke up in a puddle of sweat, and that was nothing too pleasant to deal with.

I think I watched a bunch of television during the past week, but I swear to you, I don't remember what the hell I watched. I think I rewatched Dune pt. 2, but I think I may have just been picking random things from my digital movie library. I honestly don't remember what they were. I had enough sense not to finish the last few episodes of Sugar or to start up with the new season of The Boys yet.

But this morning I woke up, hopped into the shower, coughed up one of the largest balls of phlegm I've ever seen (I named him Lance before he washed down the shower) then came downstairs and banged out the first coherent thousand words I've put together in ten days. And when the gang called and asked if I was going to poker tonight, I agreed to give it a go.

I'm still moving like an old-school remote-control car that's on low batteries, all moving at like 30% speed, but my head's actually cleared up, and that's been... it's been nice.

The hope is that I'll have a new post up on Friday, but I'm still taking it easy and trying not to overwhelm my body, especially as I am still coughing here and there like I'm trying to get a fly lodged loose from my throat. If not Friday, then Saturday.

I appreciate all the well-wishes and everyone telling me to get healthy before worrying about trying to get posts done. I'm doing what I can to try and do both, but I'll make sure my health comes first, so that I can tell a lot more stories, rather than just one or two more.

Here's the upcoming public release schedule: 6/29 - Devil's Details 10, Fertile Grove 4, 7/6 - QT2:18, QTAA 7, 7/13 - CARP 8, QTPT 17, 7/20 - Pack 9, NS 4.

The way out is through.