Sick & Tired

I've been out of commission since Friday night with a dreadful, life-altering flu bug. I'm just now coming out of the fog. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get out of bed and stand for longer than 5 minutes without breaking into a cold sweat and coughing up dead lung tissue. If I can do that, making it into work should be a breeze. On the bright side, I've decided to treat this experience as a subtle sign from my body to quit smoking. Haven't lit up in four days now so I'll see how far that gets me. Wish me luck.

The true tragedy of this story is how on this particular weekend I had tickets for two highly anticipated gigs. I missed Saturday's Yo La Tengo show entirely. It pains me to say it, but I didn't even consider leaving my bed for the show. It simply wasn't an option on that night.

Gig #2 was TV on the Radio on Sunday night...and it would take a lot more than a little case of the bird-flu for me to miss two shows in a row, especially one starring live favorites, TVOTR. And so, against all reasonable medical advice (and my wife's), we made it to First Avenue. Buzzed up on a casserole of legal, over-the-counter cold medicines, I planted myself in the usual prime spot behind the soundboard and somehow maintained consciousness through Grizzly Bear's opening set. They sounded great by the way. More psychadelic than expected (you can read into that what you will) but as my wife put it, "not very danceable." She's right, but in my state, dancing was not in order.

During the deadtime between sets, the meds wore off, my pain escalated and I coughed on everyone around us. We decided it was better to reposition ourselves to the outskirts in case of a quick exit, but I was willing to risk staying just a little longer to make it through TVOTR. In defense of my wife, all this time I had been minimizing my sickness, insisting that I was feeling better and would be ok, etc. And at this point, there was no turning back. We made it all the way down here, fought the sold-out crowd, saw the opening set and now TVOTR would be on stage any minute now. Any. Minute. Now. Instead, the time crawled by as it never had before. I mean, sure, we all hate waiting between sets, but this was getting ridiculous. So I finally gave in and admitted that I was in awful pain, soon to die and probably shouldn't be out in a club late at night. Right on cue, TV on the Radio came out on stage. Resisting her natural instinct to punch me in the nose, my wife agreed with my assessment, dragged me home and nursed me back to health. By the time we finally left, I did hear a couple songs of TVOTR's set and I could tell already it wouldn't top seeing them at Emo's last month. So it was really for the best.

In closing, I'd like to sincerely thank my wife, Annie, for putting up with her husband who is endlessly stubborn and has no tolerance for pain. I really don't. And I whine incessantly when I'm sick. It's pathetic.
Let's hope that this public acknowledgment of my idiocy and her wisdom will go a long way to prevent any resentment on her part...after all, she woke up with a sore throat this morning.