sickie

turning the corner today - finally! - on the worst of this utterly debilitating virus infection that seems to have pole-axed half of the world as I know it but hasn't been mentioned anywhere as far as I can tell as the life-threatening epidemic it obviously isn't, I found myself meditating on something doctor Jane told me (after indulging in the usual med-prof gallows-humour comfort about five days down and another five days back up) about the way viruses work, which is (only vaguely understood - pace you others, including the nearly-one who's just taking the last of his finals in Sheffield tomorrow - wahay!) that they 'borrow' a snippet of their host's DNA in order to replicate themselves, then (such gentlemen!) replace it, slip it back onto the shelf, as it were - except that it's now been changed a little bit. a tiny bit. an almost molecularly tiny bit. but still, a bit, as if a random word on a given page - the word 'if', for instance - had been replaced by, say, 'when'. so, after we've finished suffering the collateral effects of this latest invasion, we emerge, literally, transformed - slightly less the person, more the virus we were(n't) before. which sounds like one of those cryptic Chinese-type moments of seeing a crisis as an opportunity, or something, and making the most of this nudge in a new direction. so who shall I be now, then? or, at least, in another four or five days of increasingly less painful coughing, feebleness, and migraine. better, please God, just better. I'll do anything. I won't pre-judge the new Coldplay album. even when if it sucks.