i write to you while on the phone with fenway health, my queer-friendly health center (where my pcp is and has been for the last six years). i have had a consistent dry cough since tuesday march 10th. it got a little worse in the evening of march 15th but got better again yesterday. this morning i woke up feeling pretty good and clear. and then i coughed up some phlegm that had blood in it. i sneezed once and that was pretty bloody, too.
Read more...note from lawrence: i write to process my thoughts, fears, and dreams. i weave them together in ways that surprise even myself. do with them what you will. also, i tried to do too much with this story. there are many open ends... maybe i'll close them someday... maybe i won't. :)
here in the barely united states, we are in the days of increasing coronavirus chaos. i have a cough and a runny nose. i think it’s allergies. i hope my cough is just a post-nasal drip (when i took allergy meds yesterday morning, my cough disappeared for most of the day). it might be covid-19, though. how will i know? i don’t think i can. even if it is, my symptoms aren’t bad, and i hear the tests are limited (though it’s getting better… hopefully fast enough).
Read more...is this tickle in my throat coronavirus or postnasal drip? if it’s coronavirus, am i going to die? probably not. i’m 30 and relatively healthy… right? well, i guess there is one thing… nah, not right now. maybe in a few days. anyway, do i have enough rice? i love rice and i really hope i have enough. i’d love to not leave the house again for a while. actually, that’s not true. i need to go for a run tomorrow. i didn’t go outside at all today. that’s not a good call. vitamin d is important for my physical and mental well-being. i wonder how my mom is doing. i should call her. i should also call my grandma. i should also call my dad and my brother. i can’t believe i haven’t called them yet. does that make me a bad person? does it matter? does anything matter? boom, existential crisis. it’s funny that it can happen just that quickly. [insert shrug emoji]. ok so i’m dying. we’re all dying. what does this moment of confronting death offer that’s different than any other? i really get the sense that so much of people’s energetic responses in this moment are avoidance of this thought: i might die. and, as always, that is literally true of all things at all times. walking outside, eating anything, flying in a plane, riding in a car, going for a run, it all could kill us at any moment. things like covid-19 just bring the potential much closer to the surface than our systemic illusions like. i wonder what my roommate thinks of my coughing. oh, maybe that’s why i haven’t called my mom. i don’t want her to hear my cough. yikes. morning pages are a wild experience and i’m only been five minutes in. part of me is really questioning the idea of publishing my morning pages in this moment. there are SO many pieces being written, so much content being put out. who wants to listen to my unfiltered consciousness? maybe no one. but maybe someone. and even just one person is interested in it, by not putting it out, i am preventing that person from having their interest (need?) met. so here i am. typing away rapidly on this keyboard, listening to my two writing songs, awake and montana, by tycho. i wonder how many people will die? i really appreciated luana saying this morning that we will likely not get out of this with zero deaths. am i ready for that? am i ready for someone(s) close to me to die to covid-19? how do i even know if i’m ready? i guess it doesn’t really matter. i probably should pick up that book that eroc and gibrán and dave jenkins all recommended: the wild edge of sorrow… oop! my 10 minute timer just went off. time to jump back into the flow of the chaos that is the world adjusting to the pandemic that is the coronavirus.
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