This will always be my favorite cartoon ever

You know why my day is better than yours?

BECAUSE I HAVE A FRESH BOX OF KLEENEX.

Never mind that it’s off-brand. And that I have a bit of a cold. Those pesky details just ruin my narrative.

Good morning! OR IS IT?

Ugh. I do NOT have time to be felled by a damn cold.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been debilitatingly sick, and I’d forgotten how pathetic and helpless it makes me.

BUT! I used the time afforded by my canceled plans tonight to finally finish my second reading of Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical "Follies"—which I’d started on an airplane in April, and I have the dated boarding pass/bookmark to prove it.

And my second reading of the book unquestionably confirms what we’ve all long suspected: I’m still deliriously gay.

With a little bit of practice and with a lot of Tuesday-night concentration, we just got all of “With a Little Bit of Luck” choreographed!

(Now a-lot-of-sick Bryant needs to get a lot of better so we can teach it to him.)

I'm not pregnant!

Plus I don’t have a fever! Plus (most of) my skin stopped hurting!

The good news is my doctor said I’m not contagious (or pregnant!) 24 hours after my fever breaks. So I’ll be back among the living tomorrow! (Woooo! The crowd goes wild!)

The bad news is my fever didn’t get me down to my goal weight or give me discernible abs. (The crowd abandons me in search of a better weird friend who has discernible abs.)

Bitch Kitty isn’t as dumb as she looks

She’s already figured out the new chair is for Dad, and by the transitive powers of Because Bitch Kitty Says So That’s Why Now Feed Me Some Kitty Snacks Before I Hiss At You For Counterproductive Reasons, the new chair is also for Bitch Kitty.

50 shades of WHY DOES MY SKIN HURT?

My fever is spiking but my hands are freezing. My skin hurts but OH MY GOD DID YOU HEAR ME WHY THE HELL DOES MY SKIN HURT. My eyes ache in places I didn’t even know I have eyes.

But! I am soldiering on with my WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY SKIN and my frozen thumb that makes typing on my phone as fun and productive as running through Jell-O to provide you, my beloved readers, with a vital update on painting my bedroom:

I have recently been persuaded by a decorator more color-savvy than I that there is no shade of dark blue on this or any other planet that will match the rich reds and golds and blacks in my rug, and that a deep gray is really my only viable option if I want dark, masculine, devastatingly handsome walls. I had time to get gray paint chips from only one store before I got sick—and we all know that the time-honored 10 Steps/ridiculous-numbers-of-stores rule applies doubly to picking paint colors, right?—so I don’t yet have the requisite 50 shades (ahem) to pick from. But I feel like I do have some viable options here, though I have a fever and freezing hands AT THE SAME TIME so what the hell do I know?

And while all your paint-chip-color votes are always greatly appreciated, even in my fevered haze I can see that these gray paint chips look vastly different in this picture than they do in real life. Which means that this photo is mostly just a record of the fact that I didn’t have the strength to stand up and get a new cold compress. Thankfully, my cold, gray corpse hands have helped immeasurably in making my forehead feel less on fire. So I’ve found at least one gray that works for me.

My. Skin. Hurts.

While Productive Cough and the Why Does My Skin Hurt When I Move Pestilence would be a catchy name for an Eastern European boy band, it’s an even catchier description for how I woke up this morning. But I’m too miserable to go on a boy-band tour right now. 

I did just go on an emergency-clinic-to-pharmacy tour though. The clinic was only taking walk-ins and I was told I’d have a 35-50 minute wait when I got there but I was called right in and after the nurse took my vitals and left the room, the doctor came in and OH MY GOD HE WAS HANDSOME and he looked in my ears and throat and did other things that I’m sure in some cultures count as pitching woo but WHY DOES HE ALSO HAVE TO HAVE A SHY SMILE AND A SELF-EFFACING DEMEANOR he had on a jet-black wedding ring THAT MADE HIM EVEN SEXIER IF THAT’S EVEN POSSIBLE which I took to mean he piloted jets or something because that makes sense right AND HE WAS WEARING KICK-ASS RED RUNNING SHOES BUT HE KIND OF IGNORED ME WHEN I COMPLIMENTED HIM ON THEM BUT I’M SURE IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS HUMMING “TRUMPET VOLUNTARY” IN HIS HEAD BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HE WANTED FOR OUR WEDDING PROCESSIONAL and anyway STOP IT WITH THESE INSANELY HOT DOCTORSCEDAR RAPIDS BECAUSE I’M RUNNING OUT OF CAPITAL LETTERS TO SWOON OVER THEM.

His verdict, unfortunately, was the flu.

You might say I opened the window and influenza.

But you shouldn’t say that. Nobody should say that. Ever.

So anyway, this week brought us Mom’s aggressive UTI and Dad’s COPD exacerbation plus pneumonia plus staph plus MRSA plus five days and counting in the hospital and the only thing our family was missing on our sickening scourge scavenger hunt was the flu so now our punch card is full and we all win a chalupa.

Speaking of chalupas, the pharmacist told me I needed to eat before I took my Tamiflu and it’s almost like we were having a cosmic mind meld because I’d picked up a package of Chips Ahoy! on my way to the pharmacy counter partly because I like using exclamation points in the middle of sentences and partly because pestilent people deserve partially hydrogenated pastries but mostly because I was stocking up on food items to be a responsible Tamiflu taker and WHY ARE YOUR DAMN BLISTER PACKS SO DAMN HARD TO OPEN, TAMIFLU?

So now I’m home eating cookies and drinking Gatorade and listening to Sunday morning 88.3 kcck jazz, which is the balm that cures all ills, but I’m still coughing up hearty chunks of lung and I’m still so feverish that I’m unsteady on my feet and I’m modeling the latest trend in face masks which makes me catnip to the ladies but can you really blame them and MY SKIN HURTS WHEN I MOVE WHY THE HELL DOES MY SKIN HURT WHEN I MOVE?

There IS no Step Two ...

My family buys nothing—NOTHING!—more important than a package of socks without first going through the Ten Steps of Painfully Indecisive Covetousness:

1. Oh, look! There’s the thing I’m actively looking to buy and it’s right here in front of me right now so my search is over and I’m going to buy it.
1a. or: Oh, look! There’s something I just stumbled on in a store that two seconds ago I didn’t know existed and now I desperately want it so I’m going to buy it.
2. But am I sure about this?
3. Maybe I can find a cheaper and/or better version of it somewhere else.
4. But first let me take 72 pictures of it on my phone so I can remind myself in perpetuity that I don’t have it every time I scroll through my photos.
5. It’s totally worth it to drive to five similar stores scattered across town and then to spend 30 minutes researching it online if I can save five dollars when I inevitably buy it.
6. It goes without saying that it’s also totally worth it to go back to visit it nine or fifteen times at the store where I first saw it, just to be sure I really want it or to see if it goes on sale.
7. But I’m not obsessing about buying it or needlessly delaying this inevitable purchase or anything.
8. OK, two weeks have gone by and my life is empty and chokingly meaningless without it so I’m just going to go buy it.
9. Well, shit. It’s gone.
9a. or: Now that I have it home, I’ve decided I really don’t like it so I’m going to return it.
10. I’m just going to run in to Target for a few quick things.

SO! Imagine my surprise when—mere hours after we realized that we’d probably need to buy an easy-to-use recliner with a tall back for my dad because he’ll have problems sleeping in a flat bed when he comes home from the hospital so we were going to split up and start multiple Step Ones at all the recliner stores in town this afternoon—Mom sent me an urgent text telling me to come to the first recliner store she’d visited because she’d found the perfect recliner and she’d put a hold on it and wanted me to come test it before she bought it.

Which I did. And then which SHE did.

Let me type this slowly for you so you can comprehend its tectonic shiftiness: My mother, the High Priestess of the Ten Steps of Painfully Indecisive Covetousness, BOUGHT AN EASY-TO-USE-RECLINER WITH A TALL BACK ON JUST THE FIRST STEP. Without even blinking.

I’ll give you a moment to lift your jaws up from the shifting tectonic plates beneath you.

What’s more, our awesome, truck-having neighbor Dan just happened to be free and willing to transport the recliner home for us ... and within 90 minutes start-to-finish we became the proud owners of a new easy-to-use recliner with a tall back. WITH NINE UNUSED STEPS JUST HANGING OUT IN SPACE IN A FOG OF ABANDONMENT AND CONFUSION. But maybe I can sell them individually on Etsy.

Anyway! I had to do some major furniture shuffling to fit our new easy-to-use recliner with a tall back into our living room, but I think it’s now in a primo spot where Dad can be comfortable and not feeling like he’s jutting out into the room as he entertains visitors. And he has a bunch of medical stuff—in addition to his boombox for his books on tape—that he’ll need to keep near him, so I repurposed some decorative chests to become decorative side tables for him. Plus I cleaned them all with Liquid Gold, which those of us who like our wooden antiques to be alarmingly shiny know takes 17 days to dry. So that’s why I’m posting this artfully composed, judiciously-cropped-so-you-can’t-see-what-a-mess-the-rest-of-the-room-is photo at 7:42 instead of 4:00.

But doesn’t my dad’s new man-corner look handsome?

(It’d look mega-more handsome without that butt-ugly quilt and that why-the-hell-do-we-have-a-genuine-oil-painting-of-a-stranger-holding-a-gun-in-our-living-room painting. But rectifying those situations opens a whole new Ten Stages Of Painfully Indecisive Purging process. So let’s all just admire my alarmingly shiny wooden side tables for now.)

I KNEW IT

Dad’s “COPD” is a LIE. His “pneumonia” is a LIE. His “staph” is a LIE. His trip to the ER that he staged with the sexy-forearmed doctor and his last four nights in the hospital ... all dirty LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES.

You want to know the tip-off that made me a Mueller to his trump? He “doctor” finally, conspicuously casually, said OUT LOUD and CONVENIENTLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME that Dad “can’t breathe dust” ... especially from CAT LITTER.

So here’s the scoop: This whole clump of coughy lies lies lies is all just an elaborate ruse TO MAKE ME HAVE TO CLEAN BITCH KITTY’S LITTER BOX EVERY WEEK INSTEAD OF HIM.

Poopy. The whole thing is just poopy.

Pestilential parents update

Things have declined a bit since last night. Dad’s oxygen levels have dropped and his lung fluid has increased, which apparently doesn’t equal each other out. But he’s in a hospital surrounded by medical people who stick things in his nose for fun and profit, so we’re leaving him in their hands for the morning.

Mom developed violent shivers late last night so I slept next to her in case they got worse and this morning she had a temperature of 102.2°, plus I figured out how to make a ° on my phone so I’ll be reporting her temperature using little ° signs every f°ur minutes on here. I’ll als° be staying h°me with her f°r a few h°urs this m°rning instead °f g°ing t° w°rk, where I write t°tally g°°d w°rds.

Plus I just googled “doctor cat” and the Internet did not disappoint.

Two reasons I’m in a peaceful, happy, optimistic mood tonight:

1. I’m sitting with my mom right now after she’s survived a miserable day of 102°+ fevers and unstable standing and walking and multiple appointments with doctors and labs, and she now seems comfortable and stable and noticeably better. Actually, she’s just started snoring on the couch, so she’s clearly able to finally drift blissfully off to sleep.

2. We watched the CNN town hall together tonight, amid tons of texts and calls from well-wishing family and friends, and not only did trump and his fellow no-show cowards get eviscerated over and over and over on national television by teenagers who are exponentially more intelligent and articulate and BADASS BRAVE than they are, but Marco Rubio—who, to his credit, had the unexpected integrity to show up—got his corrupt puppet ass RIPPED OFF AND RUBBED IN HIS SMUG FACE by a kid who all by himself embodies everything I think our battered, destroyed country needs to kill off the trump and rubio cancers that are destroying us from within and then rebuild us to be the country that smart, rational, visionary, decent people like him can make it to be.

Best, better, good, worse

The EXCITING news is that St. Luke’s Hospital is constructing the Jake's Family Commemorative Wing And Frosted Brownieteria using the money that both my parents have hemorrhaged into its coffers today.

The GREAT news is that my mom doesn’t have the flu or pneumonia or even anything contagious; after a barrage of tests involving radiation and discreet little plastic cups, it turns out she has what we will politely call Something Feverish But Still Fixable With Lots Of Thumb-Size Antibiotic Pills.

The GOOD news is that my dad is stable and slowly improving, and he’ll continue to be under the incredible care of the incredible St. Luke’s medical staff for at least another day as he improves even further. But he’s still gold-medaling in Olympic Hacking Coughing.

The WHO THE HELL CARES? news is Bitch Kitty is noticeably lonely without my dad—the only person worthy of her fickle attempts at kindness—here. I laugh at her emotional pain.

The PROFOUNDLY EMBARRASSING news is that I’ve shuttled Mom around town today while she’s been mortifyingly bundled up in the ugliest, pilliest, polyeresterist, garish1970scolorsiest blanket we shamefully own. And since my parents’ health is unquestionably all about me, I. AM. DYING. INSIDE.

Remember the hot hot hot medical resident with the distractingly sexy forearms who sat in on my psychiatrist appointment a month ago?

I SAW HIM AGAIN LAST NIGHT!

Unfortunately it was in the ER.

Unfortunately it was because my dad’s COPD complications that landed him in the hospital last week got alarmingly bad enough yesterday that we rushed him back gasping for air.

Unfortunately he also has pneumonia this time.

Unfortunately they also found evidence of staph.

Unfortunately my mom is home with fevery, shaky flu symptoms so she can’t even visit him.

Fortunately though, my sister is able to take the day off to stay in the hospital with Dad.

Fortunately also, I’m able to take the day off to stay home with Mom.

So fortunately things are as under control as we can make them.

But unfortunately—and I’m trying to maintain my emotional composure here—the hot hot hot medical resident with the distractingly sexy forearms who first attended to Dad in the ER last night didn’t look at me with a flicker of either recognition or interest. On any the times he stopped in Dad’s room. ANY. OF. THEM. So our marriage is clearly over before we even scheduled a cake tasting.

So to lighten the mood, I’m posting something that the Internet gave me when I googled “funny sick cat photos.”

There are hundreds of cozy, safe, photo-ready spots in the house to sit

On the cluttered counter behind Dad’s nasal spray isn’t one of them.

Oh nose!

Bitch Kitty is sick! She left barf bombs all over the house last night and today she's sneezing all over things we're now reluctant to touch. But kitty sneezes are adorably cute, even if they're coming from a kitty who's hemorrhaging profusely out of every orifice and in the spastic throes of death. A whimsical little sneeze is like a final gift of adorableness to the people standing helplessly around her watching her die.

But back to Bitch Kitty. According to the accredited scholarly journal Everyone Has Syphilis, Bitch Kitty's barfing and adorable sneezing and open hostility toward adult gay men who have so much love to give but no one to give it to are classic symptoms of Profoundly Embarrassing Feline Syphilis That Brings Mortal Shame Upon The Entire Family.

But! There is a cure: Value Size Ultra Mega Hairball Formula Premium Formula Gel. I swear I'm not making that up. It comes in a toothpaste tube and you squirt it on your cat's paw and she fastidiously licks it off and through the wonders of magic and witchcraft -- because all cats are witches who are openly hostile toward adult gay men who have so much love to give but no one to give it to -- she stops leaving barf bombs all over the house. And it comes in malt flavor, because everyone knows cats prefer malts and drive-in movies over tuna and chicken.

As for the adorable sneezing, we read on the internet -- and I swear I'm not making this up either -- that you should fill an eye dropper with a gently warmed saline solution and squirt a few drops up the cat's nose while the cat sits calmly and cooperatively as she's basically being waterboarded. Look at this picture:

That's a rare and extremely collectible photo of Bitch Kitty hissing and running away but still for one brief nanosecond keeping her hiss aimed in the general direction of my camera, which she does at bag-of-pudding speed (because she's too zaftig to move at lightning speed) every time I enter her field of vision. So guess who in my family would be a lacerated failure at squirting salty water anywhere in the vicinity of Bitch Kitty, much less up her adorably sneezy nose. Just guess. Bitch Kitty LOOOOOOVES my dad, but waterboarding is still waterboarding and my dad is 500 years old and starting to get feeble and Bitch Kitty would open every vein in his body if he tried to waterboard her -- even coming from a place of love -- and I bet he wouldn't even give us an adorable final sneeze as we stood around helplessly watching him die.

But! The guy at the pet store said there is an alternate solution: Buy a humidifier. Which we did. Let me type that again slowly to make sure you understand it: WE JUST BOUGHT A HUMIDIFIER TO GENTLY MOISTEN THE AIR IN OUR HOME FOR OUR SNEEZY BARFY BITCHY CAT.

In other news, we found proof at the pet store that our country is officially out of plausible, relevant product names. Because we found a product called Stop That!, which I assume is designed to stop kitties from doing whatever "that" is: collapsing the soufflé, ordering too many shoes online, staring at Melania's classy titty pictures ... who knows?

Then! (And I promise I'll end this endless post after this paragraph.) We found the BEST worst name for a product in the whole entire universe: ThunderShirt! Which could be used for superheroes or bodybuilder clothes or storm chasers. But no. It's just for cat anxiety. CAT ANXIETY. The ThunderShirt for Cat Anxiety. Say it 16 times and it's STILL the dumbest use of the coolest name ever to fix an imaginary first-world problem. Like bipolar disorder. Or plain Oreos. Or That.

Thus all fairy stories end ...

The chronic, increasing, sometimes-doubling-over abdominal pain finally won the battle 30 hours, three Broadway shows, three celebrities, two museums, one tap class, one theater tour, one new-boyfriend meet and seven friend reunions short of the complete birthday Broadway vacation I'd planned. I decided it was best to get home and in the care of my own doctors on the off chance the pain is an indicator of something serious enough to warrant surgery or a hospital stay. My initial assumption that it was just another miserable side effect of my bipolar meds seems entirely misguided at this point, so home I go. And as disappointed as I am, I know it's the smart decision.

So now all eyes are laser-focused on next year! Watch out, NYC: I'll be 50 and wealthy beyond description and cured of all abdominal pain and bipolarness and if I'm not already starring in three Broadway musicals simultaneously I'll be coming to see every sequin and kickline ya got. 

And I'm totally bringing my tap shoes again.

Please use your inside voices

So after a lengthy visit to the doctor -- made lengthier by my inability to pee on command -- the diagnosis is there is no diagnosis. Which is good in the sense that there's no intestinal blockage requiring surgery but bad in the sense that my tummy still hurts sometimes to the point of doubling over and nobody knows why. The very early stages of appendicitis and kidney stones are still possibilities but are highly improbable. And the doctor didn't say this outright but I know in my heart I'm not pregnant. So all I can do is wait and see if it gets worse. And nap. Which I'm totally about to do. Yes, nap. Nap nap nap.

But thanks for all your concern and well-wishes. I'm still really bummed I cut my trip short but I do get an unplanned day out of it that's perfect for napping. Which I'm totally about to do. But you maybe already knew that.

Down came the rain

There is no greater insult to injury than lying doubled over in pain all night until finally drifting off to fitful sleep only to wake up with The Itsy-Bitsy Spider stuck in your head.

I chose bed over the ER when I got in last night so I could see a regular doctor today. Off I go to discover my fate ...