Sickness Sucks

We bred these superbugs. They're our babies. And they're all grown up and they've got body piercings and a lot of anger.

-Dr. House

Yesterday, Olive was sent home from school, sick.  This was very discouraging, namely because LB and I thought we were all on the mend from this nasty cold, Olive being ill is extra worrisome to everyone and no fun, and because, being sick myself, I could really taste a nap on yesterday's agenda.  Luckily, Olive could taste a nap, too.  We napped together.  She napped the efficient, restorative sleep of youth, after which she woke up perky and peckish, and I napped the beleaguered, tormented, Poe-esque sleep of a febrile adult.

Why do I try to sleep when I'm sick?  I wake with a headache, and have the sort of dreams that make me feel like I need another nap.  They're not the usual bad dreams of accidentally remarrying my ex-husband, or fleeing from the Nazis.  These sickness dreams are small scope in their plot lines (no running, yelling, cross-country flights, or genocide), yet fraught with the sense of my having wronged someone, or my being wronged, or about to wrong.  Or wrongness in general, like in the dream of having to invite Mel Gibson over for pancakes due to a technicality. 

This time I dreamt of Joan Armatrading: more specifically, the song The Weakness in Me.  I was vacuuming my parents' garage, and listening to this song on a cassette tape player.  The chorus goes like this:

Why do you come here, when you know I've got troubles enough?
Why do you call me, when you know I can't answer the phone?
And make me lie when I don't want to,
And make someone else some kind of an unknowing fool?
Make me stay when I should not?
If you're so strong then resolve the weakness in me.
Why do you come here, and pretend to be just passing by?
I need to see you - I need to hold you - tightly.

This song never had any personal significance to me, but one of my apartment mates during my sophomore year of college played it constantly, incessantly, and with reverence.    The other five of us in the apartment understood that it was fine to talk while the rest of the Walk Under Ladders album (yes, album) was playing, but we were supposed to be quiet during this song.  Back then I thought apartment mate #6  was trying to decide between two different boys; later I learned it was a more significant internal battle of choosing between boys and girls.  At any rate, the song fills me with an uncomfortable, guilt-ridden compulsion to drop everything and listen.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So in this dream I'm listening to this song and I'm vacuuming.   I'm vacuuming poorly, sucking up important things like Barbie hairbrushes and bent-tipped yarn needles, and since I'm vacuuming, I'm also listening to the song poorly.  I'm conflicted, torn, yet at no time--it being a dream and all--do I wonder why I'm vacuuming my parents' garage.  Instead I ask myself, do I turn off the vacuum cleaner or the song?  What should win out--the concrete floor or the cassette tape? 

Somehow, I don't think this is the conflict Ms. Armatrading was trying to resolve.

Comments

[ssheers]

I hope you and Olive feel better soon. I, too, have a cold or something, but I'm not allowed to nap right now because I have WORK TO DO, and I'll get right to it as soon as I finish reading my favorite blogs.

[Frogdancer]

I love that song. Not to the point of dropping everything to listen reverently to it, but I still remember listening to that on my vinyl LP in high school. (Also love the House quote too!)

[Eurolush]

Hope everyone feels better soon!

[Heather P.]

Hope you and Miss Olive feel better soon!
I hate "fevered" dreams, usually mine involve Orson Welles, and not the handsome "Third Man" Orson, but the Gallo-Sell No Wine Before It's Time, Orson, ugh!!!

[Irma]

Hope you both feel stronger soon.Crazy dreams do come when you're sick.

[TXC]

I recently re-assessed the "Walk Under Ladders" album (thank you, internet), and thought it really stood up (thank you, Steve Lillywhite). My favorites were always "I'm Lucky" and "When I Get It Right," but recently I formed more of an attachment to "I Wanna Hold You." That's a good song to accompany drinking while contemplating someone whom you wish to hold.

"The Weakness in Me" is certainly a fine song.

[Rebekah]

Oh my goodness, I'm amazed that you and the other commenters can even remember your sick-sleep-dreams! When I'm sick and nap, I'm lucky if I can remember my own name when I wake up, much less what I dreamed about.

I hope you're all better soon - sickness does indeed suck.

[Sarah]

I really hope that you and yours are feeling better and that you're getting enough rest. Illness really does bring strange and often disturbing dreams.

A week ago, I had miserable dreams followed by a miserable day followed by Night of the Stomach Flu. Fortunately, it all passed (no pun intended) very quickly. Best of all, no one else in the family caught it.

The weirdest feature of my bad dreams? One featured me endlessly cleaning my house and one had me on some fictional TV game show, losing a manual dexterity challenge to The Jonas Brothers!

[Sarah]

I really hope that you and yours are feeling better and that you're getting enough rest. Illness really does bring strange and often disturbing dreams.

A week ago, I had miserable dreams followed by a miserable day followed by Night of the Stomach Flu. Fortunately, it all passed (no pun intended) very quickly. Best of all, no one else in the family caught it.

The weirdest feature of my bad dreams? One featured me endlessly cleaning my house and one had me on some fictional TV game show, losing a manual dexterity challenge to The Jonas Brothers!