I am sick, sick with a sinus infection. This means I can be upright and go about my daily business, of course, without expecting or needing much additional consideration from anyone–after all, it’s only a sinus infection! And I’m on antibiotics! So really, I should be able to cook dinner, and carve pumpkins, and everything else, just right on schedule.

And I have. But oh, I am miserable…my ears haven’t popped, except for an occasional brief interval driving up our mountain, in ten days. I’ve been actually sick for 14. (I know, because it started the day we left for vacation.) I just keep going, of course. I have so much mucus in my ears, nose and throat that I can’t breathe, and any real conversation leaves me struggling to get the damn stuff swallowed or blown out or coughed up or just anything, and I periodically feel like I’m going to drown in it. But I’m not really sick. I mean, I’m really not. I feel very sorry for myself, but I can keep going, I’m not barfing or feverish or even particularly unpleasant (in fact, I’m pretty proud of how I’ve managed not to take this one out on anyone or be too significantly more irritable than usual). I’m just..well, this just sucks. And Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I’m less than enjoying it.

But I save my real ire for the well-meaning male doctor who, on Sunday, told me the best possible thing for this was home made chicken soup. Yeah, dude. Thanks a bunch.