Strange Fever

How strange-I have a fever. Not the kind where you want to dance, dance, dance, and not the lovin’ kind, and not the Saturday Night kind. Which is sort of both of the first two combined, in addition with teenage angst.

No, I have an actual, literal fever. I went to Griffith Park and laid (I am never sure which version of this word to use in which context–lay? lied? I know it’s not lied, that’s baby talk) around in the grass and got another good chunk carved out of War and Peace (I admit to skimming a bit during the unbelievably long and tedious battle scenes (“the hussars in the right flank stood about in confusion” was probably repeated in varying ways 156 times so far–not that I am implying that I know more about fucking writing than Count Lev Tolstoy, for god’s sake, but seriously)), and talked to my boyfriend on the phone and was left unsatisfied because it was just his semi-distracted voice and not his nice old man’s eyes or his weird bony body. I came home and ate a nutritious lunch of wheat thins and v-8 juice, and then I sat on the couch to continue my full-time job of “waiting for nonexistent landlords to miraculously call me when they have hitherto shown zero intention of doing so,” when I suddenly looked up and realized, “I have a fever.” Just like that. I always think of Betty Grable in “How to Marry a Millionaire:” “Leave me alone, I know when I have a fever! Whenever rum smells like a carnation, I’ve got a fever!”

The signs are subtle, yet unavoidable. A certain weak ache in the lower back, a shivering in the limbs, a hyper and at the same time dull consciousness in the head. I lay in bed and watched Stella until now, when it is 4:00 and I must check the new listings on west side rentals. Damn them all to hell, I say, damn them all to hell! They’ll be sorry when their new tenant is having keggers and peeing on the rug. Then they’ll tear their hair and groan and say, “why oh why lord did I not call that throaty-voiced angel who was a graduate student? A staid, steadfast, boring, goes-to-bed-at-nine graduate student with a verifiable yearly income? I DESERVE YOUR WRATH O LORD.”

Me and my future depressed old can named “Miss Crickets” or “Agatha” or “Old Man Winter” will have to wait ’til another day, for Lo! The phone is silent.

This sucks.