keep it down now, voices carry

friday morning, i woke up sounding like a man. like the movie big, only i switched genders. it was scary. throughout the day my voice went from mannish to the chain-smoking timbre of marge's sisters. by the end of the night, my voice was a squeak. i went home fairly early from a friend-gathering more because i was frustrated i couldn't speak over the din of the bar. i woke up saturday morning feeling like utter crap. throat swollen, ears hurting, no voice, a cough that hurt . . . this is supposed to be my christmas vacation?
we have been having problems with our upstairs neighbor, who has been significantly louder lately, both late at night (read: between hours of 12:30 and 2:30, or later) and also, strangely, in the early morning (read: 8:00 is too early to be playing christmas music and clomping around in your shoes, woman). friday night/saturday morning. . . 1:30 rolls around. . . and here comes the drunken chatter and horrible music blasting. it woke me from my mouth-breathing sick sleep, enough so that i woke william up to point out that she was having yet ANOTHER party. he was still asleep, oops. he said i quickly went back to snoring, and he laid awake, pissed that she was making noise and irritated i had awakened him to point it out. (note: I think i was kinda out of it). 6:22 am: my alarm goes off. the buzzer. i always wake to the radio. william had accidentally slid the bar over earlier in the evening. i was so confused. i hit the snooze, did some sleepy mental calculations. . . and had to wake him again to ask what day it was. "saturday." was the muffled, curt response. ok then! i got up and looked out the window. . . and it was raining/snowing. it was actually quite pretty outside.
when i finally was fully awake around 8:30, which is early for me but stupid upstairs drunk woman was up, clomp-clomping around, and i was feeling pretty crappy. i've endured several cases of tonsillitis, and so i decided i better go in to the doc's office before it got worse. boo urgent care. i mean, thank you docs, for working on crappy days, crappy hours, for people's strep throats or puking flus. . . but urgent care sucks regardless.
my wait was fairly painless since i brought a book with me, but the drive sucked. that rain/snow mix i mentioned? yeah. . . terrible driving. my windshield wipers were not working very well. thank god my doctor's office is in a neighborhood i could drive with my eyes closed.
strep: negative. doc's diagnosis? laryngitis. . .and maybe a virus? i reminded him of my excruciating cases of tonsillitis, so he took pity and gave me a z-pack anyway. he didn't want to be feeling guilty if i developed something else on christmas.
so i started taking that yesterday, and i do feel quite a bit better. (although docs, please note: thanks for finding an alternative to pencillin for us allergics, but could you find something that doesn't rip your stomach into shreds? respectfully, katie) although i did cough a lot last night, enough that william was waiting by the side of the bed this morning with a shot of robitussin.
today my voice has been returning, but i still have this damn tickle cough and i'm still fairly hoarse. i'm also cold, but that might be because it's so awful outside. we have a "snow and blowing snow" advisory. what?! lame. we don't handle the mn winters on the news like we used to. everything's an advisory these days (although, snow was snaking across the freeway in creepy, trippy ways today and i saw my fair share of spinouts in the ditches.) it's also pretty cold, and when you have floor-to-ceiling windows. . . it's drafty.
anyhoo. . . christmas shopping is done. tomorrow night: gorging at my sister's house. sweet. hope z-pack won't make my stomach so unhappy tomorrow.
also: why when i'm home sick do i not have a ANTM marathon or even the 90s countdown to watch? terrible tv today, just terrible.