Home, in bed

January 25

Okay, so maybe I shouldn't try to go to three parties in different parts of Manhattan in one night, because now I'm sick. I don't think it's anything serious -- just a bad cold that started with sinus congestion and then settled into my chest.
For almost as long as I can remember my coughs have sounded much worse than they are. I project, from the diaphragm, with great rumbling noises coming out of my lungs. It's the same cough I get any time I have a cold, and it always causes great concern among friends and colleagues.
"You sound like Hellacious," my colleague Elissa Elan said to me the other day, eliciting a confused look from Paul Frumkin. I think he was wondering who Hellacious was.
"She meant, you sound, comma, like, comma, hellacious," I explained.
That must have been on Wednesday the 23rd, because I've been at home in bed ever since. I'm well on the mend, but my cough will still likely scare people.
And my voice is hoarse -- hoarse enough that when I ordered Chinese food from my regular delivery place, Red Hot, they tossed an orange in gratis. It's nice that they care.
Normally I get shredded beef with fresh hot pepper from Red Hot, but in my weakened state I've been feeling a need for more produce, so I've been ordering vegetarian dishes, along with pork fried rice.
I've been drinking fruit smoothies, too, and they have an emotionally therapeutic effect if nothing else.
Oh, I did eat out once this week, on Tuesday. Birdman and I went to T-Bar, a steakhouse on the Upper East Side. Birdman started with the tuna tartare and I had the chopped caesar salad, and we split the porterhouse for two and a bottle of St. Estephe. Then they buried us in dessert -- strawberry shortcake, cheesecake, and a caramelized banana parfait.