my worst (?) week

• I have the flu. Unconfirmed by medical science. My current health insurance may be the worst package available; I am paying roughly $175 out of pocket monthly, just for standard prescriptions. I literally cannot afford medical care - I can't afford to go to the doctor to find out whether I have the flu, to have the test, to get the prescription. So I'm fighting it off, the best that I can, and biding my time until open enrollment (i.e. the time when I can change my insurance) in September.
  Back to the point: flu. Fever. Headache. Cough. Sore throat. Sore muscles & stiff joints. Exhaustion. Stuffy head. Runny nose. Bloody nose, off and on. This is a peach. About half the time, I feel like I'm frozen solid. I've been padding around my apartment in flannel PJs and sweats, with extra shirts, wrapped in blankets, with the heat turned up an extra 4°. I sleep about 15 hours/day. I still feel like crap.
• I need to have an extremely awkward conversation with my parents - specifically, my mother. I need to make her understand that it is not acceptable that she blithely hands out my telephone number to anyone who calls and asks for it. Earlier this week, some random woman called my parents' house to ask for my number. Without determining who it was, my mother gave this woman my cell phone number. This is the only telephone that I have. The only number that is available upon which my family and friends can reach me. I don't want to have to get a new number.
  The woman to whom she gave the number is the wife of a boyfriend of mine from high school. This woman is convinced that I am having an affair with her husband, and wanted to call me to confront me about the affair. She began calling on Wednesday, while I was at work. I didn't answer, because I don't answer when I get calls from "unavailable" numbers. The next spate of calls came Thursday morning, beginning at 5:50. Yes, 5:50 AM. When she started calling again in the mid-afternoon on Thursday, I finally answered. I said, "Hello?" and she responded with, "Do you know who this is?"
  Bells. Were. Ringing. The sort of bells that indicate that the person to whom I'm speaking is not sane.
  She laid out her agenda, albeit in sputtering, crazy-lady talk. I'm sure if I was married and thinking what she's thinking, I'd sound pretty nuts, too, but she should've really tried a little harder to calm the fuck down. Once I figured out what she was saying, I realized who she was. And then I realized she's asked me a question: "When did you last see [her husband]?"
  "1989."
  She did not believe me. She was convinced that I was lying. Well, that's fine. She can be as sure as she wants to be, but the truth is that I haven't seen this dude in twenty years. Whatever problems they have are not about me being physically involved with her husband. {shudder}
  It took more than 15 minutes to get that information across to her, during which time she told me that I am beautiful - what the hell??? - and cried *loudly*. I'm not sure what the etiquette is, during that sort of conversation (which was not really a dialogue but more of a spluttering mess)....
  Anyway. The point, to start, is that my parents REALLY need to not give out my phone number. And I need to tell them that without needing to explain that the person who might want it might be the borderline nutcase spouse of a high school ex-boyfriend who thinks I'm having a long-distance affair with that BF after 20 years. Ugh.
• I did not go to the home state for the funeral. The weather was predicted to be (and was) terrible, and other circumstances combined to make it a bad time for me to be gone and a bad time to be up there. Since I'd taken the time off anyway, I took a half-day off Tuesday and worked only in the afternoon. There was a very bizarre, very public conversation with She Who Rules about why I'd requested the time off (she doesn't read her email from start to finish), but other than that it was just a short, sort of intense day. I worked Wednesday but was starting to fall under the spell of the illness and given 5 minutes alone would have surrendered to sleep without a thought. I called in Thursday (despite the big bimonthly meeting, so sorry) and Friday. So, in all, I worked 2 1/2 days of the 5 last week. Considering how I feel right now, you might think I worked overtime.
• This flu thing, which started as a cold, has been going on since last weekend. I started feeling throat-scratchy last Sunday. (Last Saturday at this time I was really very drunk, sprawled in my Ikea chair, rambling aimlessly about my romantic woes while G & Farmer E & I listened to the Wreckers and drank.) Being various shades of sick colored everything else I did - it changed the decision to go North, to go to work, and it definitely affected that ridiculous phone call with that woman. I have almost no appetite but I keep poking in food now and then, just so I don't stay sick longer than I have to because I'm weak when it's over. If I'm in the mood for anything chicken-related when it's done, I'll be amazed. Lots of soup & broth. And tea. And toast. Ick.
• My attention span and brain functioning vary, depending I guess on the fever and level of exhaustion. Sometimes even watching random TV is too think-y. As the week's worn on, I've been increasingly able to read, which is a relief. I've plowed through a few books (and reviewed them for the work blog - I've taken so much crap for that at work lately that I feel compelled to stuff it full of my own words). The rest of the time I've been watching Monk on DVD. I'm 1/4 through Season 5, which sucks because that means there are only 3 discs left in this season + Season 6, and then I'm caught up. This is the way I watched NCIS and I liked that just as much. I'm not sure I could be so encyclopedic with The Simpsons - and anyway, 11 seasons would be about enough to drive a person completely bonkers. My Simpsons viewing is more sporadic and cyclical.
• The new Facebook layout sucks. Too much of my own stuff is close to the top, and since it's all the same size, there's no natural attraction to "more important" things because they have comments attached, etc. I've also gone cold turkey with Mafia Wars because the latest "upgrade" ruined the game for me - I was losing ~$50 million during the day, while at work, and getting snuffed dozens of times per day. How could that possibly be fun? I hope it's not a microcosm of Facebook in general, which has been a mostly-positive lark since I joined.
• I think it's time for my 8th nap of the day. Now you know why this seems to be one of the worst weeks ever. (Not that I'm betting on it.) And do not be surprised if I don't pick up the phone if you call - I'm a little leery of it these days.