Cough, cough

I know I've harped on enough about being ill over the last couple of weeks, but the truth is I've still got this vile lurgy. I actually thought I'd gotten rid of it, but in some evil last hurrah it's struck me down with the world's worst cough. 

It kicked in last Saturday, although I miraculously managed to keep it under control during Alien Loves Predator. But it didn't like that, and fought back by getting continually worse over the days that followed. It's that horrible sort of cough - y'know, the one where you do a little cough, then it snowballs into a big badass one where you feeling like you're either going to vom massively or bring up a lung. And I'm not quite sure how I'd deal with a lung hanging out of my mouth; do I just pop it back down my throat, or seek medical attention?

On Tuesday it was pretty horrific, but, like Saturday evening at the cinema, I managed to restrain it for the most part during the Nada Surf gig; it was, however, one of the other factors for the wobbly camera action in my video clip for The Meow Meow Song. Next time I'll thing about taking a Steadicam with me.

Anyway, I thought I'd peaked about Tuesday, but no. For the rest of the week it's been pretty rubbish, to the point that my boss even asked if he could get me a glass of water while I was chatting to him. I wasn't actually sure water would help, but said yes anyway because having your boss do something for you is a rare occurrence that you should never turn down. 

Upon deciding that riding it out might not work, I accepted Sparky Ma's offer of a bottle of Tescos's Blackcurrant and Glycerin cough mixture. Tesco's Blackcurrant and Glycerin cough mixture is quite probably the most awesome tasting medicine in the world. I could, quite literally, neck it out the bottle on a regular basis. The only slight flaw, however, is that it doesn't work. With this in mind, I subsequently accepted Sparky Ma's offer of a bottle of Meltus, which sounds like the name you'd give an evil warlord in a trashy fantasy film, and tastes like what I'd imagine the under-boob sweat of an aged prozzie would taste like, but it actually works.

So I'm actually necking that out the bottle (in carefully measured 10ml shots).

I also made careful note of Sparky Pa's considerate advice, offered while I was in the midst of eating dinner, that I should "try to bring up as much phlegm as I could." While helpful, I quickly found myself putting my knife and fork together and declining the gracious offer of pudding.

Coughing fun had highs and lows yesterday. The high was that it got me the sympathy vote of my friendly neighbourhood barista in Secret Starbucks who upgraded me to a venti (which meant that I was not only off my tits on Meltus, but was also vibrating from excessive coffee), while the low came in the evening while enjoying pancakes at My Old Dutch with some friends. They're funny people, you see, so I was soon coughing quickly and heartilly, and at one point thought I was on the brink of vomming, which quite probably would've put everyone off their pancakes and seen my number of friends seriously diminished in one foul swoop.

So, onto the here and now: it's 22:20 on a Saturday night, my voice is so wrecked from coughing that I sound like Blanche from Coronation Street (who, if you don't know, is a gravel-voiced 800-year old biddy), and I've got a spasm of pain in my chest that makes me think I might collapse on the floor in a dramatic John Hurt stylee and unleash a snappish little alien on the world. 

I also think I need a haircut, but don't know what to have done.