La TREViata....

Picture courtesy of MGM

I get irritable when I have a cold, or get sick. Most people do, unless of course, you’re one of those weird people who get off on any kind of suffering, in which case being sick is as welcome as a free night on the town for two. You know the kind of people I mean, they’d get irritable if they WEREN’T sick because then they’d have nothing to complain about. I don’t like being sick. And I don’t like being depressed. When I get hit with both afflictions, my inclination is to hibernate until I get better, because as I see it, if I’m not fit to breathe around you without putting you at risk, then I shouldn’t be around people. Period. In the last week, I’ve had to cancel out on three dinners, a Halloween party and a brief visit home because of this horrible, wracking cough.

Depression, although radically different, I treat pretty much the same way. I’m not mentally fit company when I’m in the throes of battling the drear. I get snappish and irritable, and everything around me, good or ill, plagues me unendurably. Whatever tact I have vanishes, I become combative and destructive and cutting in my opinions, and I get mean. Which is inexcusable. So I stay away from people, even those I adore for fear of sinking my fangs into the fleshiest part of their legs. Its just better that way. People don’t walk away from me dazed and psychically scarred, and my reputation doesn’t suffer the accusation of having an ingrown disposition. I haven’t had a spell of that in awhile so that’s a blessing. Knock wood. Indeed, I’ve actually been in great spirits as of late, its just physically I’ve been falling apart. Seriously, I sound like the last act of LA TRAVIATA or CAMILLE. Except I’m not Garbo, and Robert Taylor’s nowhere in sight. Aside from that, and the conspicuous absence of any MGM soundstages, me and that consumptive French hooker could be twins!

I wonder if Marguerite Gauthier got tetchy when Armand was following her around, calf-eyed, while she was busy coughing up a lung into her handkerchief. I’d have slapped the brat and told him to go do something useful, like vacuuming the carriage, or helping the maid clean out the chamber pots or something….

Sigh. I wouldn’t have coped well in the 19th century methinks….