Up From Sloth is six years old.

I've got the flu, and so I'm doing the Frida Kahlo thing and writing in bed. I'm feeling well enough to do this. Yesterday was a different story. Yesterday, for long periods, I didn't feel well enough to look at anything.

In between times, I read. But, not just anything. I couldn't comprehend my brain book, but I could absorb poetry, as difficult as some of that is. I finally finished Rilke's Uncollected Poems (Edward Snow), more than a year after starting. How you finish a large volume of poetry such as that is you only reread the ones that really resonate.

When I have felt well enough to sit up, I've been watching Apocalypse Now.

Andrew has been dropping by with prescription antibiotics, orange juice, a cheeseburger from Dick's (I know!), and, early this morning, waffles. He was kind enough to listen as I read my favorites from the Uncollection aloud, and he even read one of them back to me, which was deliciously sultry even through the nausea.

I've got this other thing, too. An infected thumb. People are always saying not to pull a hangnail because it might become infected. Who knew how true that can be?

So yesterday, with developing flu symptoms, I was at the doctor's office to have a deep-tissue abscess drained, the PA hovering over my thumb preparing to slice into the swell of shiny, taut skin. While she whimsically alternated between cutting and squeezing, I squirmed and squealed with my thumb trapped in her vicelike grip.

The whole process gave the flu the edge: When the PA was done I became suddenly lightheaded and had to lie down in the examination room for a long time before I felt well enough to leave. Even then, I only made it to the waiting room before I had to sit again and rest. I don't know how I made it home—those three flights of stairs were the worst—but I did. I've been in bed since, hardly eating and mostly sleeping.

One of my favorites of Rilke's (and how germane!):

Brother body is poor . . .: then we'll have to be rich for him.
Often he was the rich one: so may he be pardoned
the meanness of his worst moments.
If he then acts as though he scarcely still knows us,
let us gently remind him of everything shared.

Granted, we are not one, but a solitary two:
Our consciousness and he;
But how much we owe each other
past conceiving,
the way it is with friends! And one learns in illness:
friendship is hard!