Tuesday, May 1, 2007 | by nathan

barely remembering to breathe…

I need encouragement, people.

Let me tell you about the last two weeks of my life.

Last Friday, April 20, I got up at 6 (early for me) to go work at an event we were having for my day job. I was in downtown Oklahoma City from around 7:30 until after 6 p.m. The next day, Saturday, I burned through a bunch of what I had left on my thesis until it was time to get ready for the big gala day-job event, which was that night. I arrived back in downtown OKC at a very swank, very new hotel for this big gala, at which I was working until around 11 p.m. Yes, part of this work included having a very nice meal and a few very good glasses of wine, but it was work. I went home and crashed.

I got up Sunday and worked on my thesis some more, late, late into the night. When I finally did crawl in bed I couldn’t sleep, so I got back up and worked some more until I could. I got about 30 minutes, all told. Monday I worked on it all day, and into the night in my office in Norman, then came home and worked some more. Same deal Tuesday. Brian was out of town on business Tuesday night, and I took Sam to Kinko’s at 2 in the morning to print the thing. I gave it one last read-through and found several critical errors, which I corrected. Once again, I did not sleep. I was on campus in Norman on Wednesday morning at about 7 a.m. to hand the thing in, but printer problems delayed that until 9 a.m.

It was handed in. I didn’t go to day job, choosing instead to hang out on campus and try to get more work done, at which I was only mildly successful. After teaching my classes that night I went straight home and fell into bed, but slept nervously.

The weekend was fine. Friday night my dad came into town and we had dinner with him. Saturday we all drove up to Eischen’s for chicken, then Brian and I hung out at home, playing games and watching movies. Sunday our good friends the Flynns invited us over for sushi, which they hand-made, which was delicious. The whole weekend, however, I had a nagging headache that wouldn’t go away. It started Friday, continued through Saturday, and by Sunday was throbbing constantly.

Well.

Sunday night/Monday morning I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and in a great deal of pain. I went downstairs to take some Advil and lay on the couch, watching the Simpsons on TiVo, trying to will the pain to stop. Instead, what I got was a night of throwing up into the toilet, for hours, then getting a couple hours’ sleep on the couch.

I didn’t go to work Monday. Mom came by and brought me some medicine to ease the pain and nausea. That helped. I didn’t go to campus, but I rarely go to campus on Mondays, which is fine, except yesterday, between the throwing up and the routine, I completely forgot that I’d promised my students that I’d be available to them for exam review. Completely forgot. I’m the worst teaching assistant ever. Have you ever almost dropped a baby? That’s about how I feel, only worse, like maybe the baby was Jesus, and I almost-dropped him in a pit of lava-eating snakes, or something.

By evening I was feeling good enough to let Brian take me out to dinner for our two-year anniversary. He made a reservation at Deep Fork Grill, one of the best places in the city, and when we got there we were told they were having a wine tasting! With dinner! So, we got to celebrate our anniversary with several glasses of wine and one of the best meals I’ve had in a really, really long time. I got progressively more and more tired, however, and was too exhausted to watch Heroes by the time we got home. Last night was the first time I really slept well in a very, very long time, and that was mostly thanks to the drugs.

My thesis defense is tomorrow at 4:30. To say I’m feeling stressed is like saying that Cher has had a bit of work done. A better word might be panicked. I’m panicked about letting my students down yesterday, and about tomorrow’s thesis defense, and in general my skin is crawling, my heart is racing, and if I can just live through the next 36 hours of my life, I’ll be feeling really good. If I could also manage to pass my defense and get caught up on everything else while not having any major nervous breakdowns, that will be just icing on the cake at this point.

So. Pray. Pray pray pray pray pray pray pray.