The Top 5 Theories as to Why I Got Sick on Vacation

Your guess is as good as mine.

Greetings from the (germ-)friendly skies.

1. Because the night before we got on the plane, we went to a party and slept over at an old friend’s apartment on the L.E.S., and there was, shudder…A CAT. 🙀 I am terribly allergic to felines (and shedding dogs and other furry beings). I hadn’t realized one would be there. As soon as we arrived, Brian and I ran back out, hitting Duane Reade for both Claritin and Benadryl. In an act of desperation I took both, rendering me somehow both wired and tired. This is an old, old problem for which I have found no good solutions, and which has only worsened with age. I don’t fully understand how it works—I figure either my body overreacts and fights the cat dander as if it were the flu (it’s been suggested to me by people with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome that I might have it, too—time to get tested), or the upper-respiratory inflammation from the dander exposure makes me more vulnerable to infections going around. I’ve considered allergy shots, but people in my family who have gotten them remain allergic to cats and many other furry beings. In 2016, I was sick EIGHT times, and it all began with my exposure to a cat on January 2nd. That year I wrote the below silly song about it and performed it at a storytelling event on the subject of pets.

   (Caveat: I wrote this song the day before I performed it, and so I’m a little unsure of myself and make some mistakes, if you feel like cutting me some slack:)

2. I over-did it, work-wise, in the weeks leading up to our vacation, and my adrenal glands were like, Bitch, we are going on strike and unionizing with your upper-respiratory system. Instead of announcing to my

   Oldster Magazine
   and
   Memoir Land
   subscribers, “I’m taking a week or so off!” and maybe pausing payments (or not! ever heard of PTO?), I doubled my already pretty heavy workload so that my magazines would keep publishing as usual in my absence. I’m realizing now that I’d really like to take full-on break next time. (Friends, please feel free to remind me of this next time I plan time off.)

3. I’ve been looooong overdue for a break, since way before the recent weeks of double-duty—like, I’ve been rundown and complaining of burnout since 2017—and it caught up with me again, like when I got mono in 2021. All my systems conspired to shut me down so I could get some R&R. This workaholic maniac isn’t going to let us rest, they said, so we’ll have to take matters into our own hands. Nothing forces you to slow you down like a scratchy throat and a head full of snot.

4. In the middle of the plane ride, I took my mask down for 20 minutes or so to eat the half a tuna sandwich I’d brought with me, and sip some water. I know—it was magical thinking to expect that all the other minutes with the mask on would somehow protect me during the minutes I had the mask down. I guess I’m never again consuming food or drink while aboard aircraft.

5. Shit is going around—I mean, ‘tis the season—and I am unfortunately very prone to catching it. I can’t remember a winter in my entire 59 years when I didn’t suffer from a nasty upper respiratory infection of some kind. (I was 18 months old the first of six times I’ve had pneumonia.) Someone should read my immune system its job description.

Left, the view from our terrace at Villa Cofresi. Center: Celebrity sighting: Santa. Right: At the beach by the marina.

For the record, I still had a very nice time. It was really good to chill out in sunny, beautiful Rincon, Puerto Rico, to walk the beach, swim in the warm surf, eat good food. (Some favs: La Cafetera is an excellent coffee/breakfast truck with a cute, tented seating area; La Cambija is a great casual place with a vast and varied menu; Estela was an elevated dining experience, and yet pretty affordable) Oh, and to have the attention span necessary for reading a 450-page novel in one week!

Our beach vacation also took the edge off of our post-election-derangement-syndrome. (I mean, we still feel pretty fucked up about what happened and what’s likely to come, but our freaking out got dialed down a bit.)

More vacations! (*Please remind me that I wrote that. ←) Preferably without illness!