The story of a fever...

[annwfyn]

I think I'm on the mend.

I've had a fairly miserable week, but it's definitely passing.

It all began on Wednesday, when I started feeling really quite lousy. I wound up not driving pierot to see a physiotherapist because I was feeling icky and didn't want to drive. I then went to bed while he was out, which was a definite sign that I was ill, as I'm really not a regular nap-taker. I got up for Jeremiah's birthday outing in the evening, couldn't eat, and was swaying on my chair by the evening.

Thursday was quite similar if a little worse. I was aching all over, shivering, feverish and had a sore head and throat. Jeremiah and Virginia vanished off to Hatfield in the evening. I slept on the sofa.

Friday was hell. I could barely walk from my bed to the sofa, because the floor was lurching around beneath me. My skin was so hot you could fry eggs on it, I was soaking the bedclothes in sweat, while shivering, and all I wanted to do was doze. MattMatt and Andy came over in the evening. I was too ill for dinner, and couldn't face the idea of the cinema. I just wanted to doze, and every time I closed my eyes I faded into this weird hallucinogenic world.

Thankfully at about 2 am on Saturday, the fever broke. I woke up at about 3 am and thought "I'm better!".

Sadly, I woke up at 9 am and realised I still felt crappy, but the fever had gone down dramatically, I felt mostly awake (if very very tired) and was no longer feeling the need to write my will. I even made it out of the house in the evening (to the Old Nick) and saw folk for a bit, even if I was flaking very badly by 10 pm.

Today I'm mostly OK. I'm snuffly, tired and feeling pretty crappy, but it's shifting into heavy cold territory, and I'll be in work tomorrow.

This is nice.

In other random news, I came across a debate online that really made me blink. Someone in debunkingwhite (a community I read, for it is interesting, but don't post in anymore for a variety of reasons) posted asking about the gender make up of the community. She posted a simple poll 'man, 'woman' and 'na/I'd rather not say'.

The result was surreal. A huge posse of people commented to object to the poll. Why were they objecting?

To quote some of the comments:

'I think that you need a few more options in your poll, like genderqueer, transwoman, ciswoman, ect. in addition to the stuff you've already listed.'

'This is from Wikipedia and this is how I would have structured it, if you're looking for how people live their day to day lives:

Gender:
Male
Female
Androgyne
Intergender
Bigender
Multigender
Third gender
Agender
Gender-fluid
Transgender
Pangender
Cisgender'

'I selected "man" because that's what I'm usually identified as by others. I'm not particularly comfortable with the label, nor do I conform to much of what people see as "mannish" other than male physical attributes.'

'binary gender it such a fucking bore! arent you going to change the poll so people who fall outside of this mainstream oppressive gender binary can have their voice heard as well?'

Now, I try and be relatively sensitive of people's own identities, and be aware of my own privileges etc, but I'd never seen such a fuss over a simple poll, and I'm being kinda surprised that it was such a difficult question. I always thought most trans folk ID'd as one or the other, although I guessed it was slightly difficult whilst in transition, but beyond that I always thought that gender was rather...well...binary. Sex isn't a social construct. It's a biological construct, surely. So...what am I missing?

There are clever people on my flist. Explain it to me?