In the beginning, God made Sudafed.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a grad student in possession of a death-cold must be in want of some meds.

Post the parodied work, and I'll bake you cookies. (Assuming I can or will be able to get them to you...)

A new rite of initiation has furthered me along the path to acclimation: the cold. Any university is a veritable cesspool of pathogens. Thousands of people, plenty of stress, and not enough handwashing makes a simple cold virus akin to the Borg.

Colds are an interesting pathological purgatory. Anyone who has a cold will tell you they wish to die. The body aches, the lungs can't breathe, the head wants to explode, and the spirit shrivels in despair. Yet everyone waves it off, "Oh, it's just a cold, it won't kill you." It makes me want to cough violently on their sanctimonious bottles of Purel and launch flaming boxes of Kleenex into their houses. Unfortunately, the sinus headache makes coughing excruciating, and Kleenex is more vital than oxygen at the moment. I grunt indistinguishably and slink away.

Indeed, viruses show that a streamlined agenda (reproduce) is a force to be reckoned with. I love small molecule research, and small molecules haven't done squat when it comes to fighting viral infections. This is why I'm glad to have an adaptive immune system, which I am so painfully learning about in class. While I'm ready to cough up my own spleen, my professor is elaborating on the nuances of T cell co-stimulation. I don't give a rat's ass about CD28. Where is the nearest fifth of robitussin I can chug?

Sidenote--anti-tussives are the molecular mirror images of narcotics. If you want a funny story, ask about the time I actually did drink half a family sized bottle of robitussin.

My personal signature disease phenotype is my voice. It is the first thing to go when I get sick, probably because I use it incessantly when healthy. Karma is a bitch. I go from pseudo-normal female to emphysema-robot-noise instantly. This gathers much sympathy and hilarity. Friends tell me to lay off the cigarettes, co-workers tell me to go home NOW before I contaminate anything. One roommate told me that for a while I had the 'sick yet sexy' voice. I'm not sure what she was talking about--I sounded like Stephen Hawking.

It is rather entertaining, though to be sick when you have an overly expressive face. Steve Wonder could tell I'm sick before I said a word. I look terrible, and the minute I start to recover everyone says "Ah, I can tell you are feeling better! You looked like shit the other day." Why thank you! I was in fact hoping to start a new career in diseased modeling. Why display an eating disorder when you can strut the swine flu, rock the cholera, or put some sizzle back into SARS? Alas, my dreams are crushed!

During this illness, some amazing (and brave) friends in my PhD program invited our house over for lunch. How sophisticated! The food they made was incredibly delicious, and the spread was straight out of Martha Stewart. Only better, because our friends aren't bitchy and aren't convicted of insider trading. This naturally calls for a mature and quaint dish to bring over, right? I didn't have one of those, but I did have a pumpkin cranberry bread recipe. Using the fresh pumpkin puree and my roommates as taste testers, we made some tasty loaves. It is hard to bake something you can't taste- especially when figuring out how much spice to add. I'd ask
"Does this need more cloves, or more allspice?"
"What's allspice?"
"This is allspice" (hands jar)
"ooooh, this smells good!"

And so on. The cream cheese drizzle on top was even more obscure. When I came up with the recipe I didn't have any cream. So I used ice cream, and fell in love with the result. This time I didn't even have a hand mixer, nor powdered sugar. So, I softned the cream cheese, added ice cream, and nuked it for a couple minutes. Then I added sugar and a splash of vanilla. It makes an amazing shmear to go with fall food. And it really is a technique a la college-tackiness. But try this recipe. It is absurdly easy.



Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin
1/2 c veggie oil
1 c white sugar, 1 c brown
2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t NaCl
1/4 t cloves, 1/4 t allspice, 1/4 t ginger (you can use whatever pumpkin spices you like, or pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 t nutmeg
1 t cinnamon
2 c fresh cranberries

Oven to 350 F
Combine eggs, puree, and oil in one bowl. Dry ingredients go in the other. Add dry to wet, mix enough to bring together. Add cranberries. Pour into greased loaf pan, bake about 1 hour.
Makes one loaf.

Icing:
Cream cheese, ice cream, powdered sugar, vanilla.
Do this to taste.

Beat cream cheese. Add melted ice cream. Add powdered sugar. Add vanilla.