Being Sick vs. Being Hung Over
Part one of a dedicated series of exclusive investigations

I hit a dead fly on my way out of the elevator. Felt like Neo bumping into Mr. Smith, except that it was a fly, so it was much less intimidating, and it was dead…which made it even less intimidating…

Maria Ph here, dear friends, coming to you live from the Sunny Sun. Welcome to my merger anthem. It is a fiction/reality fusion piece about Being Sick vs. Being Hung Over. Let's begin with Being Sick.

Being Sick (let's, for the sake of not pressing the caps lock button too much, call it being sick - shall we?) is an interesting state of mind. I don't mean serious sickness, that sucks, I mean lightweight nastinka (from Bulgarian: a slight flu – “slight” meaning not good enough to get you outta serious work appointments, but flu nonetheless). It comes with a feeling of peace, don't you agree? A feeling of "why the fuck should this matter, again?" about just about anything. A relaxed state of hearing your voice's weird but sexy "being sick" scratch and change of timbre. You realise that other people should feel sorry for you (because you are sick) and feel kinda empowered in a sneaky way by that. "Poor baby, how u feeling?" (always wanted to hear a girl tell me this). Being sick also comes with a sense of nostalgia, especially if it happens in the Fall or the Spring (most of the time, that's exactly when being sick happens). It makes you sit down, avoid physical activity, and reminisce. Have imaginary conversations and actual conversations. Overphilosophise everything. Get starry-eyed at the sight of falling leaves and kids playing. Think about the serious stuff in life. In fact, being sick makes you realise that you'd rather be old and mature and not have to put up with all the nonsense and artistry that’s expected with youth. Except for the sex, of course. That you'd like to keep.

So - being sick is kind of an enlightening of the mind, accompanied by a temporary damage to your physical capabilities. Not so bad, you say?

Being Hung Over: a weird and different story. BHO is a state manifested by two extremely polarized outcomes, depending on the location:

Outcome one - in Sofia. Sunday. You wake up in the afternoon. You order food throughout the day, you drink water, you watch stupid football games and Krum Savov from a stinky den, your head hurts, your memory is lost, you feel guilty about having drunk too much, you wonder if some girl you like saw you in a state which you wouldn't want her to see you in in the late hours of the night, you wonder if you said something really stupid which she will remember and if you send some inappropriate sms's, (or smsi (?)) (at this point you check your dead phone, see that it's dead and have to make the extra-unpleasant effort to get up to charge it). You end up feeling nicely-tired towards the evening, but it's a pretty zero day for you overall.

Outcome two - in Blagoevgrad. Could be Friday, Saturday, Sunday or any other day. You wake up at noon (you cannot sleep any longer even if the hotel folks were not trying to kick you out for the last half hour with insistent phone rings and door knocks). You feel all those things that you feel in Sofia but you're not feeling guilty about any of them (unless you very vividly remember being arrested after Mrusnoto and taken to a room at the local police station, then you feel kinda guilty). You get up, and you do some stuff - there are always some familiar folks around to go eat with, or go hang around Scapto with, or go to massage with or whatever. You have a beer and everything is back on track. You have a pleasant day.

So my dear friends, the key learning and moral of the story is: If you are working towards a hang over, you better be in Blagoevgrad, because if you are in Sofia, you better hope you are sick. m-f.

p. s. In the next episode, we will review being sick in Blagoevgrad and Not being sick in Sofia, along with Not being sick in Blagoevgrad, and being sick and being hung over in not-Sofia and not-Blagoevgrad
p.p.s. Dedicated to Mrs. Orlovska – the Original. Back at last with the previous post. Keep it flowing, Teri!