Stumbled onto tonsillitis

 

I have a rhetorical question for you; is tonsillitis ever fun? No, nothing that ends in –itis is. Let’s just say any word that is still visibly Latin is probably a bad thing. However, something being timelessly bad does not mean it cannot be worse under certain circumstances. Like to a hypochondriac during the Covid pandemic. Like during the weekend after a strict six-month lockdown. And finally, like during summer.

Thankfully, I do not get sick much, because if I did, I think I would most likely end up like Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul. Hopefully still using electricity though, because I cannot imagine social seclusion with no Netflix. Also, for a hypochondriac I did mostly keep calm up until, well, the apocalypse. I would medicate, eat soup and greens, avoid others and allow myself to indulge in whatever TV show has a dreamy, male antihero. In other words, pretty much have a good time, all things considered. But I have gotten sick three times during Covid and none have been dealt with in a calm and dignified manner. First of all, none of those times was I seriously sick. I got some light fever and other cold-like symptoms and, this very last time, swollen tonsils the size of plums. All three of these times I swore it was Covid. All three of these times I called the relevant health lines, begged them to diagnose me as Corona positive just to rid myself of the doubts, where they very kindly explained to me that paranoia is not a Covid symptom and I should stop calling. So apart from the obvious ridicule I have been wilfully subjecting myself to, it has also gotten a lot more expensive for me to get sick. For example, I went straight for a private PCR test, which are of no negligible cost, but results are available the following day. In the meantime, I was getting suspicious that the swollen tonsils might be tonsillitis (I do solve crimes in my free time, if you were wondering) and wanted to visit a GP. Therefore, in anticipation of my PCR results I thought it best to waste additional money on a self-test, because I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I felt I could have possibly endangered the good doctor that would confirm my detective work.

Sickness also sucks just a little bit extra after a lockdown. Even the least social of us want to go out, let out some steam, put on lipstick for someone other than the inside of a face mask to see, have a drink, have a bite even. Getting sick gets in the way of that. My tonsils were thoughtful enough though to make me feel as if I didn’t want to do any of the aforementioned things anyway, in order for my psyche to remain intact, I guess. Internal organs are considerate like that. Other than the obviously cancelled plans for those first strugglesome days, I was also put on antibiotics for as long as ten days! That is ten alcohol-free days that I was looking forward to spending, at the very least, as tipsy! At least, my swollen tonsils are just that; mine, so I can carry my pain around without sharing.

Again, I am sure tonsillitis is horrible the whole year round. It is just that the warm tea, which is the first line of defence for any self-respecting Greek, is not as enjoyable in the summer. Sweat is not very pleasant, so drinking something that somehow resembles it is, let’s say, counterintuitive. I know that ice-cream during winter somehow works, but that is a one way street, trust me. Funny thing about that is, an English friend of mine informed me that their remedy for tonsillitis actually involves ice-cream or anything freezing for that matter. You’d think we’d get the ice-cream remedy and leave the lukewarm liquid for them Englishmen up north but apparently not. We want to hoard all the warmth for ourselves, even if it is incredibly unpleasant.

This post is what I would call a filler. Seeing that I am halfway through a lot of pop culture things, I couldn’t think of a post that would make sense now rather than later. On the other hand, I do have a bet with myself to put these posts up weekly for 2021, so I decided to write up my most recent endeavour. Why should you suffer through an irrelevant post, you might wonder. Well, think of it this way; boredom is better than tonsillitis. Although, frequently adjacent.

Stumbled onto Harry Potter and the Gay Fanfiction Novels

You might be wondering if this is the ultimate clickbait title, but I swear it is accurate. And you are coming in to this a lot more informed than I did. Because yes, I am reading gay fan fiction as we speak, but no, I was not aware I was. Let’s start at the beginning.

This year, I made the resolution to read at least 12 books, roughly one per month. I had also made an additional resolution for these books to be Greek, for the sake of my friends and family, who have to put up with my insultingly poor language. And I mean insultingly. It makes people doubt if I ever went to school. I began with a classic, ‘Zorba the Greek’, because Kazantzakis is a renowned Greek writer, this is arguably his most famous novel and I want to see the movie (which, as everyone knows, I cannot do until I have read the book). It is a very nice, funny, thought-provoking book, but seriously low in the plot department. This has caused me to be very, very slow in finishing it; meaning I still haven’t. I have gone through one additional book in the meantime, and that was about ‘Hamilton: The Musical’, which goes against my other resolution of Hamilton detox. As you might have realised with basic math abilities, I am behind on my 12-books-a-year schedule. So when a friend mentioned that she stumbled onto some adequately written fan fiction Harry Potter novels, well, I didn’t pay much attention because I thought myself too good for fan fiction. But when she also mentioned that said fan fiction concerned the four Marauders during their school years and all from Lupin’s viewpoint, I couldn’t contain myself.

One of my first posts on this blog was literally a plea for Rowling to write this very plot. Lupin is my favourite character in the Potterverse and all chapters regarding him and his friends (and enemies) at school were my favourite throughout the book series. I say ‘book series’ in particular, because they were all butchered in the movies. The fact that someone took the time to write this not only gave me a newfound excitement for reading that only Harry Potter could have awakened, but also reassured me that I was not the only one that loved this secondary character like no other. There was no way I was not reading this fan fiction for the sake of my Greek vocabulary, damn my friends and future vocational prospects! All I knew going in has been presented to you in this paragraph. Only you have seen the title of this blog post; I had not.

The book is nicely written; no one can match Rowling’s wit and nuanced character building as far as I am concerned, but the fuzzy Harry Potter feeling was certainly there. And characters are quite consistent and well-defined, so I was very pleasantly surprised that something written by a fan, with no editor notes, was legible. Lupin is very badass, which of course is music to my ears and the rest of the marauders  are also nice, even Pettigrew. At first I noticed some hints, some comments that might lead one to think that Lupin might have a crush on Sirius. But very subtle. So I messaged my friend, the one who introduced me to this literary tale, to see if she had noticed anything similar. She said she had as well. She also said those hints were more and more pronounced as the boys were getting older. I didn’t pay much attention to it; it is not the way I would have gone with the character, but mainly because in any fan fiction I would write, Lupin would end up married with me. But I just assumed it was a bit of a detail to add some depth to a pretty much tame Harry Potter prequel.

I was reading this on Kindle, but the document was a PDF with tiny letters, which would most definitely cause me blindness. I had a look around the web for a Kindle-friendly version of the book in my usual –very legal- MOBI platforms and rest assured, I found it. I also found the author’s forenote which said this this story was part of the ‘Wolfstar’ genre and a ‘slow burn’. I had no idea what that meant, so I googled ‘Wolfstar’. And then I stumbled on it; the subsection of Harry Potter fan fiction preoccupied with the romantic love between Remus and Sirius. I didn’t stay long in this digital wormhole, mainly because a lot of it was porn. Now, I want to make it absolutely clear; I do not have issues with people fantasizing about a werewolf and animagi boning, but admittedly it was a bit of a shock. I was there for the fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy Hogwarts fuzziness and the original novels didn’t have much more than a kiss written in. A fuzzy kiss. Not everything I saw in ‘Wolfstar’ was fuzzy. I realised that the aforementioned ‘hints’ were not just a detail, an artistic liberty, if you like, but the driving force of this whole novel! And the reason there are hints instead of ‘Sirius began licking Remus’ fingers’ is that ‘slow-burn’ comment in the forenote. Oh, and I think it is time to say that the books are called ‘All the Young Dudes’. And I know I might seem like a total idiot for not picking up on this, but it is a double entendre for a Bowie song that the boys like. Only I didn’t know it was a double entendre; I only caught the bit about Bowie.

Have I stopped reading since? No, because for the time being, it reminds me of the Harry Potter books and I need to read something Rowling-related that doesn’t make me want to shoot her. I am not sure I want to read about werewolf sex, so depending on how that goes, I might quit for the sake of my childhood’s innocence. It is a risk, I will admit, but if worse comes to worse, you will read about it on this blog. I do have one issue with this character development other than its contradiction to my fictional wedding plans. That is, Lupin marries Nymphadora Tonks in the Potterverse. And Tonks has shape-shifting abilities and is Sirius’ cousin. Does that make it disturbing for anyone else or is it just me? I would hate for him to be asking his wife to turn into her cousin for sexy time. It would certainly be hurtful to Nymphadora and doesn’t fit in with the noble, sensitive Lupin image some of us fell in love with in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. But then again, I am only through Year 2 at Hogwarts and surely there are plenty of developments ahead; maybe that is all taken care of in a porn-less, Tonks-considerate manner. Here’s hoping.

Well, once again, it is the Harry Potter novels that have got me reading for pleasure. No! Not pleasure! Leisure! See? This is weird. This whole post is weird. I am going to stop before I make this any more awkward. Well, before I do, let me also mention that Rowling has formally stated that Lupin is particularly well endowed. Now I will stop. Mainly because I don’t think I could make this any more awkward, even if I tried.

Stumbled onto the meatfest called Greek Easter

 After eight years in the UK and one intermediate year, this is the first time in a long while that I have spent a bunch of food related holidays in all their glory and Greekedness. In case it has not been made clear, food is my main motivator for many celebrations. Considering my religious preoccupation is as much as my interest in Formula 1, the only way I would even acknowledge Easter is by indulging in traditional delicacies associated with it.

There are some commonalities we Greeks have with mainstream Easter; mainstream being the lame, Western version the rest of the world participates in. These commonalities consist mostly of chocolate eggs and bunnies, and actual eggs, dyed in abnormal egg colours as Christ himself would have wanted. I have heard that some other countries also favour lamb for Easter, but I am willing to bet most of them do not place a whole, skinned, innocent-looking baby lamb on a skewer over fire and attest children as grillers. We didn’t do that this year as Covid meant we couldn’t have enough people over for a whole lamb to be justified. That certainly didn’t stop us from actively stinking all our clothes with smoke, coal residue and fatty meat odours. But here is where Easter gets different for us Greeks. Supposedly, we have spent forty days abstaining from meat, dairy, eggs, and oil for about a week. Just before vegans declare this the best diet ever, we are still meant to eat seafood. Because, apparently, oil is higher up the food chain than seafood.  We also have numerous fish breaks during this forty days period, where fish is not just optional, but deep fried and mandatory. But I mean, if it is deep fried, need it be mandatory? And to further disappoint our vegan friends, this abstinence period is framed by an insane amount of meat, before and after. And the meat I refer to is far from grilled chicken.

Here is the items that make the Greek meat experience worth discussing. Mageiritsa, kokoretsi and gardouba. I will not stall any longer in revealing the main ingredient for all of these; intestines. And I mean, proper intestines. The organs poo goes through. I only eat two of the three and my main excuse for snobbing the third is that I adamantly believe that these foods can only be consumed under one condition; that you realise how tasty they are prior to finding out what they actually are. The reverse is not feasible. Mageiritsa is lettuce soup with anything internal you can think of; small intestine and liver is a must, our household adds lung to the mix and I have frequently heard of heart and stomach being welcome additions. Based on the previous rule I have mentioned, I have only tried our iteration and will keep it that way. And that, which I have described, is the soup. Imagine what is to come. Next up is kokoretsi, which again is a bunch of internal organs wrapped in small intestine and grilled. And as disgusting as that sounds, it is fucking delicious. And, I will argue, sustainable. If you are going to eat meat, you might as well make maximum use of a single animal. I don’t know if vegans will get behind me on this, but I think they should think it through. Last one is gardoumpa, which is the oven baked version of kokoretsi. And this is basically why my rule is pretentious; I have no credible reason not to eat this, but I won’t touch it for anything less that whatever Jeff Bezos’ wife got from the settlement.

The other element making this meatfest Greek to its core is probably the excess amount of side dishes. More meat, including sausages, kebabs, skewers, meatballs are a must. And because meat as a side of meat sounds a bit extreme, we make sure to have a few classic vegetarian sides as well. Bread, fries, tzatziki (come on, obviously), cheese, pies, salads and stuffed wine leaves. Because as I recall from my biology lessons at school, that is how nutrition works; every piece of fried lamb fat is cancelled by a cheese-filled pepper. Just when all this might begin to sound just a tad extreme, that is when desserts make their appearance. Sweet brioche, milk chocolate based pasties (which we have been supposedly fasting for all this time), baklavas and crème patisserie. And because we don’t want to leave anything to chance, including embolisms, we need to be drinking alcohol throughout this suicide mission. And Easter is ageless; there is no such thing as underage drinking during Easter.

I might sound dismissive but in all honesty, I am so happy to have been here for all these traditional holidays with all their adjacent foods. And all I have to do is eat broccoli for a couple of weeks to counteract these effects on my cholesterol. And you now what? It is worth it. One thing is for sure; I don’t think I’ll be a vegan anytime soon if I am that comfortable with the word ‘intestine’ being written so many times in a non-medical text.