Nov 17:I drafted this entry and left it on private so I could come back and check it over and then --oops-- never came to check it. So here it is two weeks late.

I got a flu shot at lunch today (just for seasonal, not H1N1). The university always has them available for students and staff since universities are hotbeds of germs and all. I never got one before because I don't spend a lot of time with the students (and, I'll confess, the last couple of years getting a few days off work, even if I was in bed sick the whole time was not unappealing) -- but with the switching jobs/holiday travel/potential interactions with small children I have coming up over the next several months, it felt like the time to get over my feelings about needles and be responsible about my health, for once.

Anyway, since it was my first flu shot ever, they made me hang around for about ten minutes just in case I had an adverse reaction or something, and while I waited I had my choice of lollipops. Specifically Dum-Dum lollipops, which were the candy my teachers always handed out in elementary school for good behavior. I picked a butterscotch one.

So I sit there enjoying my lollipop, possibly overly alert for any weird physical signs (Ohmigod, is my left arm muscle achy all of a sudden?) and somehow feeling simultaneously six years old and like my own parent.

This feeling only intensifies later, when I force myself to finish all the green beans in my frozen dinner.