I had a bad month. Things didn't start to turn around until the day that I got hit by a car.

All my troubles began some time earlier, in the cold, sad depths of March. I was swiping my hopeless way through a dating app, as one does in the cold, sad depths of March, when I saw a profile of a woman who had recently through-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Cold and sad as I was, this seemed like a great idea: I would quit my job, or at least take 5 months off, and go into the woods. I matched with her and asked her some questions.

Soon, I realized that it would probably not be a good idea to embark on a 5 month long hike without any prior backpacking experience. I had hiked and I had camped but I had never hiked with my tent (and everything else) on my back. I had also never pooped in the woods. What if I realized that I didn't like it on the first of 150 days?

I texted a couple of my adventurous friends and we began to plan a three-day backpacking trip. This would offer me a brief taste of The Woods without making any insane decisions. If it went well, I could make the insane decision during the next bout of seasonal depression. If it went poorly, the damage would at least be confined to three days, right? Right? Wrong.

The trip was from Saturday June 29th to Monday July 1. Overall, it was a pretty good time. I did get some nasty blisters from my new boots, which, by the third day, prevented me from putting the boots on at all. Luckily, we only had a couple miles to go that day. And I had sandals (I didn't need to wear my boots). We also got rained on one night. The lightning was so close that we could see it flash through the trees, through the tent and through our closed eyelids. Three inches of water pooled beneath the tent, but we stayed dry and didn't float away. My boots got wet though, which probably didn't help with the blisters. But still, overall, a positive experience. I don't think I was quite ready for 5 months, but it wasn't out of the question.

When we returned to civilization, I had received two texts from two women whom I had been dating/attempting to date. Both texts were perplexing and not at all positive. By the end of the month, both potential relationships had dissolved into nothing. Neither would have worked out anyway, but it feels germane to include here among my other miseries and misfortunes.

A couple days later, now back in Brooklyn, I noticed some pus coming out of one of my blisters. I was worried about it being a bad infection since I had stepped in some questionable bog water at some point during the hike. I hobbled over to Urgent Care and got a prescription for an antibiotic cream. That was Wednesday, July 3rd.

Nothing went wrong the following weekend. I actually had a great time. My blisters had healed.

On Tuesday, I went bouldering at the rock climbing gym and launched myself into a wall, re-injuring the ankle that I had sprained back in cold, sad March, in much the same way.

On Thursday, I had no appetite for lunch and a slight fever. On Friday and into Saturday, I had a high fever and no appetite. On Sunday, I dragged myself to brunch and then threw up on 14th Street. Three weeks of diarrhea followed.

Some days I felt better and thought it was almost over. Some days were worse. My best theory was that the fever was Covid and the bowel issues were Long Covid. I tried to run a couple times. The runs went very, very, poorly. I didn't leave the house much, but when I did, I planned my route from public bathroom to public bathroom.

After two weeks, I realized that I really wasn't getting any better and that any good days were followed fast by bad ones. I went to Urgent Care for the second time that month. They asked for a stool sample. I procured such, in the comfort of my own home, and then walked back to Urgent Care with said sample. How embarrassing.

It took the lab a whole week to get a positive result: I had giardia, a water-borne parasite, which commonly afflicts hikers who drink from dirty water. We had taken precautions: filtering and boiling and iodizing, but a couple little parasites must have slipped through my defenses. The fever wasn't Covid at all. The parasites had finished incubating and were announcing their presence.

Luckily, there was a drug that would kill all the parasites in just three days. This was now Friday. I walked over to my local pharmacy during my lunch break to get the drugs. They didn't have any in stock, but could get it Monday. I didn't fancy suffering any longer, so I walked over to Walgreens to see if they had it. No dice.

I called CVS. They had it and could get it ready around 7pm. They would call when it was ready. I rejoiced.

At 6:30pm, it started pouring rain. At 7:15pm, the drugs were ready. CVS closed at 8pm. I decided to ride my bike over. I would get wet either way, but biking would greatly reduce my time away from a bathroom. Four blocks later, while I was riding in what counts as a bike lane in the U.S., there was a car stopped in the crosswalk of a side street, looking to make a left across me into the main road. I slowed down. The driver didn't make a move. I kept going. The driver made a move.

I was essentially t-boned. Luckily, I was going slowly enough that I pretty much just fell on my left shoulder and didn't go flying over the handlebars or anything scary like that. Luckily, she was also going slowly and stopped immediately and

and

.

She pulled over and got out to see if I was okay. My shin hurt a bit, but I felt okay. Adrenaline is, as they say, one hell of a drug. In my shock, I didn't get the driver's insurance or contact information. I didn't think I needed it. It's hard to make good financial decisions in such circumstances. My chain had slipped off, but otherwise my bike looked okay. I put the chain back on and tested the brakes. I may or may not have screamed in rage. The driver had left by then. She looked more traumatized than I did.

I continued biking to the pharmacy with tears and rain streaming down my face. I made it about 10 meters before I realized that my front wheel was wobbling. I stopped on the sidewalk and inspected the bike. Indeed, the wheel was bent. Again, I might have screamed and/or cried on the sidewalk. The pharmacy was now a 25 minute walk away. It would close in... 25 minutes. I considered ordering a Lyft, but I didn't trust them to get me there in time either. I decided to get a CitiBike instead. One of the few good things that happened to me on this day was that I got a 15-day CitiBike membership for only $5.

I made it to the CVS without anyone else hitting me with their car. I was soaking wet and holding back tears. It hurt to stand on my left leg. I told the pharmacist my name and he went to get the drugs. He placed them on the counter and pointed to the label, saying, "Are you aware of the co-pay?"

I read the label. The drugs were $243.

I asked if there were any coupons. He said that there were, but it would be the same price with the coupons. I asked if I could dispute it with my insurance after paying for them. He said that I had 7 days after purchase to do so. Or, he offered helpfully, the pharmacy could hold on to the drugs for up to 14 days while I begged my insurance company (United Healthcare in this case, but fuck them all in general) to not make me pay over $200 for an antibiotic so that I could stop having diarrhea every day. (Like, what the fuck is the fucking insurance for!) The pharmacist did not know what I had been through to get these drugs. I paid for them because I'm lucky to be able to afford them and also what the fuck else was I going to do?

I barely made it out of the CVS before bursting into tears. I sobbed my way over to the river-front park next to the CVS. The rain had stopped and there was a beautiful, dramatic sunset over Manhattan. I lay down on a bench, right in a puddle and cried for a little while. I considered jumping into the East River for a little swim. What was the worst that could happen? Giardia 2?

I took a Lyft back to the corner where I had locked up my bike, bought some Oreos and limped home. I collapsed on the couch. The adrenaline was wearing off and I was doing Very Much Not Okay. Frances, my roommate, cooked me dinner. She's a real one for real. It was the best unseasoned tofu and noodles I had had all week.

That was pretty much the end of it. The drugs kicked in quickly. My shin hurt like crazy on Saturday, but when I went to Urgent Care (my third time in 30 days), they assured me that it wasn't fractured. I could walk after all. It's perfectly healed now. I'm slowly putting the weight I lost back on and re-building my stamina. I'm no longer too keen on a 5-month long hike that would involve drinking more river water. So it goes.

Getting a new front wheel for my bike cost about $60. Cheaper than a funeral.

I sort of thought that bad things would stop happening to me, at least for a little while. I thought the universe owed me a break. But if there really is some universal balance, who am I to think that my bad month would make the slightest dent in the cosmic calculus? I lost my keys two weeks later.

One friend who heard me tell this story accused me of doing it all for the blog. He's wrong, but as AJR said, "100 bad days make a 100 good stories; 100 good stories make me interesting at parties." So where the wave at? I could use a drink.