- it's medication time -

I have a tendency to string my maladies together like beads, slipping them onto a single thread to wear around my neck.  I do this to ward off guilt over not getting more tasks accomplished.  It's sensible yet stylish.

The emergency appendectomy two years ago was my shiniest bauble, one that still dangles front and center when I'm showing off how beset I've been with spells of bad physical luck.

Right after that, the cracked ribs from full commitment to indoor soccer had sporting glory written all over them.

The kidney stone affair was a pleasure to suffer because it gave me the opportunity to include some graphics, in this journal as well as in my party conversation, and there's nothing like harking back to the time when a rock came flying out of one's penis to evoke sympathy and a sense of bravado.

When we include the various sprains, shin splints, broken toes, stiff necks, and bad haircuts that have kept me from my responsibilities, it's a wonder the planet still spins at all, so absent have I been from participation in making the world go 'round.

This weekend was no exception.  I've been stricken again, this time with a cold.  Dropping all duties at the sound of the first sniffle was an act of pure self-preservation.  I know that if I rest now, as hard as I can, chances are good that tomorrow, or the day after that, or maybe three days from now, I'll be able to sit up in bed and think about how I'm going to actually get something done next week.  If it doesn't rain.

I'd be a fool, however, if I didn't mention how selfless my quarantine is.  The maximum sprawl I have achieved here on this bed may appear indulgent, but it's really for the good of all mankind.  Viruses and microbes are nasty things, and the thoughtless man will dispatch them like tiny armies to multiply, divide, and conquer, so I have designated the master bedroom as a red zone to be populated by me and me alone.  Meals are brought in by masked servants.  Luckily, though my palms are moist, I can still snap my fingers.

In my previous entry I said I was going to take a week off.  It wasn't exactly hate mail that I got in response, it was more like "watch it, buster" mail, coming so soon after my August absence.  Now, with disease figuring in, I have the moral right to extend that brief hiatus.  But look.  Here I am.  I am a good good man.

In normal circumstances, I would go on here about what I've otherwise been up to.  I would mention how Viv, Amy, and I met Viv's brother Tim, who's in from the Indonesian jungle, to show him some L.A. nightlife.  I'd include some narrative on how I threw caution to the wind by mowing the lawn, killing ants in the kitchen, and resetting the timer on the sprinklers (front yard and back yard), all in the face of this ugly fever.

But rest and recovery are the watchwords, so I'm going to do what I know deep in your heart you want me to do - put down my fingers and stop typing.  Save myself.  Lie down and do what needs to be done.  Besides, as you can probably tell, the maximum strength medication has already begun its happy work.  Fight fiercely, dextromethorphan.  Go, pseudoephedrine, go.  

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"Ill Wind (You're Blowin' Me No Good)" -- Ella Fitzgerald -- ELLA FITZGERALD - THE BEST OF THE SONG BOOKS: THE BALLADS

today's wisdom:

"Rest, as soon as there is pain, is a great restorative in all disturbances of the body."

- Hippocrates