What Sickness This?

As I convalesce from influenza Type A, I am in an oddly overly-emotional state. A rerun of the recent Super Bowl commercial about an old man using Google to remember his late wife just melted me down.

No matter how puny I feel, a dog nose always cheers me up.
No matter how puny I feel, a dog nose always cheers me up.

So as I pester my wife with my nagging cough, I also had some time to ponder a thing or two.

I confessed to a friend recently that at one point in time, I almost – almost – threw away my journal from tenth grade.

“When I read my journal from when I was 15,” I told her, “I realize that I was the most dramatic, the most self-involved, most obsessive teenager on the planet. If I hadn’t been, I couldn’t have filled two Mead150-page spiral notebooks with ink.”

Before you get all, “Richard, little has changed,” let me say that yes, little has changed. But the thing about your flaws is that you can enjoy them if you just make them your own.

Duct tape this together with another YouTube video I recently watched by Gareth Emery called Long Way Home.

The movie is about the Great American Road Trip, something my wife and I have perfected over the years. Sadly, though, when I was young, I had lots of chances at enjoying this very thing, and I ruined it with drama, selfishness, and … ugh… lack of self-awareness. Can’t you just shut up and have a good time, Richard? Must I always bring the Drama Llama?

For the record, this is the worst flu I’ve ever had. It is dragging on and on; I am weak, shaky, achy breaky, coughy, too hot, too cold, too hot, too cold. So far I have missed four days of work, the most I’ve ever missed due to my own illness. My appetite vanished, so much so that a couple of days ago Abby had to bring me an Ensure® nutrition drink. Today, I was feeling so malnourished that I actually resorted to eating a bowl of chicken soup, which we had in the pantry, and which I felt had what I needed in a crisis. I was right, as I felt a little better even as I was eating it.

I was banished from the Q continuum after Mordor caught me and Lord Baltimoret visiting the Merovingian.
I was banished from the Q continuum after Mordor caught me and Lord Baltimoret visiting the Merovingian.

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