So here it is, friends and neighbors, a Friday morning, the sun shining, birds singing, the rumble of the expressway providing a soothing cathartic to the daily grind of suburban life, the recent skunk expulsions down the street wafting gently through the air, and me, with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton, a rumbling chest demanding instant expectorations, and a voice that sounds like every baliff in Night Court combined into one.

That's right. I got me the illness.

I was out two days already this week, and hoo-boy, I feel like it's been a month. Spent most of the first day reading a book (not too taxing); the second day, I leafed through another book, wondering morbidly how things were going back at school while I was gone. I didn't have to wait long, as it turns out; I went back the following day, believing it would be less work in the long run to be my own sub (an erroneous assumption, as it turns out--how do you tell a kid to "Stop fighting!" and sound credible when you have to wheeze it out in between nose-blowing into a hanky?). For every day you're out in this biz, there's another pile of crap to read, grade, weep over, yell at them about not doing correctly, or cast into the fire. Normally this process is lubricated with beer, but beer and a chest infection seems to me like throwing water on a grease fire. So all I could do was seethe inwardly. Probably the very character trait that's destroying my immune system in the first place.

Then, this morning. Croak. Croak. No voice. Head spinning. Air painful against my skin. Chest burning. Eyes watering. And it took me at least two minutes to figure out what time it was, as I gazed stupidly at the clock on the bedside table. Ugh. This did not bode well.

So, instead of traveling to scenic Spring Grove, Wisconsin to partake of some quality outdoor theatre, I'll most likely be in bed, drinking hot mixtures laced with ginger and God knows what, trying to recuperate enough health so I can spend my Sunday trying (futilely) to catch up on all the grading I otherwise would have gotten done this week.

Forgive the whininess of this post. It's just that a steady diet of cold medicine and broth tends to produce exposition of the immediate, rather than the abstract, the intellectual, or the somewhat-remotely-interesting.

OK, how's this instead? Comic book art software makes for an interesting hobby!




What happens next? Tune in when...I come up with something.