Last night, before my dad and I went to the gym, I wrote about how my friend Marla said I was “very loyal” to this blog and how the worst thing a person could do would be tie me up in a room and keep me from posting for a day. I said, “NOOOOOO.” Then, for the first time since starting this blog almost two years ago, I forgot to hit “publish.” Ironic, I know. This morning Marla wrote and said, “I can’t find yesterday’s blog. Did someone kidnap you?” Thankfully, I told her, no. And I did write. I just spaced out and forgot to share it.

But I did share it this morning, and here it is.

For the last three weeks, I’ve had an off-and-on sinus infection. A couple days ago, I felt like a million bucks and was sure I had it beat. But then this morning I woke up full-blown sick with all the mucus. (And I didn’t even eat dairy yesterday.) Despite all my tricks and potions, I’ve continued to feel sick all day–tired, gross, disgusting. Additionally, my head hurts. It’s like the skin around my skull has shrunk, is shrinking. I’m doing my best not to whine here. These are just the facts.

Excuse me while I hack up a lung.

Despite The Plague, it’s been a pleasant day. Like, no one has died (that I know of). Actually, this morning my mom got some good news about her heart. A recent echocardiogram showed a potential problem, but today she found out it was “moderate” and not “severe.” As I understand it, this means medication and not surgery. So that’s good. Then this afternoon I did some writing research, which was fun, and my family and I went out to Western Sizzlin’ (giddy up), which was tasty. Then I took a nap and watched several episodes of Soap, an old sitcom I’ve been into lately that starred Katherine Helmond and Billy Crystal. Crystal’s role, Jodie Dallas, was television’s first openly gay character. Anyway, I laughed out loud tonight when one of the characters, Burt, a real ham, stuck his hand directly in a chocolate cake because he thought there might be a bomb in it. Perhaps you would have had to have been there. But my point is–you can be sick without being miserable.

Not that this is an easy thing to do. All day, when I haven’t been distracted, I’ve been worried that this sinus infection will never go away. That all the things I’ve been doing have just pissed it off and that it will never get better. Today my aunt said, “Have you tried a neti pot?” Oh my god, have I tried a neti pot! A thousand times I’ve tried a neti pot. This is the deal when I’m sick. It feels like I’ve TRIED EVERYTHING and that NOTHING WORKS. Of course, I know this isn’t true. After all, this is a big world with lots of solutions, and I’ve stumbled across some wonders before. So we’ll see what happens. My current plan is to give myself the weekend to be sick and gross. If I don’t improve, I can come up with a plan next week. I’m telling myself–

You don’t have to mount a defense this very instant.