This flu bug, or whatever it is, isn’t getting any better. My face is pasty, my eyes are glassy, and I feel like I’m floating. Yet I brew some coffee and forge ahead. What else am I going to do?
I start the freelance gig that doesn’t pay great but is steady. (For a refresher, see the “September 16, 2011” entry.) It involves writing a continuous stream of business profiles. To make it worthwhile over the long haul, I’ll need to work both swiftly and cleanly, two of my strengths. In the short haul, however, I’m feeling neither swift nor clean. This flu bug, or whatever it is, really has me out of sorts.
Cassie’s Uncle Bruce is in town on business, and she’s supposed to meet him for lunch at a Potbelly near the airport. Since I can’t muster the will to go to the Y for my usual lunchtime workout, I tag along to Potbelly.
Cassie and I arrive early, of course—she, too, is obsessively early about pretty much everything. The place is empty at first, but it fills up quickly after the clock strikes noon. I gaze at the people waiting in line and focus on a corpulent, bald guy who’s wearing an ill-fitting golf shirt. Wow, talk about unprofessional, I think. He can’t possibly have a job, can he? Apparently he does, because some ridiculous company logo is sewn onto his golf shirt. I spot a woman with a hairdo that can best be described as a mullet and think, Okay, there’s no possible way she’s gainfully employed. But apparently she is, because I overhear her talking to a friend about office politics.
I wonder what they must think of me. The answer I conjure isn’t pretty: Hey, look at that boob slumped over the table. He has a pasty face and glassy eyes, and he’s wearing a fleece that’s covered with cat fur. Does he live with his mom and her 43 cats?
Thankfully, Uncle Bruce arrives. The beauty of Uncle Bruce is that he talks nonstop. As long as you’re still kicking, he’ll keep coming at you. Even once you’ve stopped kicking, he’ll probably keep coming at you. That’s just fine on a day like today, because I’m barely kicking. I simply grunt a syllable here and there, and good old Uncle Bruce takes care of the rest.
When we get home, I do the unthinkable: I lie down on my bed in the middle of the day, the middle of a workday. Fluffy pins me there—and adds more fur to my fleece—when he jumps onto my stomach. (Incidentally, Fluffy has rebounded magnificently in the past several days. The antibiotic shot the vet gave him has worked wonders. Fluffy is now spry and mostly alert, and he isn’t biting us as often. Liv even noted that his coat seems softer.)
After about 30 minutes, I free myself from the bed and from Fluffy, and soldier through the remains of the day. That evening, I trudge to Liv’s volleyball game. It’s Liv’s first year of volleyball, and she’s been having problems serving. Heading into this game, she has yet to hit a serve over the net. But Liv isn’t the type to give up easily—she’s been practicing constantly. And tonight she gets not one, not two, but three serves over the net.
There's a lesson somewhere in that triumph, but I'm too done in to figure it out. Instead, I limp home and crawl into bed.
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