I haven't posted anything for a while because it would have been me complaining about all the little things that are going wrong in my life this semester. But I think that in terms of blogging and writing in general it's important to remember "if you don't use it you lose it." So I'll try to break down the major things that have been bothering me for the last month or so in a hopefully less than obnoxious way.
1. Broken things – As of right now I'm not letting these things bum me out too much but I think they are part of what has been a streak of bad luck.
a. As you can tell from my serious talk of IM basketball I put a lot of stake in improving my abilities as a basketball player. Right now is the height of basketball season and when I look back on the times when I have performed well in sports I know they have been some of the most fulfilling moments of my life. I've recently been having flashbacks to the glory of summers spent on the baseball diamonds of Hillside Little League where Matt Smith and I hit home runs in clutch situations. In basketball every made basket instantly places my heart in a state of happiness. Practice is the obvious gateway to this feeling, but it's more important to possess the actual ability to play the game, ie functional arms, legs, lungs and eyes. In the era of Steve Nash we know that the best players have something called court vision. When I play I sweat a lot and sometimes the sweat gets on my glasses so I have to wipe them off. This is no problem really. Ten seconds later and I'm back in the action. But last week I stepped into a game of three on three and some idiot whizzed the ball right in my face, breaking my glasses. He was standing out on the perimeter and I was about three feet away from him. He chucked it, BAM, right in my eye. What a fucking moron. Nice pass douche, you hit me in the face. Learn to control your shit. I know accidents happen because I've nailed people in the noggin with some of my own passes, but that usually happens when people are running around struggling for position and not paying attention to the ball, NOT when a guy is standing right in front of me. What a fucker. The frames on my glasses were bent out of shape and one of the lenses was scratched, but they were salvageable. I had been taking it easy on the court because of an illness I'll talk about later, but this pissed me off, so I had no choice but to unleash the fury in a ball-hogging 10 consecutive point rampage. I left the game with a few cuts and scratches and a large bloody gash over my right eye like I was a boxer whose swollen eye socket had to be cut.
b. My 160 gigg external hard drive pooped out on me just before spring break. It's about a year and a half old and I use it pretty much 24/7 but now I can't get my computer to recognize it. I've looked on a bunch of troubleshooting websites for advice but I think I just fried it. The problem is with the USB connection. I've tried to connect it to a few different PCs but no luck. I had a similar problem with an optical mouse that I had for a long time and ended up having to replace it. If this is the case for my hard drive then I will lose the majority of my photos from the good old days and about 75 percent of my music. I'm not sure when I'll have a couple hundred bucks to replace it so I've been freeing up space on my computer. If you are a techie wiz and think you can save what I consider to be crucial content missing from my electronic cerebellum then please help.
2. Illness - AKA being dead for the last 33 days
a. I first fell ill the Monday after Valentines Day. I tried to do my paper route the next morning after a miserable night of sleep interrupted by feverish fits. I made it half way through then called in my pussiness, bought myself a tall strawberry smoothie with vitamin C, then went home and erupted pink projectile vomit on the side of my toilet bowl. I felt absolutely shitty and had a steady 100 degree fever for the next three or four days, figured it was the flu. I went to the doctor and took a flu test and a strep test. Both were negative. A week went by and I stopped puking, but I wasn't feeling any better. I was completely drained of energy, wasn't eating much, had a lot of classic feelings of shittiness. I came to the conclusion that I had mononucleosis. I read about mono online and everything I was experiencing matched up. I figured I had been infected about six weeks earlier during a random hookup over winter break. A few days after I concocted this theory I finally felt better. I decided to celebrate with about 60 ounces of brew and half a gram of fire while I watched a Hawks game. The next morning my throat swelled to complete constriction. As reported in a Supple Cuddle Towel comment, "My uvula dangly sack turned into a fat grub and walked up my tongue. I had to keep swallowing it down to keep from gagging." Since then I have been drifting through the days operating on zero brain power, my body beaten with constant pain, under the command of a virus colony. This has had some unfortunate impacts on my performance in school. I'm not someone who normally gets myself down about grades but this is an important semester and the fact that I am powerless to at least appear like a good student is frustrating. I noted on a number of occasions that this illness affected my personality. The natural electricity of my brain has been cross-wired. I've been incapable of drawing on abstract thought so I can't write. I can't keep up in conversation or respond to people with proper emotions. I've secluded myself in my apartment, with the exception of going to class, morning noon and night for 19 days until I flew home for spring break. Most of these symptoms held strong while in Omaha, but I was in better company so there were signs of Joel coming to life. I had a great time resting at home while watching Steve Nash go to Dirk's house and pull out a win in double overtime. Rob and I visited Ryan at KU which was great because road trips are awesome and I hadn't seen Shaffer in more than a year and I think he's one of this world's great people. Still, the boys wanted to mess around at the bars and I was never really capable of keeping up with any kind of party energy. It sucks to be a party pooper, especially during spring break extravaganza. I feel like I've damaged a lot of friendships because of being a loser while I've been under the weather. Maybe people won't remember, and if they do hopefully they will understand that I have been dead.
b. The reason I'm able to write this is because I'm on six or seven different kinds of allergy medicine and for once I'm feeling not so infected. For the first time in ages I can produce words. My first week back after spring break was a rough one. It appeared I was over the worst of my mono death state, but my tonsils are still swollen and hurting like hell. By the middle of the week I had intense sinus pressure with irritating fluids pouring from my nose and eyes. This suffering is just as bad as my trouble with mono. When I'd try to rest it felt like I was getting sicker every time I inhaled. I'd sleep for two and half hour increments and then wake up startled from a horrible nightmare. The docs at student health said my body was reacting to the massive amount of pollen in the area. The stuff really is overwhelming. My black car is turning a shade of powdery yellow. But my allergies were the worst at night and I was sick all day Thursday despite never leaving my apartment. I began to suspect my cat. I've had Moxie for almost nine months, so it doesn't make sense that I'd suddenly become allergic to my baby boy. But the devil inside me would do anything to return to health. I locked Moxie out of my room last night and today I'm feeling pretty good. Hopefully this doesn't mean I'm allergic to my best friend but that my body is ready to brave the road to recovery. I want to not be a loser but if you don't hear from me assume I am sick.
That's enough complaining for now. My next blog will probably be about my experiment of removing myself from Facebook. If you want to chit chat don't forget that blogs, email, and aim are all good things.