Yes, it’s been a few weeks since I wrote anything here.  It’s still hot and I’ve been sick for the last few days – that’s no excuse for not writing in the previous three weeks, but it is a fact.

I’m not entirely sure what kicked off this latest bout of what I shall deem to be sinusitus.  Last Friday night, I gathered my camera gear together and drove over to Riverwood High to shoot the first football game of the season.  It was amazingly hot.  Disgustingly hot.  Unbearably hot.  Bind-me-with-duct-tape-and-throw-me-into-a-1957-Chevy-Bel-Aire-Trunk hot.  Here’s an example of how hot it was:  It was 96 degrees at 9:30 at night.

Okay, so that’s not really an “example” so much as it’s a fact, but here’s the point I’m trying to make:  It was really hot.

So I shot the game – didn’t do a very good job, but you can look at the few shots that I didn’t delete immediately here – and then (it being hot) stopped for a beer on my way home.  The beer was incredible, by the way. 

I spent most of Saturday morning indoors – did some cleaning, went through the shots from Friday night, watched some movies, and psyched myself up to do some lawn work. At about noon, I got out the hedge trimmer, pruning shears, rakes, shovels, hose and wheelbarrow and proceeded to hack the ever-loving crap out of the bushes (privett and otherwise) in front of the house.  After about three hours, I was (you guessed it) incredibly hot, and decided not to mow the lawn – there’d be time enough to do that on Sunday. 

Saturday night, I spoke with Betsy (on the phone) for a while and noticed a slight tickle in my throat.  Didn’t think much of it.  I was hot.  I ended up sitting in a tub of cold water for a while and then went to bed.

By Sunday morning, it was obvious that, at some point between going to the football game and sitting in the tub, I’d managed to make myself sicker than I’d been in years.  It was one of those deals where there was so much snot in my head that I was basically going deaf.  The pressure in my sinus cavities was such that I felt I could pop out all of my teeth if I just pushed on them hard enough with my tongue.  My eyeballs resembled those of Kermit the frog, my head was on the verge of exploding, every joint on my person was screaming for the application of Icy Hot balm, standing up was an exercise not unlike walking on a water bed…it was bad enough that I actually decided to call a doctor if I wasn’t better in a couple of days.

That’s bad, folks.

I managed to get to sleep Sunday night, but emailed my team on Monday morning and told them I wouldn’t be working.  Spent all day Monday in bed, alternating between sleeping and frantically blowing my nose. Sleeping, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is not only my most favorite thing in the world to do.  It’s also my cure for all forms of sickness.  I’m convinced that I could chop of my foot with a hatchet and, given enough sleep, grow a new one.

Sometime Monday night, I woke up with unbelievable chills.  At that point, I knew everything was cool.  That’s my other pet theory.  I can feel like crap for a long time, but once I start violently shivering (while sweating) and have to curl up into the fetal position in order to keep from falling out of the bed, I know that the worst is over.  I woke up yesterday morning and went to work for half a day – took the laptop home at lunch.

As expected, I’m on the way back up today.  I informed my team this morning that I’d be working from home (and yes, I have indeed gotten quite a bit of work done), and my head, while still pretty stuffy, is slowly clearing out.  The body aches are gone, the teeth don’t hurt any more, and I actually ate a sandwich for lunch (this after living on raman noodles and tea for the last three days).

Getting better is a good thing, because I’ve got my first college game this weekend.  It’s in Myrtle Beach, SC, and I’m planning to camp at a state park in the SC lowcountry on Saturday and Sunday (Monday is Labor Day). 

I hate camping with a snotty head.

TWD