Well, lo and behold, the Mayan's were wrong. We are still here, more or less. There was also a Christmas, a Haunakka, a Kwanzaa, maybe some sort of Pastafarian holiday,
a New Year, a like 3 other
non-holiday days in between. Each one being more devastating than the next. And
again, in the legendary words of Bill Pullman in Independence Day: "We
will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're
going to live on! We're going to survive!" That is what I kept telling
myself. And the fact that I am here writing this means that either I did
survive, or, I have a very social ghost. Either way, it was a struggle. There
was running, and injury, and gift opening, and injury, and New Years, and some
horrific sickness which was like an injury. Let's take this one at a time here.
Let's
start with the running shall we? Right before the holiday-splosion I was doing
well. My legs were churning out some good runs. Got all the way up to 11 miles,
had some good tempo runs mixed in as well. Life was good. And then, as Dave
Chappelle would say, keeping it real Speaking of new things, there was some gift-giving occurrence that happened recently. Something about a fat guy, in red, in some flying apparatus? No, not this one, this one. Yes, Santa stopped by
my house and left some
treats for the little Sasquatches. There was much paper-tearing, some
paper-eating attempts, a relatively sturdy bike construction job and an equally
successful toddler toy barn raising. I consider it a success and they went
bat-shit insane for it all. So. Well done fat red man. Me on the other hand got
clothes to be less pathetic in (thank you mom and sister), clothes and
aforementioned shoes to be a running machine in (thank you dad and Mrs.
Sasquatch), a Nike fuelband + to have imaginary numbers assigned to my
awseomeness (thanks mom and step-father and certain coworker), and finally some
great freebies from a couple fantastic companies (thanks EnergyBits and Premier Protein, my shameless plug). It was good
haul. I was blessed, and very thankful. Sorry, no joke there. Enough
of the happy things, on
to the epidemic sweeping nation: The Flu. As mentioned above, some sort of deathness
attacked me over the holidays. I am pretty sure I lost the battle and got
pummeled on my retreat. I should have seen the ambush coming, my kids both had
it. One had to go to the ER on thanksgiving day and the other was so out of it
Christmas morning it took her 2 hours to want to open gifts (it was a floodgate
though, one rip and bedlam ensued). I thought I had survived the wrath, and I
was sooooooo wrong. They (Wikipedia) say that the human body is around 60%
water. I tested that theory by wringing every last bit out of my nose. Many
trees, or whatever makes tissues, had to die to stem the tide of snot making
escape vectors out of my nostrils. And that wasn't the whole part. Fever, there
was a fever. Apparently you can have such a fever you hallucinate, because I
woke up talking to my grandma that has been gone for over 10 years and then
later waiting at the door for a friend, at 3AM. Drugs, we need more drugs,
STAT! A face-melting fever wasn't enough, however, as this was a 2 front war.
Asphyxiation was the awe to fever's shock. Apparently breathing is more
important than I had previously thought. Every time I tried to do it, my lungs
decided coughing was a more exciting way to draw in oxygen. And so, for a week
and a half, I learned what smokers cough feels like. You will flu epidemic, you
win. And so, in the end, all is now right with the world. It is 60 in Kansas in January, major college football players are making up girlfriends and their deaths, Lance Armstrong went to Oprah to tell us what we all knew already, and KU is still winning the Big 12. So glad things have returned to normal.
