One of those daze(s)

I know! I haven’t posted in. Well, in days.

I’m sorry!

It’s just all been too much for me, this going back to work temporarily. It has thrown my life into complete chaos, this not watching Dr. Phil at 3:00 p.m. and this not sitting at my computer until noon in my PJ’s and this waking up unnaturally.

Not only that, I had to get up at FIVE a.m. Monday and travel to some place to take tests that took from 8:00 a.m. in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon to complete. Which wouldn’t have been all that bad if I hadn’t been seized, right in the middle of the whole thing, with a coughing spasm the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before in my whole life.

One minute I’m sitting there minding my own business calmly coloring in footballs with my number two pencil, and the next minute I’m coughing and hacking uncontrollably. I can’t breathe, my eyes are watering, and I can’t stop. Every time I manage to gasp in some breath, I feel like I’m finished and then…dear God, I’m not.

Of course, I couldn’t have been alone in the testing room. No! There were at least five other (unnaturally quiet, I might add) test takers there who where blessedly cough-free. No doubt they were hoping the Center for Disease Control would roar up and a team of Haz-Mat suited professionals spirit me away in some sort of hermetically sealed paddy-wagon. Heck, I was beginning to wish it.

It’s like I was Ash in “Alien” except, thankfully, nothing burst from my chest at the end. And, people, I’m not a pretty cougher (or cryer). I generally turn an alarming shade of blotchy boiled lobster red. It’s scary, I assure you.

After a while, I pulled it together and managed to complete my tests although my face remained horribly spotted and my throat really sore. Then I had to drive many miles in a rainstorm to get home, a particular pet peeve of mine (driving in rainstorms, that is).

The next day, it was, STILL, pouring rain (not that we don’t need it). After hurriedly getting ready for work, FINALLY locating an umbrella, rushing out with an ice cold Diet Coke in hand and jumping into my car, I get to work (two blocks away), leap from my car, unfurl my umbrella, and begin rushing toward the building only to realize, halfway there, that I’ve left my freshly popped elixir of life, Diet Coke, in the cup holder of my now locked car. By now many feet away. In a rainstorm. OH, THE HUMANITY! DAMN IT TO HELL!

As I’m repeating the above-referenced phrases to myself, I reach the first sheltering overhang of the building and retract my umbrella. Which, I did not realize until that moment, has a special surprise when one does this too quickly. And that is that it flings all the rain it has amassed on it’s wet, wet, surface square into one’s face.

THANK YOU, UMBRELLA! HOW CONVENIENT TO HAVE ALL THE RAIN YOU SHELTERED ME FROM SPAT BACK INTO MY FACE IN ONE QUICK EASY STEP! FOR A MINUTE THERE, I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO ESCAPE FROM MY FRESH COLD DIET COKE IN A COMPLETELY DRY STATE WITH MY MAKE-UP ACTUALLY STILL ON MY FACE!

From there, my week went downhill.

I will spare you the details, mainly because they are inappropriate for the blog, but it’s all generally related to the big question of making money to support one’s lifestyle, a subject which always makes me think of a song.

Heck, who am I kidding, damn near everything makes me think of a song.

But, anyway, this particular song, the one I’m reminded of when thinking about questions of money is, guess what, “Money” from Cabaret performed by Joel Gray and Liza Minnelli and choreographed by my hero, Bob Fosse. And so, when I begin to ponder these fiduciary issues, completely involuntarily, I always eventually just end up singing this little ditty to myself and pretty soon I’m picturing this classic number and, before I know it, just like that?

I start to feel better. You should give it a try some time.