I just love being ill! When else can I find the time to curl up on the sofa, messy-haired, “spooning” Shana, feeding Taxi popcorn, while watching Gidget Grows Up — all without a speck of guilt?
“Wait a minute,” you’re saying. “Who’s she trying to kid? Doesn’t she do something like that almost every Sunday?”
Well, yes. Yes, I do. But it’s different when I’m ill and am thus relieved of the duty of dressing appropriately in my silky kimono-inspired robe and maribou mules. It’s different when my throat is scratchy and forcing my voice to sound like an exotic blend of Demi Moore and Peter Brady (in the “Time to Change” episode where his voice cracks and the kids go ahead with the recording session anyway even though Peter sounds like a deaf-mute when he cross-eyedly approaches the microphone and forces out his “sha na na na na”). It’s different when I can’t really partake of the popcorn festivity. And it’s different when Shana and Taxi are wearing surgical masks because they don’t want to catch my “disease”, as they so gently put it.
I’m getting better, though. Whatever it is, I think I have it almost beat. I’d like to give credit to one of the remedies I’ve tried — Aleve, NyQuil, or oscillococcinum (some homoerotic homeopathic remedy recommended by my Pilates pal/instructor, “C”) — but really, I think credit goes to the near steambath temperature of this room, which rivals that of my beloved Bubby and Poppop’s apartment circa 1985. As if a featherbed, topped by thick flannel sheets, themselves topped by a lightweight down comforter, cotton Indian spread, velvety throw, and another down comforter weren’t enough. And a lightweight down “throw” thrown over my head. And flannel pajamas enrobing my body. (No socks, though. They’re too suffocating.)
I’ve finally realized just how I managed to contract this disease, by the way. No, it’s not because people at the gym cough into their hands and then handle the free weights. It’s not because they don’t put a towel between their sweaty flesh and the non-porous vinyl seats of the weight machines. It’s not because they secrete all manner of body fluids all over the cardio equipment. No. It’s all because of Mother Nature, that harridan.
See, this is what happens when I leave the city and expose myself to unrelieved fresh air and grass and trees and stuff the way I did this past Saturday. This is what verdant Pennsylvania does. Either that, or my brother put DISEASE on the extenda-fork and transferred it to my plate during his skewer-fest.
But however it happened, well, that’s all water under the bridge. The troubled water is almost all gone. Praise be! Oh, praise be!
And with that I leave you now to enjoy an as of yet unchosen hideously bad movie as only properly befits illness. I could watch a cinematic feat on Movies on Demand, such as Bend It Like Beckham, but that would make me sick in another, far more distressful way.

*  *  *