The phlegm is back

Any post with the word “phlegm” in the title is pretty much guaranteed to be comedic gold, don’t you agree? Regardless, it’s the plain truth: my sinus and bronchi are filled with a substance roughly the color and consistency of turkey gravy. It’s nothing serious, just one of those head colds that are debilitating enough to ruin one’s concentration, but not debilitating enough to cause any real pain. I called in sick to work today on those grounds, and have been taking it easy with lots of fluids and relaxation since then.

Usually this happens because I haven’t been sleeping sufficiently, but we just came off a weekend. I’m as well rested as a black bear emerging from his den in the spring. On the other hand, the last week has been something of an emotional holocaust, what with the failed sabbatical, welcome-home parties, birthday parties, and countless other dramatic situations I won’t mention. The fact that I have only myself to blame for said emotional holocaust doesn’t make life at the moment any easier, let me tell you. I’ll elide all the details with one word, which astute readers have no doubt already guessed: girls. I won’t name names. They know who they are. In any case, emotional stress = lowered T-cell count = turkey-gravy lungs. So it goes.

It’s not all bad, though. I made good on my day of hooky by spending several hours on my back patio reading Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins (as engaging as all his books), and Christina was kind enough to pay a visit with our mutual friend Bruce Campbell, starring in Army of Darkness. I hadn’t seen the latter since freshman year – in retrospect, an absolute crime against humanity. There’s something tremendously satisfying with basically every aspect of that movie. It doesn’t always make a lot sense, and most of the skeletons Bruce Campbell fights off are clearly rubber and plaster models thrown at him by an off-screen crew member, but it’s still pure, unadulterated genius. When Ash goes to pick up the Necronomicon and says “klaatu barada … *cough*neck*cough*” – to say nothing of the fully functional prosthetic hand he fashions for himself in the blacksmith’s shop with 13th century technology – you know he’s a badass. “All right, listen up you primitive screw heads! This… is my BOOMSTICK!” Simply classic. If not for anatomic incompatibilities, I would have all his babies.