How Good Is Life?

Very.

I’m one week past the disappointing end to my softball season (to which I over-reacted, as usual, and my apologies to anyone I dissed unfairly. We’ll be back in the finals next year, and we’ll win it all. I truly believe that.)

After two weeks worth of the worst cold/fever combination I have ever suffered through (which made the last two weeks of the playoffs a lot less fun than they should have been, win or lose) I am finally able to breathe normally again, and not blowing my nose every two minutes while hucking up variegated slimy yellowish-green and brown phlegm wads.

(I know that was gross, and I’m sorry. However, coming up with that sentence was the only bit of fun I’m getting out of having been so sick. I think I deserve a pass.)

While I was sick, I missed four days of work. Normally, as anyone normal knows, missing work is a good thing. However, in this case I spent the greater amount of the time sleeping fitfully, alternating between sweating and chills, and also coughing up the afore-mentioned phlegm wads.

(Just wondering: Does anyone know how the body produces so much yuck during an illness? At one point, I gave serious thought to collecting all of the snot and stuff in a bucket, just to see if my suspicions were correct, that I was manufacturing more stuff than realistically could have come from me, thus proving… something. I didn’t do it, of course, because I’m not completely insane. Lucky you. If I had gone through with it, there’d be photos.)

Anyway, missing all of that work depleted my store of sick days and made it necessary to also use up two days I had allocated towards a mini-vacation during Thanksgiving week. Now – unless I want to ask my boss for some unpaid leave – I’ll have to work during those days. That sucks.

Did I say that life was very good?

Yes, I did. And I meant it. Despite the above, here I am, sitting in my very leisurely lounging pants and t-shirt, having just enjoyed a couple of episodes of Phineas & Ferb (which, by the way, is a work of genius, and the best cartoon show I’ve come across since... well, I won't make comparisons, since that will just cause some of you to say "Sully, are you kiddin' me? That thing isn't anywhere near as good as my favorite cartoon!", but it is. I strongly advise you to check out a few episodes. And it should definitely be SEVERAL episodes, not just one. One episode may be amusing, but the full flavor of the running gags, which are the strength of the show, will not be realized without sitting through at least three or four episodes in a row. If I hadn’t been tipped off to that aspect by the person who turned me on to it – Dan, my buddy at work – then I would have dismissed it without having enjoyed the full insane flavor.)

So, wherever we were, let’s get back to it. I am as happy as a relative clam (NOT a knock on my in-laws) and I think sometimes we need to be as horrendously sick and unfulfilled in our desires, as I have been the past two weeks, in order to realize just how good life actually can be.

Or, if you have more brains than I do, and can see the goodness of life without being hit over the head by God’s existential frying pan, so much the better. I need a whack on the noggin every so often to understand how blessed I am. Maybe you don't. More power to you.

I’m 53-years-old, and I just spent the better part of the past sixteen weeks running around in fields of green, in the sunshine, playing a kid’s game with people I like very much. I have a refrigerator stocked with marvelous things to eat and drink. Colorful and hilarious entertainments present themselves on a magical electronic box in my living room. My bedroom has an air conditioner, and the house is heated. I need never be uncomfortable in the least unless I, for some bizarre reason, choose to be. I am married to a wonderful woman with a superb sense of humor (which she would have to be, by default, to have married me, of course) and we are in the midst of making plans for a great vacation in October (the days for which I have NOT had to eat into, thank you.) My work situation is far better than that of the majority of mankind – no heavy lifting, a decent buck, and everyone with whom I work has a sense of humor that makes even the most trying days full of intermittent joys – and my boss has never failed to be fair with me, at the least, and has been overly-generous on more than one occasion. Last, but certainly not least, I enjoy a faith that carries me through the rough patches via a certainty of there being better times ahead (and I’ll expand upon that, here, sometime in the near future, and I hope it turns out to be a blessing for those of you who need one. Those of you already blessed can just ignore me.)

(So there's something that should keep you breathlessly on the lookout for my next post - a promise of a religious screed. Yes, your life just keeps getting better and better.)

(Which will be the overall theme of the screed, actually, as well as the upcoming paragraph, so pay attention and get a preview.)

How good is life? As I said at the beginning, Very. Once again, I am in possession of the great truth I sometimes lose through sloppy thought. It is the story of my life (and of yours, should you choose to embrace it.)

Soon, with more better stuff.