Tee hee. "Ample" is my second favorite way to say "a lot of." My first is "an abundance."

For the keen of eye and the none of life, you probably noticed that I haven't updated this blog in almost exactly two months. This is for the following reasons:

1. I'm in denial that there aren't actually Inspiration Fairies giving writers who behave themselves inspiration dust for writing blog entries.
2. I magically gained three followers without doing diddly squat. If I actually write something, I fear I may lose those followers.
3. Since about a week after my last entry, I've been in Texas. I've been here all spring with my sister and two-year old niece.

Lately, I've been trying to avoid dying. It's harder than it sounds.

Texas has been extremely enjoyable, but these past two weeks have been absolutely ridiculous. You know how everyone has an unfortunate bout of threat to their health? A fall here or a flu there? It seems like the Sheer Forces At Will have been attacking me at all sides with throwing ninja stars and fury. They're after me. I'm convinced. And I'm not even exaggerating (like I normally do.)

As of a little less than a week ago, this was the state of my body. I now present you the Diagram of Pain:



Some injuries are not to scale (or to appearance) due to my extreme lack of artistic ability. Besides all of that, this was what my body was like. All at the same time. Oh, me.

Now for the fun part: Telling you how it all occurred.

Let's go through it chronologically. The last time I was a normal person, we were leaving the Post Office. For me, tripping and falling is commonplace. Give me a flat field with no hills or holes, and I will find something to trip over. If I were a seeing eye dog, blind people would use me to avoid dangerous situations due to me constantly approaching them. However, I always seemed to luck out when I was carrying precious cargo (i.e., my niece.) Until that day.

All it took was an uneven area of sidewalk, thus beginning an intense battle between myself and gravity. I would normally have just accepted my fate and let myself fall, but I was carrying my niece. Those were the closest I have probably ever come to those fancy and protective "maternal instincts." At the time it was intense, but looking back on it, I'm sure it was kind of hilarious. The top of my body was teetering forward, then lurched quickly back as if to say, "Oh no you didn't, GRAVITY." I looked like a weeble wobble.

The only difference is that weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. I did.

The whole process was in slow motion, slow enough to encase my arm around my niece and accept defeat. Because I wasn't able to catch myself, the dead weight falling to the ground amplified every blow. That explains half (yes, only half) of the bruises on my knee, and every single scrape in the diagram. The arms and elbow got the worst of it. During one account, my sister proclaimed that she could see bone through the elbow. (I can't confirm or deny that statement considering I could hardly bring myself to look at it.) The most astonishing thing about it is that, even though my injuries shined threateningly red, I didn't bleed.

Luckily, my niece didn't have a scratch on her. I could feel ripped off, but I was relieved.

A little less than a week later, I took a nap during (and exceeded) my niece's because I felt tired for no reason. I also had a chilly fever, if that made any sense whatsoever. In 80 degree weather, I was wearing a jacket because I had goosebumps on my arms. I went to bed early with a jacket and slippers due to more cold oddness.

I woke up at 7:30 that morning (extremely out of character for me), feeling like a swarm of tiny men attacked my muscles with little jackhammers. I eventually lulled myself back to slumber and stayed that way until my normal time. Upon waking, I stumbled to the bathroom. In a life that I've known one thing above all else (and it's that sleep cures everything,) I was astonished to discover that I actually felt even worse. It was sometime during that realization that I...woke up.

My first thought was, 'Odd. I must have dreamed that whole thing.' That thought shut itself up when I put my hand down to help myself up and it was cold and hard. There I was, on the bathroom floor, and I didn't even have excessive drugs and alcohol use to blame. I went through a period of denial when I believed, 'I couldn't have fainted. Maybe the bathroom floor felt cool and nice and pretty and I curled up on it and slept for a little while.' That was until Knee Bruises: The Sequel came out. Even then I wasn't entirely convinced because the idea of fainting is frustratingly inconvenient. Welcome to my brain.

The only symptoms unexplained are the coughing and sore throat. That doesn't have as elaborate of a tale as the others. They were just there. For a long time. From the fall at the Post Office to the swooning in the lavatory almost a week after both incidences, there it was. The symptoms refused to subside. It's like my throat was starting to mock me and my existence. I think everyone has had an illness that they have begun to get irrationally angry at. It's an awkward feeling to wake up every morning and want to shout at your own throat.

I wasn't sure if it was allergies or weather changes, so I went on a "kissing my niece" boycott during that time. That was the last straw. I started to go a bit insane at that point. I was bitter towards the world. I would mention poverty and war in the same breath and seriousness as this sore throat. I became a soldier for health, putting myself through every obstacle, every sacrifice, and every old wife's tale to get rid of the cough once and for all.

I would also have conversations like this:

Me: I'm so sick of being sick! I'm going to beat this thing!
My sister: Geez, you're talking about it like you have cancer or something!

For the record a combination of honey, gargling salt water, and cough drops did the trick.

I wrote this entry because...well, first, because I actually think all of this is hilarious (which means I have the weirdest sense of humor ever.) Also, I want to remind you all that everything is temporary. Even the wounds from when the Post Office sidewalk beats you up, or the results of your boycotting throat. Now I can celebrate my wellness, and the fact that I don't feel like a shell of a healthy human being anymore. Hooray!

This was only a couple of weeks after the couple of months that I haven't been blogging, however. I don't know why I used these as excuses.