Speaking in tongues

Damn kids. Last week, it seemed like half the cast of the show I'm stage managing was virulently ill in some way -- strep throat, bronchitis, you name it, they hacked it. Of course, they all came to rehearsal anyway, silly little over-dedicated nibs. So I knew I'd contract something, and since I used to get strep fortnightly as a kid, I guessed it would be strep again, my old buddy old pal.

God, I love being right.

I'll refrain from itemizing all the parts of me that ache, mostly because I don't think I can stay awake that long. But it sure does hurt all over, especially back there in the back of my throat. I even had a dream today that I called my old pediatrician (Dr. Hazard, I kid you not) and told him to take out my tonsils. He said OK, but that the ice cream afterwards would cost me extra. I said lay it on me. Then I got all weepy about losing my tonsils, who had been with me through so much, and Dr. Hazard was all, sic transit gloria mundi.

In my dream, I understood him, but I had to check online later, because I don't really know Latin. I know some Greek, but again, only seem to remember scraps of it in fever dreams, like when I dream I'm Demosthenes. Which I do, sometimes.

What I do know is real, and not the sweaty product of a fever dream, is that the phone rang this morning, and a woman said into my answering maching that I had won the writing contest I entered back around the end of December. I just called her back to confirm it, and it turns out I did in fact beat out about 500 other folks for the chance to read out loud at a Barnes and Noble in a couple of Sundays. I think some prize money is involved too, but I'm too dehydrated to remember.

If you're interested, I rewrote this for submission. A few of you seemed to like it, and so did I. The way I wrote it here, it's a true story. I changed the names and a few telling details for the contest. But hey, if some of my more pointed references reach the ears of some of my more pointy-headed relatives, so be it. Que sera sera. C'est la vie. Comme ci, comme ca. Tempus fugit.

I think I have to go back to bed.