Remember how, a few months ago, I jokingly told you that I was worried that I might have contracted tuberculosis? Well, I’m still coughing. And I’m coughing harder than ever. By my count, I’ve been coughing consistently for ten weeks straight, trying desperately to get something out of my lungs that apparently just won’t budge. It’s gotten so bad that I now have to steady myself with two hands when I cough. I’ve found that the best position is to arch my back, leaning forward, lifting one foot, and hanging my head slightly. This somewhat decreases the trauma to my lower back, which has been hurting like hell for the past month, and my brain, which must now be covered in bruises, having been slammed forcibly against the base of my skull several thousand times. Thankfully, it hasn’t happened so far today, but I coughed so hard yesterday that my field of vision was filled with flashing spots of light. Linette, forgetting for a moment what a hypochondriac I am, told me that I probably detached my retinas, so now I’m thinking that I’m just one epic coughing fit away from blindness. Thankfully, though, it’s keeping my mind off the imminent aneurysm, which, prior to that, had been at the forefront of my mind.
It occurred to me that I should tape record one of my coughing fits, which have been coming about every five minutes, and post it to the web, to prove to you just how horrific they are, but then I thought that it might prompt one of you to place a call to Family Protective Services.
The thing is, I don’t feel at all sick otherwise. It’s just a damned cough… and the headache, sore throat and back pain that go along with it. And that’s the frustrating part. I don’t have a cold, runny nose, fever, chills, or anything else. It’s just this persistent cough. And the doctors don’t know what to do about it. They say it’s not strep, whopping cough, or anything else that I should be alarmed by. They say that sometimes, after a cold, it just takes a while to shake the cough. And I’m running out of things to try, having gone through my allotment of Tylenol with codeine, several containers of Chinese herbal tea, all of the family soup recipes I’m aware of, several jars of honey, acupuncture, gallons of carrot, garlic, ginger juice, and any number of other things.
So, that’s what I’m doing tonight, and why I won’t be posting anything about the Republicans’ decision to postpone their convention, those eight people who were mistakenly shot by New York police officers, or how the conservatives of Ohio are planning to steal the election.
Oh, and I used to think that coughing was something our bodies did to protect us. I thought that it was the body’s way of getting rid of a virus. Now, though, I’m beginning to think that we just cough because that’s what the cold virus wants for us to do. It wants to spread, and it manipulates us to us make that happen through the act of coughing… It’s a weird thought, but might it not be true that we only exist to serve the cold virus? Maybe it’s that I’ve been leaning over a sink for ten weeks, holding on tightly as my body contorts in agony, but I’m beginning to feel as though I only exist because I can cough, and keep microorganisms alive in my warm, pink lungs…
Inspired by 
, which I thought would not only be fun to do, but would also give us an excuse to build a fake town on the desolate plot of Ypsilanti real estate known as Water Street. (As you’ll recall, the good guys in Blazing Saddles build a fake town on a barren piece of land, in hopes of diverting the henchmen of the sinister Hedley Lamarr.) The horses might present a bit of a problem, as would the decidedly non-PC tone, and the fact that the fourth wall completely dissolves in the final reel, during which the actors from the fictional old West are propelled onto the set of an extravagant musical being shot on a Warner Bros soundstage, but I think it would be an interesting project to undertake together, as a community. (Who knows, we might even come to like one another in the process.)
