WELL, IT’S BEEN A HARROWING PAST COUPLE OF DAYS HERE IN PHIL LAND. Three thunderbolts struck on Monday, one right after the other, each arguably more devastating than the last. If you don’t feel like listening to me whine in all my melodramatic glory, I suggest you skip down to the more humorous portion, which is entitled, “more humorous portion.” Otherwise…

Thunderbolt #1: The chill and mild fever I had developed on Sunday exploded into a more serious illness, and so I was bedridden just about all of Monday.

Thunderbolt #2: While lying in bed, up to my chin in thick blankets, I got a phone call from an employer I interviewed with, and politely informed that they’d chosen another candidate.

Thunderbolt #3: Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my grandma gives me the day’s mail. Included was a letter of non-acceptance from NYU regarding a graduate program I applied to. That makes three programs I applied to since October (Two at NYU), and three consecutive rejections.

So as of now, I am totally adrift, more uncertain of my future than ever before. What do I do now? What SHOULD I do now? I can’t help feeling like a total waste of skin, bone, and other stuff. What the hell is wrong with me? Is something the hell wrong with me? And why is my nose running now, when it wasn’t running either Monday or Tuesday? I ate, like, a half-dozen oranges over the weekend, so shouldn’t I have enough Vitamin C to not get sick? Man, I wish I found God at some point in life.

Wasn’t it Harvey Pekar who said, “Life can be so fleeting, and at the same time, so sad?”

Oh yeah, I still have to attend that Christian music concert on Friday. I will attend said concert, even if I am ill, because the girl I am going with is my step-cousin, and she would never believe me if I actually backed out for a legitimate reason. Because it turns out I called in sick on her once before, for a prayer group she and another step-cousin invited me to. That’s actually a humorous story.


MORE HUMOROUS PORTION:

Two years ago, my step-cousin and another relation invited me to a prayer group meeting they were running somewhere in Brooklyn. Yeah, it’s the same borough I live in, but this was near the Navy Yard. The only way for me to get there without changing trains in Manhattan and then riding back down was to hop the F, which meant a longer bus ride. Anyway, I’m a very open-minded guy; I had every intention of attending that evening prayer meeting. Unfortunately, I was lifting dumbbells the very same morning, and only later did I realize that I gave myself a hernia.

Thanks to the hernia I gave myself, I couldn’t sit, or stand, in any subway car for more than a minute without suffering this overwhelming, insurmountable urge to vomit. And Avenue U to the Navy Yards is one LONG subway ride. Three times I got on a car on one platform, got extremely nauseous, and had to get off at the very next platform. Forty-something minutes went by, and I only managed to travel three stations. It was too ridiculous. I called, told them I had pulled something while working out, and needed to rest. Who knows if they actually believed me? But let me try that excuse again come Friday, when I still burneth at the forehead, and runneth from the nostrils.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know if that story was funny, so much as personally humiliating. Perhaps one is the same as the other. Well, since I have everyone’s attention, I’d like to plug lime Gatorade, which is deee-licious, and great for dehydration. Secondly, anyone interested in spending the first week of July in Orlando, Florida? My folks have a timeshare there on alternating years, but they have no plans to occupy it this time.