Icarus 2.0

In about two weeks, I'll be turning 30 at which point I'm guessing I'll have a kind of self reflective experience that may include a 30-minute shower (presumably to hide my tears from the ghosts in my apartment), a pot roast-cooking (or a new slow cooked protein recipe), some dart throwing, and scotch drinking.  In other words, it'll be just another day in the life.

Five years ago, my best buddy and I planned a Vegas trip for our 50th birthday.  May 27th is his birthday  and June 8th is mine, and we were both turning 25 so what better way to celebrate than a debaucherous (I may have just made up this word) weekend in Las Vegas.  50 Hrs in Vegas for combined 50 years.  It was a glorious disaster.

That was five years ago.  

Vegas was an appropriate precursor to the five years that followed.  I brought the Vegas party back to Los Angeles with me, a sort of 2-in-1 overflowing celebration of life of friends of excess. I lived outside of my means and in some sense struggled to find an identity -  first exploiting LA (or being exploited by it), next settling down in cozy relationship-world - never quite striking a balance between the two.

Earlier I wrote a headline for Frank's Redhot Sauce that goes:  "It takes strong wings to fly."  It made me start writing this blog.  While the headline for Frank's might not make any sense, it has some relevance here.  I took a leap, a 2200 mile leap, when I moved out of Los Angeles to Atlanta to do this copy writing thing at a school with "circus" in its name.  I may not have much to show for the last five years besides an abyss where my money and my brain used to be, but I think I grew the plumage required for the flight.

Also, happy birthday Mike!

Let the Neti Run

When I get sick, my body proves how much it hates me.  It happened this time the same way it always does, with a slight sore throat.  I never catch it early enough or trust my gut when I know that I shouldn't go out or have that last drink at the bar or, more than likely, the last three on my couch while writing.  By the time I back peddle, it's over and my face feels like it's going to implode.   And so it was this time.

I went to bed Sunday night with the nagging feeling that I was going to get sick. I tried to stay positive, because of the deal with the water and positive energy ( see: http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2006/10/effects-of-distant-intention-on-water.html  and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto) but evidently, I needed a thousand blind monks to meditate on my healthiness and wellbeing to make a discernible difference.  So I woke up to my body revolting against me and my sore throat in full force. So, for the last 3 days, I've been in and out of consciousness and on and off of my couch while pumping alternating doses of dayquil and nyquil down my throat.
And now, after 3.5 days of fighting my own body, only now, does the weather choose console me with its furious downpour and impatient grumbling.  Being sick in 90 degree beautiful sunniness just adds insult to injury.

Now it's just a matter of my asthma figuring out I'm not sick anymore, and my neti pot running clear and strong from nostril to shining nostril. Amen.