I'm sick of being sick. Sick of my body feeling okay in the morning and then feeling like I've been pulverized with a gong mallet by the end of the day. Maybe I should take a sick day, I tell myself. I also tell myself that maybe today is the day when I'll finally be on the mend enough to not feel like crap by 5:00 pm.

My head feels like a water balloon filled with mud and stuck on a yard stick in the front yard. My neck and nose feel like they've been conspiring against me in an effort to bring me down.

I speak with a sexy husk. The kind of voice my uncles used when peering out over a still lake in East Texas. "The lake looks like glass," they'd say with voices that sounded more like shattered glass. Too much coffee for them. Too much phlegm for me. I wasn't born with the deep McKibben voice that nearly all of the men in my family (with the exception of my brother Luke and cousin Josh) have. No, I have to use alternative methods to get my voice low. Either smoke or go hang out in front of a bunch of sick people. If my voice always sounded like this, I would have had a great career on some left of the dial classical music station.

It feels good to sneeze, but it doesn't feel good always feeling like you have to. When my nose isn't congested, it feels like its on fire. Or like it should be on fire. I feel like a dragon that wants to breathe fire but can't due to a gas shortage. My nostrils burn with every inhale and exhale, as if it can't decide if it wants to fill back up with snot again. TMI?

I'm ready for warmer weather. I know that more colds take place in August than in any other month, but I'm convinced the 78 degree high on one day and the 52 degree high on the next are helping much. Nor is the wind.

I feel like I'm under assault from the weather. That's the crappy thing about allergies; the very air you breathe is your worst enemy.

Sick of being sick.

- Matthew