Been Sick

It's funny . . . since I started to contemplate sweetness, its many forms and expressions, I have been coming down with a head cold that could probably make a horse fall over and just lay in the grass. It's like an anti-sweetness, poisoning the world because, as Blake well knew, [the lack of] energy is eternal [non]delight. You can tell by now how much I am losing with each breath.

On Saturday, said cold took my voice. I have never been without it (since I found it). So off I went to do my rounds. I had no problem at the hardware store where any grunt will do. Buying fresh coffee beans was harder--I just pointed and pointed and then threw a half banana loaf on my tab as a kind of apology. After that, though, things got dicey. A haircut with a new barber . . . and no voice. I thought about drawing the guy a picture to show him what I wanted, but I can really only draw two kinds of haircuts: mullets and mohawks. (Hey, if we ever get really rich, let's buy a barbershop in some rough part of Kentucky and call it "Mullets and Mohawks." That idea alone, by the way, is like a giant middle finger thanking the hell out of this cold.) So I kind of waved my hair around and tried to sculpt it into something he could match in his cutting, but every effort at miming a haircut failed . . . so I threw up my hands and he tore through my hair like a wildfire.

And so, I'll have to owe you some sweetness. I assure you, I have pondered it late at night when, awakened by coughing, I wonder where I am. I'm on the couch so I won't wake my dear family, all sprawled out, arms and limbs akimbo, looking like a haircut described by a temporary mute, dreaming.