When I awoke this morning, I was fortunate enough to see a dolphin leaping out of the sea just outside my bedroom window. Less than a minute later, I saw another, almost close enough to touch. I smiled broadly as I got out of bed and pulled on a pair of linen trousers. “Now that’s something to blog about!” I thought. I threw on a shirt, a baseball cap, then slipped into a fifteen-year-old pair of Birkenstocks. My intention was to walk down the cobblestone street to a little coffee shop on the corner, order my usual—a half-caf cappuccino-no foam and a blueberry scone—buy a paper, then sit at one of the tables on the sidewalk as the sun climbed higher into the morning sky. I was less than a block away from the coffee shop when I was greeted by a friend—a friend who owed me money. Before I could greet him, he stammered “Hey man. Look, I’m going to have your money by the end of the week. I’ve got some loose ends to tie up then everything will be right as rain.”

“No worries, Jonah!” I told him with a smile. “Come on down to the coffee shop with me. We’ll worry about the money another time.” I clapped him on the shoulder and turned him in my direction. As we walked, I said “When I woke up this morning, I saw two dolphins jumping out of the ocean right outside my window! It was glorious! What a way to wake up, right?” He said “Yeah, that’s awesome.”As the word “awesome” came out of his mouth, I stopped, glanced over at him, and realized that my friend Jonah was Jonah Hill. The actor. From Superbad. “Goddammit.” I said. “This isn’t even real.”

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See? This is what happens when you go out and do things. You go out to see a band, go to the grocery, get out there in the world and what happens? You get germed on, that’s what.

I started coughing yesterday as I sat at my desk at work. By the time I got home, my sides hurt from coughing so much and I had a bit of a fever. (I’m assuming I had a fever, anyway. I don’t have a thermometer.) I went to bed and could sleep no more than two hours without being shocked awake by a violent coughing fit. I’m sure my upstairs neighbor loved my eight-hour performance of “Night at the TB Ward.”

This morning, I called in to work—well, emailed in to work—and told them I’d be staying home. This is a bitch because I’ve got a lot of stuff cooking at work. I went back to bed and stayed there, getting up every few hours to take some Tylenol, drink some water, and check my email.

Tomorrow promises to be more of the same. Awesome.

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I’m back from a bit of a sabbatical. As those who read the RRC forums know, I never actually left. I just didn’t have anything to write about. I still don’t, actually, but as the Bard once said: “Fuck it.”

Spring has officially sprung here in Pigspittle. Yesterday was the first day above fifty-five degrees and, like cicadas, the hillbillies emerged from their garages on wings of gleaming chrome. That’s right, it’s Harley season! The streets of downtown Pigspittle are filled with the throaty rumble of redneck Rolls Royces by day and the pinched whine of their children’s rice rockets by night. It’s Fast and Furious out there from 9:00PM until 4:00AM and Easy Riding from 10:00AM until 9:00PM.

I live on one of the “mainest” of what passes for main intersections here in town. Virtually all traffic going out of town passes by my bedroom window. Normally, this isn’t much of a concern as I sleep with a fan blowing like a wind-tunnel mere inches from my head. The constant blast of white noise drowns out all but the most insane noise. Unfortunately, two of the most insane noises here in rural Ohio are Harley Davidsons and little neon-lit import cars. And yesterday, they were out in spades. I could barely squeeze in my customary fourteen hours of weekend sleep due to the din.

Speaking of din, I attended the first live rock and roll show I’ve seen in over a decade on Saturday. Sure, I happen to be very fond of the folks in the band, but they blew the roof off of a joint more accustomed to hosting Iron & Whine-ish acoustic beard-crooning and crystal-ship-journey bong bubblers with “percussionists.” And it was too loud for me.

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