Starve a Fever / Feed a Cold

I was talking to a friend who has been very surprised at how Delia has affected me - totally "not me", I was told. Maybe, I said.

So tonight, I walked the dog; a person who walks the dog cannot be insane, right? Because there is still another entity who matters and whose welfare is equally important - an insane person has no concept of self at all, much less others.

I always said that writing is a disease, because healthy people do not have the need to write. They see the world as it is and do not see the need to allocute on it. At least, Dr. Kay Jamieson of Johns Hopkins agrees with me. Writing is the enema for my really bad cold.

And so I indulge myself: I watch Delia and her many facial expressions, some really cute, others downright unflattering. I listen to what she says and marvel at how many different, imaginative ways she can philosophize on black smoke. I am amused at how many times she started her answer with "Well..." I sit and watch, fully transported into a different realm, until my remaining brain cells tell me I've had enough. There she is, Delia Gallagher, now frozen in time and space, with the monuments of Rome as her backdrop. Even that - at the height of "my really bad cold" - can get boring.

Aristotle, Socrates, and all those ancient Greek dudes, spoke of the balance we all need in our lives - as the key to being totally cool human beings. Sometimes, we get off balanced, because that too, is a necessity so we can find new equilibrium points. It's all part of the human process. Maybe in the greater scheme of things, this Delia episode is totally inconsequential; or maybe it is that little speck of dust that tips the fulcrum and forces me to find a new midpoint.

But at least I get to write about it.

Someday, I will look back and smile, even laugh, at how much I surprised myself and my friends, by totally going outside the norm of my dull, ordinary existence. Nietzsche, Godless SOB that he was, would agree with me that in the end, all things are good.

My Dad always told me, whenever something really bad happened, that "this too shall pass." I know, fortune cookie wisdom, all too trite, but all too true in its simplicity.

I need to go to sleep soon, so tomorrow, I can take the dog for a walk again.