Fits and starts

How's your New Year going so far?  Been to the gym yet?  Made good on that promise to be nicer to people?

My new year has gone something like this:

Hanging with the parents... Good.

Running... Also, Good.

Reading a book for pleasure... Nice!

Drinking more water... I like the sound of that.

Violent vomiting... Wait a second?!

I suppose it was inevitable.  Let me explain.  Me Mum came down with the stomach flu on Jan. 1.  My Pops got laid up  Jan. 3.  I was feeling great right up until the moment that I picked up my luggage from the carousel at Portland International Airport.  Then, like a butterfly flitting toward a distant flower, I made my slightly dazed and un-straight way to the train that would take me to my car that would hopefully take me all the way to my apartment were I could then suffer in the comfort of my own bed/bathroom.  My brain was slightly dazed at this point and I started to do this weird gulping thing people do when they are trying not to burp.

I made it onto the train and to my car without incident.  I started by taking the highway at my usual 5 miles-over-the-speed-limit.  Then as the miles sped by and my hardened resolve to make it all the way home began to crumble as the realization hit that I might actually not make it all the way home, the speedometer crept up.  By the time, my exit came into view, I was a cool 13 mph over the 65 limit.  I passed two police officers like this, but they must have sensed the urgency, because I didn't even have to look in the rearview mirror to know that they weren't interested in me that day.

Into the house, bags left in the car, I headed straight for the....

(this portion of the account has been deleted for those of you that may not have eaten dinner yet).

I was aided merely hours after I got home by an emergency intervention.  Bill and Erika supplied me with some essentials: Tylenol PM, Immonium AD, toilet paper, and 7-UP. Two days later I emerged from my apartment, as if from a cocoon, to get the mail and rescue my luggage from the car.  Then I went back to bed.

Because a thing like just doesn't go away quickly, but lingers like garlic smell, my stomach is still out of sorts.  I've been running once (25 minutes), biking (to and from work, twice), and swimming.  I've got myself a triathlon.

No seriously, my training did go a little out of the window because I was sick.  So,  I declare that my New Year has not yet begun.  I am starting over... Who wants to ring in the New Year with me tomorrow?