I admit to having some trouble with my eyes. I can see okay, but check this out:

A beautiful pair of baby blues, you’re thinking. No, that’s not the problem. Malformed eyelids? No, that’s not the problem either, and shut up, I’m sensitive about them.

For the last few days, the eye on my right/your left has been as red as Hollywood in the 1950s. Redder, in fact. It’s a bit like the results of an EKG were written directly onto my eye with a needle or something while I was asleep. Those of you who know me well will know that I am somewhat squeamish about eyes, and I have patiently been waiting for this redness to go away, lest a paranoid and hysterical public brand me as a mutant and put me into one of their special camps. However, admiring my handsome self in the mirror tonight, I realized that my red eye was one flaw that could no longer be ignored. Also, the redness has been so bright that it’s been difficult for me to sleep lately. So I rooted around in my medicine cabinet and found an old bottle of eyedrops that had been left behind by one guest or another many, many years ago, a bottle which I had kept for so many years just for an occasion such as this. So, still looking in the mirror, I unscrewed the cap, positioned the bottle over my eye, and squeezed… and a drop fell onto my chin. I realized then that I had my non-red eye squinted shut, which threw off my depth perception, but I couldn’t seem to get it right with both eyes open, either. Ultimately I decided to look up at the ceiling, hold the bottle a foot or so over my face and randomly squeeze out drops until one happened to land in my eye, and then another, time permitting. And so I was successful in this endeavor, yet I continue to wait for the desired results.

As I wait, I consider the possibility that Dennis Quaid is travelling around inside my body in a tiny ship, and the redness has occurred because he has shot a tiny video transmitter into the center of my eye so that he could see everything I see, which would in some part allow him to help build up my self-confidence in talking to women and dealing with dangerous situations. In return, I’ll do my best to get him back to the laboratory and out of my body before his oxygen supply runs out.

Today is my birthday.

I am aging.

Do I have to get my prostate checked now? Should I start using Rogaine? Should I consider cosmetic surgery? Should I be thinking of settling down with a nice girl and having a few kids? Is it time for me to start watching CBS?

I have been worried about my teeth. I bought an electric toothbrush. I put the pea of toothpaste on it, ran a bit of water over it, as is my routine procedure, and turned the thing on. Of course, the vibrations sent the toothpaste flying everywhere. Of course. I bought a little contraption which purports to make flossing easier, and it may yet do that, but my teeth have a knack for causing floss to unravel. I switched for a time over to the tape, until it was pointed out to me that the “dental tape” I was using was in fact tape from an audio cassette – the cassette in question being the master recording of many famous songs, including the Beatles’ “Let It Be” and Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance”. I do not feel guilty.

Sometimes when I’m writing these I start with one or two sentences, then get to the end, and realize that somehow I had written a bunch of shit in the middle.

This is one of those times.

“I’m sick,” I said.

“How long have you been sick?” the doctor asked.

“A week,” I told her.

“Open your mouth and stick out your tongue,” she said. I did so. She shined a light into my throat and turned away in horror.

“STREPTOCOCCUS!!!” she screamed. “The worst case I’ve ever seen! Quick,” she said, handing me a bottle of pills, “take these. And make sure you are not around people for the next three days or else you will infect them with STREPTOCOCCUS!!!“

Later, at home, I decided to look into my throat and see for myself. My bathroom was dark, so I manipulated my wall-mounted shaving mirror until it was shining a light directly onto my tonsils.

STREPTOCOCCUS!!!

My normally pink throat was covered in large white polka dots. It was as if bits of it had been bleached. It somewhat resembled a marshmallow swirl. Suddenly, my uvula started vibrating at a very high speed. Soon, I realized it was because I was screaming.

“STREPTOCOCCUS!!!”

Oh, but I’m feeling much better now.

I got toads in my nodes and a stoat in my throat.

The strange little mouth-like orifice on my toe has more or less healed.

The toes of triumph!

The toe of shame.

In addition, while I was handling an assortment of nails, brads, and tacks tonight, I dropped several of them on my feet. Instead of piercing the skin, which is what one might have expected them to do, they all were caught harmlessly in the crannies between my toes. Truly, this is a great day for toes.

I apologize if you have heard this already.

This evening, during my regular regimen of alternately milling about my apartment aimlessly and sitting on my duff watching television, I noticed that the bottom of my right big toe was a little sore. Not sore enough to really qualify as discomfort – more an annoyance than anything. I pulled my foot up to investigate, and, after brushing away the dust and crumbs and cat hair that coated the bottom of my bare foot, I discovered that the source of the irritation was a small slit, about a quarter of an inch long by my measurement, right through the meaty part of the toe, just above the joint. A slit. I examined it a bit more closely, and while it was certainly no more than a millimeter wide, I discovered after prying it open slightly that it was at least three millimeters deep. But there was no blood, no pus, no discharge of any kind coming out of it; it almost looked like it was supposed to be there. It was a bit like a tiny smile.

I applied the usual disinfectant ointments and bandaged it, and have walked around like a goon for the rest of the evening, trying to keep that toe from hitting the ground when I walk. While I was taking my nightly shower I thought I might want to give it a good cleaning, and so I gave my toe a good scrubbing with my tasteful pastel green bath sponge. However, a small portion of the sponge, clearly weary from its participations in other such scrubbings, clung around my foot as I pulled it back, and consequently I lost my balance, fell over backwards into the tub, and bruised my bottom. The shower gods had a good laugh over that one. The sponge gods were not pleased, nor were the bottom gods. The toe gods were busy trying to figure out whether the sore was some sort of tapeworm cave, and did not take note of the incident.

Unrelated and gratuitous attempt to get a song stuck in the reader’s head:
Who’s tripping down the streets of the city?
Smilin’ at everybody she sees?
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment?
Everyone knows it’s Windy.