First of all, let me apologize for getting this posting up late.

It’s late because I forgot to write it last night. I forgot to write it last night because I was asleep on the sofa. I was asleep on the sofa because I totally conked out after raking my leaves. I guess I slept a good five hours.

After awakening on the sofa, I immediately went to bed and slept another nine hours.

So this morning I am not only dizzy, I have one of those too-much-sleep headaches. My back is also hurting. I also have shingles.

Not the kind on your roof. The kind that break out on your skin. I had a horrible case of them about 27 years ago. I had just started this killer job and was in charge of launching a new political science journal. I got shingles. Being in charge, I couldn’t take any time off and had to work right through the pain. These sweet little water blisters were all over my chest and back. Millions of nerve endings were itching and throbbing and wiggling like electric worms.

Now I have them again. They are related to the chicken pox virus and can lay dormant for years and years. My getting them again is probably stress related. I started getting them again last week when I was finishing up that Mexican beverage report. After working straight through the weekend, I put in a 16-hour typeathon. Little itchy bumps began springing up.

Luckily, my shingles aren’t too bad this time around. They are isolated to a small egg-shaped patch just below my rib cage. They are tender, but so far no pain.

Carol wants me to go to the doctor. But I refuse. They are not that bad and the doctor would only yell at me for gaining another two pounds. Yesterday at dinner, Carol tried to enlist her mother in her fruitless cause. Her mother is a retired nurse, so she speaks with some authority.

But her mother is also eternally grateful that I married her daughter and does not want her back. So diplomatically, she said, “He probably should go to the doctor but not if he doesn’t want to.”

Thanks, Mom.

So this week I am going to take break from writing fiction and finish the research on my new non-fiction, how-to book: “Painting Kitchen Cabinets Can be a Whole Lotta Fun.”