The entire universe is conspiring against me.

I had an annoying little tickle in my throat all day yesterday. It felt like I swallowed a hair or something, and it was lodged in my wind pipe and poking me every time I spoke. I didn’t think much of it – I swallow hair all the time – and went about my duties for the day.

Then I read about the outbreak of Swine Flu at PAX. I’m a paranoid person by nature, with a severe case of hypochondria and a misplaced sense of melodrama – naturally that tickle in my throat wasn’t something easily explained away by the cats sleeping on my face, I had nerd-borne piggy sniffles! I’ve been SWINE’D!

I thought back over my weekend, remembering each and every sickly face that glanced my way. Strangely, it wasn’t just a horde of anonymous unwashed masses that appeared but people near and dear to my heart: not only had I been exposed to bacon lung at PAX, I spent quality time with sick people!

Ali was just getting over an awful cold. Shan was deep in the throes of a nasty sickness. Josh was manly and stoic, but still showing signs of having caught whatever viral yuck Shan was carrying. I had been literally surrounded by sick people all weekend long: was it any wonder that I was probably mutating the H1N1 virus into the next strain that’ll spell the end of the world?!

I’m sick. My throat is killing me, I have a nasty cough out of nowhere, I’m nauseous, and I ache all over. I know I should go to the doctor to find out if I really do have hamthrax, but I don’t know that I could get myself there. All I want to do is crawl back into bed and moan dramatically (silently; it hurts to talk). This sucks.

And what of my incredibly tight September schedule? I’ll admit that my first concern wasn’t for my health or that I may very well be Patient Zero for the K1ML1 virus that kills millions, but that my being sick would mess up my training schedule that took me weeks to arrange. I don’t have TIME to be elbow deep in the Aporkalypse; I have a schedule to maintain!

.. then the BossBoss told me we were pushing the launch date out by two weeks because one important piece hadn’t been programmed properly.

I’ve made up my mind; I’m keeping my baby schedule – but now I have 10 more days as a buffer. I feel less bad about moving today’s training session (especially as it means I won’t be breathing all over my subjects all day, spreading the other white flu), but I need to get better and get things back on track. I hate being sick. Up yours, swine flu. If I have a fatal case, I am going to be SO PISSED OFF.