on ailing and aging

So I went back and checked; I missed the last Tuesday at the Bike Exchange before they closed for the winter because of this illness that turned into bronchitis, which means I've had it over three weeks. I missed a few half-days from work, then last Friday and Monday; I tried to work Tuesday and couldn't make it through the day, and now I've got a doctor's excuse until next Monday.

I've been weak, dizzy, and headache-y. All I could manage was stupid internet; yesterday was the first day I could manage Netflix. I did the first four hours of "Medici: Masters of the Renaissance", suggested by a coworker. It's visually beautiful (Renaissance-y art and architecture! [Probably fake] Italian countryside! Even the beggars are handsome!), but don't take it to the bank for history, although I think they got the character of Brunelleschi about spot-on. (Also watched Coraline, which TEW says I saw on DVD with her, but I have no memory of it).

I'm feeling minimally better. I hope to actually get it together to do a chore or two, and I'd love to clean some of the road salt and grime that accumulated on the Yellow Maserati on its last ride. Yeah, yeah, titanium frame, won't suffer from the salt, but I remember a ride through the mud last summer that was the end of a bottom bracket, and I'd just as soon get the grime out of there. No hose, of course, but a sponge-and-bucket might do... and the fact that the outside weather is warm enough that I can actually get into the garage without a hat and gloves will help as well.

The being ill, though, has been a second nail in the coffin of my holding on to my youth. The past season's riding has confirmed that I'll never be a B+ rider again, although I can still do distances at a B pace. Now this illness, that has laid me SO low and taken SO long to pass, tells me again: I'm an old man; I can't do some of the things I used to do. It's sobering. Keillor has a litany somewhere or other that I'm not going to look up about "dark, depression, and that other 'D' down there in the basement"; I've been thinking about that other D and what its source is likely to be. With my history (this is only the most recent of a long history of respiratory ailments, including pneumonia as a child and many recurrences of bronchitis), a respiratory illness might be my ticket out.

I hope that's not soon. I do have some stuff upcoming (we're re-establishing connections with old friends, for example), and it would be nice to have a chance to spend up some of that retirement money I've been investing.

Here's hoping you're doing better than I, and that we'll both be healthy and active enough to see one another again soon. Live well, and do the next right thing.