(PA)(T)(R)(TI)(EN)(TS)(CE)

B. McGILLICUDDY

I'm not a doctor, but I invented a new disease. It's called "I miss you so much I could throw up itis". It really sucks because I think that I not only invented it, but I'm actually severely afflicted by it.

I wonder if I could patent this disease and maybe make a lot of money whenever someone contracts it. The symptoms are pretty bad: stuffy nose, teary eyes, sore throat, uneasy stomach, all followed by long bouts of sitting by the window and watching the world go by. It's not an emo disease, it's more stress-induced. It's usually set on by a lot of "what ifs".

"What if she gets into a car accident and I don't find out until the day before the funeral because her sister is so grieved that she forgets to call me."

"What if she gets really drunk and falls down some stairs, because stairs are really steep in big cities, and hits her head? How will I cope with having a comatose friend that's a girl that I've slept with?"

"What if she drunkenly has sex with another guy and is so ashamed and so scared that I'll leave her when I find out, that she makes up a bunch of stories to cover it up and I only realize it when I contract some super-rare, incurable STD?"

"What if she realizes she's more happy at home and decides not to move back to this shitty college town, leaving me to go through that same cycle of death and rebirth that I almost didn't make it through last time we split?"

AND

"What if none of this happens and she gets back and is so happy to see me that we spend a whole week together and it's awesome and amazing and all my worrying was for nothing?"

I'm pretty much over the worrying part, and the missing part, but the stress still made me so sick that I'm just now starting to recover. My parents felt bad for how bad I was feeling and treated me to McDonald's bacon ranch crispy chicken sandwiches and a large coke. I know this sounds absurd, but that's exactly what happened. And I'm pretty sure I'm just going to puke it all up later.

I once said that Benjamin Franklin was a cheater and didn't know shit about absence making anything do shit except maybe giving you low marks in your social studies class. I still believe this and though my heart is not growing "fonder", my cock is shriveling, and I don't see any reason to leave my house, which is only two degrees warmer than it is outside. I also just realized how emo this all sounds, and the fact that I suspect that the famous writer, Tao Lin, might be reading this blog will probably make me look really bad consistency-wise, and he'll probably hate my writing as a result. But really I'm just not in a froofy mood today. And it's when I'm feeling froofy that you guys get your musings on the universe and short stories about people with southern accents and updates about "microquirk". So this IS me getting vulns and being sick and trying to be funny in spite of it.

My friend that's a girl and who has the feminized version of my Christian name and is the same height as me and who, now that I'm thinking too much about, I miss very much..."what if?"...is coming back home tonight. And hopefully I'll be well enough tomorrow to take a shower and draw her a pretty picture and maybe write her a song. But I dunno. That's more than four hours from now.

B. McGILLICUDDY