I have a cold, I guess. I think what I'm suffering from is a cold. I mean, I have to blow my nose. Something is pouring old refrigerator caulk down the back of my throat. And when I take a deep breath, the wind catches in my chest and I cough. Surprising. I haven't had a cold since I can remember. I thought I'd wiped out that problem. The scourge of humanity doesn't bother me, not any more, Buddy, I got da Mo Joe, the trick, the way, the right life. Ha ha. Can't catch me.

Excuse me. I have to blow my nose.

What is this crap? I thought for two days that I'd swallowed something sharp that scratched my throat. Then I started swallowing all the time, stuff that tastes like metal, and then I had to cough some of it up when the drip tangled my vocal cords. That's a cold, isn't it? I didn't recognize the symptoms. I thought exotic pollutants I sucked in while removing old attic insulation got me. Or maybe I was poisoned by bad food or tiny, insidious bugs jumping up out of the Spring lawn. Not a cold. That's worse. Mortals get colds. Not me.

Dorothy and I ate dinner at her brother's apartment last weekend. Ernie's younger than Dorothy. His wife is ten years younger than he is. But we're all getting older and snapshots I took prove it. We made jokes about fatigue we didn't remember enduring before, about trying to live healthier and succeeding only now and then because it's harder to keep the fat off with age. We're not the only ones sliding downhill into the six foot box. Botox injections are a fad among those with money. Botulism toxin. Paralyze your face and the years disappear. Age wrinkles vanish. How about whole body Botox, huh? If we were stiffs we'd look a lot younger. The only cure for age seems to be attitude and an occasional plunge into a vat of liquid nitrogen.

Not for me. I don't get sick. What the hell if my face is developing character. With more wrinkles, I look like somebody who's experienced life and lived to tell about it. I am the weather man; I've weathered, Man. I can keep trucking. Last year when a hit-and-runner ran me over and the accident smashed my left thumb, I picked up my bike, submitted to an instant physical when an ambulance came, refused a ride to the emergency room, and finished the last six miles home on my own. A month later, on that same bike ride home, someone or something hit me so hard I was knocked unconsciously for what must have been three or four hours. I picked myself up and made my way home in a dream, then asked my neighbors to take me to a doctor. In spite of three broken bones in my foot and a concussion big enough to wipe out any memory of the ride, I went back to work three days later, only missing Friday. I had to concentrate like hell for a couple of weeks to remember from one minute to the next what I was doing for a living, but I recovered. The foot took longer to heal, although ten months later I can walk OK. But I never got a cold.

What is it with colds? I'm supposed to have figured out by my advanced age how to avoid some of the potholes and temptations that disfigure everyone's life path. Generally I make no mistakes, well, fewer than I used to. I did become a writer. I have an excuse for that. Some things are almost involuntary and probably the consequence of genetic weakness, like writing. It is therefore not an ailment resulting from poor judgment and slovenly habits, but a species' characteristic, phenotypically evident in me. Colds, however, can be avoided. I proved it. I live well, take my vitamins, visit my Chiropractor, hold the hand of my inner child, relax my tensions, balance my Chi, and wash regularly. I poop, play, and perform on schedule. I've developed a life purpose, I believe. I'll have to think about that. I know it had something to do with writing. I was going to be instructive and entertaining. I would solve world hunger and free the children with storms of insight and good cheer. I would instruct how each could give according to his abilities to each according to his needs. I would feel the warm river of humanity in my veins. I would fulfill and be fulfilled with a sense of urgent service that flowed through me and beyond the extent of my life into the future, a luminescent flow of loving unity that would elevate us all, me in particular, to sense of destiny. We would magnify our understanding and capacities and eventually aid in the process of the suns. Except now I've got this damn cold.

It's puncturing my program. I'm not supposed to get colds. That immunity is daily evidence of doing things right. No matter what, I supposed to able to get up in the morning and do the right thing, not honk. I always thought that sickness meant your body was calling you on the complaint line. Sickness is dis-ease. It is evidence you've overlooked, forgotten, ignored, and snubbed some elemental process or need and the symptoms are means of restoring a balance. They force you to rest when you're tired. Or they stop you from doing something that raises feelings of guilt. Or they increase antibodies against an infection that has cicumvented your armor. In short, the common cold should be my friend. I hope that's what the pile of sodden kleenex in the wastebasket means. And my chest hurts. I think my friend has kicked me in the sternum. Worse, my friend has pointed out I'm not as perfect as I thought. I can't predict, anticipate, prepare, and defend like I thought. I stuck my nose somewhere where it doesn't belong and a viral bug ran up my nostrils. I don't remember that happening. I'll have to scrounge through recent memory. A runny nose and cough may stop you from doing what you planned and give you time to reflect, but it doesn't tell you what to think about. Anyway, it's hard to arrive at profound conclusions when you feel like nature has turned you inside out and shoved you in a car wash. Or maybe I'm organic laundry that should be hung out to dry. There's nothing worse than a cold when you're supposed to be perfect.

If I was injured, I could pull off an athletic stunt to shake it off, prove I was tough. If I was insulted, I could sue for libel. If I was robbed, I could pursue. If I was accused, I could sing on my day in court. But I have a cold, and all I can do is blow my nose. That doesn't cure it. I just have to blow unless I want to suffer the embarrassment of snail trails from my nose to my chin. And cough. I hate coughing. It's trip wire for speaking. A cough always pulls a rug out from under a good sentence, like a heckler. A cough is arthritis for words. I shouldn't be coughing. I'm perfect.

The worst part about a cold when you're perfect, when you think you know it all and will never be sick with a cold again, is the vague dread of mortality it produces. We made jokes at Ernie's dinner when the topic of aging came up, "I will live forever and so far I'm right on track." Aging. Decrepitude. Disease. Death. My future.

Of course, there's decongestants, anti-inflammatories, antifebriles, cough and sneeze suppressants, expectorants, stimulants and soporifics. But none of them make you live longer or ensure perfection. The best thing is get rid of the cold and stay rid of it. That's living evidence that your strength is the strength of the ages and your wisdom profound. Go find that in a pill.

Come to think of it, I better take my Vitamin C. And I wish I had something for my ears. Some tin whistle in my head won't shutup. Today I'll have to do something about that, I guess. I'll be immortal tomorrow.