A Real Head-Scratcher

Life's been rough the past few months. I've been pretty ill, my body supremely taxed with trying to recover from the shingles.

Is it "shingles" or is it "the shingles"? I prefer to go with the latter. "The" shingles gives it more of the respect it deserves. Granted, my respect for the shingles is the same kind of respect I reserve for Sarah Palin and rattlesnakes.

To add insult to shingled injury, I heard from my orthopedist the other day that I need to have my left knee replaced, the same knee that I already underwent a horrible bone graft surgery on to try to prevent the phone call I got last Tuesday. Sure enough, my x-rays were rife with severe osteoarthritis problems and, as the doc put it, "It's not a matter of if, but when."

I've had to come to terms with the probability that my life, as it is, is all there is. Don't get me wrong - I am great with having any kind of life. Even though I might say differently while in the grips of bone pain and the horrid burning, itching of my neck and head thanks to nerve damage from the shingles, I do not actually want to die just yet. As my respected Palin would say, Irregardless, it's a bitter pill at 29.

I've been feeding myself inspirations - "Make your own! Your future is in your own hands! If you dream it, they will come!" - but deep down, I guess I don't really believe all that. Thus, I don't want to try to do anything, as it TRULY, no "woe is me" but TRULY pointless, as it has just blown up in my face every. single. time. for the past 18 months. I desperately want to summon the energy to revive my dream of being a published author, but it's just not there. Perhaps I killed it forever by self-publishing on Amazon, the ultimate admission of defeat. I'm not sure it even matters all that much. Except it does. It still matters to me.

I was lying in bed watching TV last night. I turned to TLC hoping to catch a show so terrible that it would make me feel better about my life. There are certainly enough to choose from. Instead, there was a Christmas concert put on by Justin Bieber.

Justin Bieber. Since I'm not 14, I've not paid too much attention to Bieber Fever. I set down the remote control, intrigued.

Immediately I could tell the boy was lip-singing 90% of his songs, and the other 10% were performed with the heavy-handed assistance of Auto-Tune.

I cocked my head in confusion. Perhaps it was the startling decibels with which the teenaged audience screamed that covered up the reality that the singer has no voice on.

His backup dancers thrashed about on stage with ferocity, intensely believing in what they were doing. Do they know that Justin Bieber is an extremely minimally talented young man? Perhaps their ferver was actually hope that the blindness to Bieber will keep their gravy train a-chuggin.

His show should have been twice as elaborate, twice the spectacular, in order to cover up his shortcoming as a singer. Instead, it was almost a parody of a late-80s concert, complete with Bedazzled jean jacket and Vanilla Ice crew cut.

I scratched my head in bewilderment.

I kept scratching.

Right before I drew blood, I realized it was the shingles I was scratching at.

Oh well. Justin Bieber, nasty skin disease that is completely miserable... at least a handful of calamine lotion shuts up one of them.