pass the popcorn

Why is it that when you have fever, your ears feel like all the air is being sucked out from them and your head is nothing but a hollow vacuum? I went to the doctor and he says that i have phlegm too. Once upon a time i used to think that phlegm was spelt as flam. I spent a precious day at home instead of going to the hospital. Over there, (as usual) people can't pronounce my name properly and i'm Marine or sometimes Maline, please take your pick. Though being sick is no party, i'm glad that for one Monday in my week, Marilyn doesn't have to be Marine.

Oh about staying home. I do understand that feeling of home, but it's intangible. What makes 'home' yours? Is it the smell, the pink walls, your single-sized bed with its ratty old pillows, your hamsters, the water and electricity bills you pay? Sometimes home is in a favourite movie you've watched over and over again. Certain movies enable me to feel at home no matter where i am. They are ones that you memorized, that with your eyes closed you know the gesture, the facial expression, the changes of scene that are happening. The voices and stories come to life, and the characters become as dear to me as the people in my life. I can finally stop thinking and rest peacefully. Men can have their ESPN, but i have my Meet Joe Black.

When i'm sick, i feel like a child once again. And i lose myself in my new (or is it old?) identity gratefully. I pick up my yellowed Enid Blytons and eat my Honey Stars cereal. I read about pixies who don't wash their feet, flying buses, evil gnomes and toys which come alive at night. I read and remember a place in time where money mattered only when you feel like eating a popsicle. Where no expectations were strapped onto your shoulders and weighed you down with every step. Where you see and know so little about the world that life is always simple and easily explainable.

M # Monday, December 04, 2006.