Damn, I still don’t quite feel well.

I’ve searched the internet for the answer as to why I haven’t bounced back yet and I can’t really come up with a diagnosis that accounts for all of my symptoms. Hell, maybe it’s just the heat that’s getting to me. Or a virus. Perhaps it’s an ulcer. Oh and I haven’t had my cholesterol checked in years. Shit, I hate myself for worrying so much about this, for being so damn dramatic about just feeling weak and rundown, an occasional chest pain here and there. I know, I know--it’s probably nothing. Just cancer, maybe. Or something with my heart. I’ll be fine.

But I’ve had some other symptoms, too, some little peculiarities that started showing up about a month ago. Like the morning I woke up and discovered a white line across my field of vision. Horizontally. And really, really white. A blinding white, I immediately thought. I blinked my eyes a few times and it was still there. Then I winked them, one at a time, my left, then my right, and then, in an attempt to trick whatever it was, I tried my left, then the right, and then the right again, and then the left, then left, left, left, and then the right again. And it was still there. But I did determine that it was only in my right eye—my left eye had been, thankfully, spared.

I stayed in bed for a while, wondering how long it would be before I went completely blind, deducing, of course, that there was no other reasonable explanation for this white line than a tumor, certainly a massive one, likely still growing in my brain, crushing down on some optic nerve or something in such a way as to cause the slow, painful deterioration of my eyesight, with the first symptom, I’ll barely recall a few years from now, being a white line across my field of vision.

Strangely, however, just a few minutes later, the white line was gone--miraculously, my vision was completely restored.  Normal.  And although this amazing recovery occurred just about the time I swept the hair from my face, pulling a stray, grey one straight from the tangle of the eyelashes of my right eye, that was likely unrelated to the white line I’d seen. In my right eye. Just a coincidence. Surely.

And although these concerns of my physical vulnerabilities have lately consumed my thoughts every second there’s the slightest lull in the action, I can assure you that I really do want to feel better. I swear. I’ve even done some things to achieve that. Like ordering those shoes.

I don’t like splurging on those sorts of things, really I don’t. In fact, I rarely do. Ok, sometimes I do. Damn it, I do it, but I hate myself afterwards, ok? And these shoes, they're no different--I feel like crap for blowing fifty bucks on 'em. But at least these are for my health. That's right--I said they're for my health.

I mean, yes, everyone in London already wears them, or so they say. And they’re sold out internationally, nowhere to be found except to be pre-ordered. Uh huh. But their popularity would be the thing that would usually repulse me--so I ordered them in spite of that. The lure for me, truthfully, was the promise of what they’ll do to my legs, my ass. It’s right there in the ad, the subject of every news story I’ve seen about them. They keep you off balance, forcing the muscles of your lower body to constantly work, but likely giving you that same sensation you had the morning you discovered that, the night before, your daddy had gotten drunk and, surprise!, had removed your training wheels. Fucker. But hopefully, in comparison, these shoes will result in fewer skinned knees and far less shitty comments from your big brother about how everyone thinks you're a boogerhead because, unlike a Weeble, you DO fall down, and quite often at that. In fact, from what I gather, if you put these shoes on just twice a week, like, uh, to take out the trash maybe,  you’ll have the calves, thighs, and asscheeks of a Swedish porn star in no time...a clumsy, Swedish porn star...who takes out her trash in, um, goofier-than-shit looking rubber sandals.

But that should make me feel better just the same.