You're down with a fever. Great. Sit home and read, watch stupid sitcoms and soaps for endless hours. You're down with chicken pox. Not bad. Hog the attention and the food. Just tolerate the itchiness but you could read and sleep and sleep and read and eat and read. Whatever. You just had your tonsils removed. Splendid. Down tubs and more of ice-cream and you could still ask for more.
But conjunctivitis! Nopety nope. She's the most torturous of them all.
You cannot read. You cannot watch television. You cannot random surf the net for stupid, aimless blogs such as this one. You cannot meet people. Worst of all, you cannot shop. You cannot go to work (not that one would want to... but I'm trying to prove a point here!) You can only listen to so much music. So what is it that you can do?
What you can do is keep cleaning gooey, -icky stuff off your eyes. Pour gallons of drops into them. Feel the bitter taste of those drops travelling down your throat (yes, that happens with the eyes too, like I just found out). Try to sleep and end up with a headache worse than you had earlier. THAT's what you can do.
And if you happen to have viral conjunctivitis - the one that lasts longer, much longer, you have no choice but to 'let your body fight it out' (like the good ol' doc said). Now if urges-to-binge are the only things you're body has ever fought, you can't quite trust it to do a good job, can you?
So here I am. Waiting like a prisoner who know his term is coming to an end, but is not quite sure, when. (umm, well... if you know me you already know my penchant for drama, right?)
But like they say, one should look at others' sorrows when in the dumps and you'll start counting your blessings. So when I have friends who've had fancy-sounding but life-altering problems like - chalazion, Rubella, marriage!, I can only feel better (of course, not discounting my sympathies for QQ and RK for going through some of the above) about my condition.
Joie de vivre!

Have you ever:

1. Felt that you were made for better things than 'Ctrl+Tab'bing between excel sheets and powerpoints and trying to compile never-ending reports which you always knew would end up in trash, unopened?
2. Felt you deserved a long, fully-paid vacation in an exotic location for putting up with your boss/es, colleagues, peers and DR's mood swings and manifestations of nicotine deprivation? (theirs, not yours, silly)
3. Felt you were the most under-utilized, under-rated and over-worked employee of the year?
4. Felt like giving it all up and sitting at home - reading chick-lit, watching back-to-back episodes of SATC, Friends and others?
5. Felt like you'd have been better off in the Jane Austen-ish, Victorian era where all you had to do was dress up (or down) for meals and everything in between? (Actually, even I'm not sure how I'd like a life of just that - plus I cannot sew a button back on, forget anything else: case in point those abandoned trousers at the back of my wardrobe; so maybe, I'm not all that Victorian either)

A long long time ago, in another life, I'd read a really good book by Groucho Marx (forgotten its name - think it was 'Groucho and Me' or something). Instantly fell in love with the man for his stylishly self-deprecating wit and sometimes-sassy humor. Found some of these lines on a site dedicated to him. Have highlighted my favorites in bold. Savour this.
PS: Have overpowered the feminist side of me and overlooked some of the male chauvinistic comments below. Suggest you do so too. Just shut her out for 2 minutes, and if you haven't, don't blame me for what happens next.

How do you feel about women's rights ? I like either side of them.
Here's to our wives and girlfriends...may they never meet!
Mrs. Teasdale: He's had a change of heart.[Groucho]: A lot of good that'll do him. He's still got the same face.
I sent the club a wire stating, Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.
Send two dozen roses to Room 424 and put 'Emily, I love you' on the back of the bill.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
A man is as young as the woman he feels.
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions-the curtain was up.
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says 'yes,' you know he is a crook.
To Margret Dumont: "I can see you and I married. I can see you bending over the stove. I can't see the stove!
Dig trenches? With our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing..if you can fake that, you've got it made.
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.
I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
Remember men you are fighting for the ladies honor, which is probably more than she ever did.
Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse.
Last night I shot an elephant in my Pajamas and how he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
We took pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. . . But we're going back next week.
Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. (I personally identify and empathise with this one!)
Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.

Life's ironies:

1. Your workpile hits the roof when you've just gotten back from a nice, long vacation. So what's the point in going on one, when you're anyway going to be back to your dreary, disgusted self in a day's time?
2. You have your worst acne breakouts when you've got a : a.) wedding - friend's, or worse still your own (I've just been through this, and therefore it tops my list), b.) very crucial, long-elusive date, c.) job interview - even worse if its on VC - your zit's magnified twenty times over!, d.) meet-the-(already-hate-you) parents lunch lined up- now they have another excuse - 'she's got a very dangerous and extremely contagious skin-disease that could contaminate our whole progeny!', 'hamaare khandaan ki izzat multani mitti mein mil jaayegi!!', e.)
3. Your pickup, which is usually fashionably late, arrives just as you're about to hit your creative climax - which is now. Ciao! Shall continue...

Stumbled on this poem someplace and was totally enamoured by how beautifully the poet captures the emotional vicissitudes one goes through at the beginning of a relationship, and sometimes, all through it. Especially love the lines - 'One moment, you whisper in my ear
the other, you’ve gone too far...' So true for all those times when one wonders, is this the same person I thought I knew so well!

Can only say, 'wish someone had written this for me, how flattering would that be!'

'...For you with love'

You’re an enigma,
a spirit so carefree,
the more I think I know you,
the more you baffle me.

A reality or a dream?
I wonder what you are
One moment, you whisper in my ear
the other, you’ve gone too far...

A learner, a dreamer, an explorer
In you, I see all these and more...
Inquisitiveness, fantasies and spirit,
All blended in your core

Here I sit unraveling
the ‘mystery’ that you are
Living in ‘moments’
a life simple yet bizarre

With you
I experience passion unknown
the highs and the lows
and a yearning deep sown

You soothe my burning soul
like a whiff of cool breeze
canopy of your womanhood
has nurtured me with ease

As time drifts endlessly
and I delve deeper into you
I often stop to ponder
do you feel all this too?

Just want you to know
whatever the future may be
I cherish what we share
and - You'll always be beautiful to me !!