As I write this I’m fighting the latest winter malady, some cold/flu/plague kind of thing that gets the sinuses in an uproar, makes muscles feel like a day on the railroad without leaving the couch, and generally makes the brain go “woooooo” without the aid of illegal chemistry.

Those moments of faux lucidity, as the meds kick in, are about the only cool things about being sick. The dizzy stupor while the mind is still busily spinning. The brain sometimes gets a little impatient at the body for not acting on the thoughts or composing long sonnets to their glory, instead of getting bogged down in trench warfare with virii. Boooring. Mind wanders. Gets lost in the woods. Dark woods. Weird woods.

Was that a white rabbit?

One of my most vivid memories from my childhood, was, ironically, a night when I was out of my mind. Having been hit harder than usual by a winter cold, I spent that night in and out of a fever dream.

I remember sleeping in a sort of tent arrangement -- on the bottom bunk of bunk beds, with the wall on one side and a blanket over the other-- to better hold in the effects of the vaporizer. I was sure I saw Mom at the foot of the bed, like she had something for me. Cough drop, medicine, Golden Ticket -- I’m not sure. But when I sat up to take it she disappeared into the mist. Then I slowly lay back down, wondering why she would trick me so, realizing she may have been a hallucination. If Mother is an illusion, is anything real?

Drifting.

I’m floating down a canal that leads to this opening in the icebergs. In the middle of the lagoon before me is a small raft of ice. A girl stands there, unaware of me. She dives into the water and swims a bit. I think she must be cold because she has no clothes on. But as she sits upon the ice, it’s hard to tell if she feels anything at all. I don’t know who she is, though part of me does. She is beautiful. She is alone. She looks sad. I can’t reach her, for as I approach, I awake.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah. Being sick and delusional. Much of the world seems to pass through fever dreams at times. Bending the laws of reality, willing things to be what they are not. What’s this I hear about a “surge” of troops making Iraq all better? Perhaps a surge of soldiers is like a flock of geese or a murder of crows, just another grouping. Over 20,000 promised, where experts say we’ll need many times that much, or we’d be better off bringing the ones already there back. Still, 20,000 it is, with about 1,000 expected to die in the coming year at the rate they’ve been falling. One-in-20 odds? I was never good at math. Still, place your bets, G.I.! Watch the wheel spin. Our heads spin at the thought of it. Dizzy. Whee! What’s that you say, George? It’ll bring victory? Sure, why not. Just let me sit here until my equilibrium comes back.

After all, “surge” is the hottest style. The newest thing. “Cut and run” was SO last year. We don’t cut and run. Perhaps we’ll cut and walk instead. Cut and somersault? Cut and saunter? Cut and waltz? Cut and dance! That’s what they mean by cuttin’ a rug. Oh, wait a minute. We’re still in Germany and Korea-- and a chunk of Cuba since the Spanish-American War. We don’t cut and run because we don’t “cut.” Period. Think the Iraqis have caught on to that yet? Shhh. Don’t tell them.

I must truly be sick, still out of my mind with delirium. I thought it had only come on recently, but then I remember seeing, a month or two back, our President hanging out in Vietnam. Whaa?! He sure wasn’t eager to go there back when the war was on (went a few hundred miles in the opposite direction, in fact). But everything is cool now. And he spoke of lessons learned. Lessons like we shouldn’t have cut and run from that country, either.

Yeah. That still doesn’t make sense, no matter now many times I say it. And, of course now that he has said as much, the right-wing talking heads will take it as revisionist gospel. Never mind that GI Joe didn’t conquer Vietnam, Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald did. While Charlie Company got blown away, Coca-Cola established a beachhead and dug in for the long haul. Capitalism beats Communism because capitalism is fun! But our genius-in-chief somehow missed that.

If I were truly cynical, I could say something to the effect that his photo-ops in the ‘Nam help with rewriting his story as a war hero. He was in the National Guard back then, and since nowadays joining the Guard puts you just as much at risk of getting killed overseas as joining the regular army, people will soon forget it wasn’t always that way. Can’t help but feel that was part of Dubya’s plan, to look more like a hero waiting in the wings rather than a duty-dodger partying in Alabama while fellow soldiers were slaughtered near Saigon. But don’t mind me, just the rantings of a sick mind.

I hope I start feeling better soon. Time to start making a better reality for myself, something more stable, something more…

Oh, wait. The rabbit wants me to go that way. Don’t want to miss my iceberg.