I wake up in the morning. It’s a little trickier to get out of bed. The blankets are heavier because, during the night, Gravity got all high and mighty and decided to become the dominant force of nature or something. Who knows? The cat doesn’t seem to mind. She’s sleeping peacefully, while keeping an eye open on me in case I kick her outside, but no, that’s not going to happen.
Heck, I can hardly even get my gummy eyelids to stay apart for more than a second. The alarm helps out, a bit. Kind of. Somewhat. Not really. It’s annoying, more than anything. It’s not like a Morgan Freeman saying, “Come on, you can do it. Get yourself up and face the day.” It’s just a repeat of the latest Country song to get picked on by the ABC, some twangy voice complaining that her fans don’t like her music, and it doesn’t really matter because it will be on the radio tomorrow at the same time like Ground Hog Day.
“Gronk,” I say. I what I mean to say is, “Come on, Jez, better get your fuzzy butt out of bed.” But it comes out as, “Gronk.”
I walk into Joey’s room and open his curtain. “Good morning, sonny boyo, what a pleasant morning it is. I certainly hope it continues and evolves into a fantastic day for you,” or, rather, “Gronk.”
Might as well face it: I’ve got the gronks.
My head is foggy, and I need it to do work. My voice is rubbish and I need that to talk in meetings. My accuracy on the keyboard is shot and I need that to do just about anything productive. I have to take the day off. Fine, whatever. I’ll rest up and get better and tomorrow I’ll be right again. Right? Wrong.
Rest is not something I can just turn on like a tap. I’ve read a few books on the matter to try to help out. One method is to concentrate on my breathing, but when you’re gronky, listening to yourself breath ain’t exactly relaxing. So while I might plonk down on the couch and try to gronk myself to sleep, I wind up lying in an uncomfortable twist, holding my eyes closed and listening to the annoying whistle coming from my lungs.
So I try thinking of random problems, a technique I’ve found gives limited success, only I find that, because it’s during the day, those problems end up being work-related, and I have a compulsion to open up my machine and dive into some logs or check databases to confirm my suspicions. In the end, I gave up on that and tried to do something useful around the house. Nothing too strenuous, mind. When you’re gronky, your lungs just don’t wanna.
So far I’ve cleaned out the fish tank, tidied my desk, jumped online and helped out a companion at work, edited the sound in a video for wifey. I think that’s what really grinds me about getting the gronks – I’m home from work, so should be able to do all those things that need to be done, with gusto, but instead I’m shambling about like a mindless zombie, tired and foggy, disinterested in reading, unable to write, unable to record audio, unable to rest. It’s a matter of using whatever part of my body I can until it gives up and then I switch to something else. Sure, it’s a day of not-a-lot, but at least I’ve got a clean fish-tank.
Anyway, I’m not even sure this is making sense anymore. I think I’ll try sweeping up outside, at least until my lungs give out. Gronk.
