Yes, I'm still alive.

Sick days aren't what they used to be, like when you were 9 and it meant laying in front of the TV all day watching Price Is Right and drinking ginger ale. Actually, now that I think about it, it hasn't changed so much after all, except Bob Barker has been replaced with English Premier League soccer and ginger ale gave way to rum & Coke.

I woke up Wednesday with a 103 fever and joints that ached liked a gnarly blues musician before a storm. My throat felt like I'd swallowed a wood rasp. I called in to work and went back to sleep, finally waking up around 4p when Mir & the Midgets returned from housesitting down in PA. Thursday morning was little better - at least this time I actually showered and got dressed before finding out I still had a fever, but only 101. Still enough to call in and try to recuperate.

Turns out that if you miss about a week's worth of time in your first few months of employment, management tends to frown on you. Now, I know blogging about work is risky - most of us remember how well that's worked out for me in the past - so suffice it to say, I was scolded. Understandably so, I suppose. In my line of work, the account suffers if I'm not there to call people and sell them stuff.

Every time I call in sick, I think about my father, and I feel guilty. He's called in maybe twice in 15+ years of employment. That's dedication. Granted, my dad's a remarkably healthy fellow - like an ox, in fact - but still, you have to have that old-school country Protestant work ethic to be that consistent. I never got that. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's that lackadaisical Gen-X mentality, but I honestly just don't care enough.

Seriously. There are more important things to me than working. Lots of them, truth be told. I'd rather be painting, or writing, or watching films, or roaming the countryside. Except those endeavours don't pay. Or, at least, don't pay enough to keep this lovely roof over my lovely children's expensive little heads.

In order for me to be truly committed to something, I have to love it. Whole-heartedly. And I can't think of a single job I've had that I loved. There have been elements of most of them that I liked, because I was good at them, and let's face it - who doesn't like what they excel at? But in all honesty it would take a miracle for me to make a living doing the things I am passionate about.

Case in point - losing.fate. We have a show Friday night to kick off the new season, which I hope we're ready for. We've got a couple new kickass songs that I'm dying to perform, and I'm anxious to feel the crowd reaction this year now that we're a little more well-known than we were last season. Can I make a living doing this? Only time will tell. But I love it.

Come see us. Pay the cover. You'll be promoting my dream.