TV personality

This week has been a strange one for me. Three or four days ago, I came down with a sore throat. Actually, it wasn't so much coming down with as waking up with a sore throat -- I opened my eyes, yawned and swallowed ... and discovered someone had wire-brushed my throat in the night. Ow. And yesterday I was feverish and in even more pain, so I went to the doctor, who said it was likely viral and I should just go home, rest, drink lots of tea and fluids, and gargle.

The strange part is that I really never get sick. I don't get colds; I don't get the flu. I get migraines about twice or more per week, and occasionally I eat something that doesn't agree with me, but I'm not used to this ill feeling. The fatigue that makes me dread climbing the stairs in my own house, and the need to curl into a ball and sleep for the next six months -- these are pretty foreign to me. And the sore-throat pain. Man, I am not used to that.

Yesterday, I started going through the unlabeled VHS tapes that litter my living room floor. I wanted to watch some early-third-season episodes of "The Office" while I was recuperating. But I found I was too weak to fast-forward through the commercials, so I only got through the season premiere. It was as good as I remembered, so that was okay. But then I moved on to the second-season DVDs. No fast-forwarding required.

"The Office" is a new addition to my sick-day comfort-viewing list. The show is hysterically funny, but it's pretty quiet in general, so it makes me laugh without being too taxing. It's perfect.

Some of my other sick-day picks include:

* "Get Real," a little British flick from 1998 that somehow always makes me feel a wee bit better. It's about a gay high-schooler who learns to be true to himself; it's sweet and funny and very, very British. Which is a good thing.

* VH1's "I Love the '80s." I only watch it when I'm sick, but I find that losing myself in clips and quips from my childhood really does the trick.

* The TV Guide Channel. Just -- the TV Guide Channel. Okay, so this isn't really a pick, but it's so associated with sick days in my mind that I can't not mention it.

See, a few years ago, before I became as much of a health nut as I am, I got really, really sick and had to miss work for more than three weeks. During that time, I was on anti-nausea meds that blurred my vision, so I couldn't read or watch TV or movies or anything. All I could do was lie on the couch. I kept turning on the TV, though, because in my delirium I believed each time that maybe I'd be able to watch something ... and it never worked. I'd put on channel 19, the TV Guide Channel, with the intention of selecting a program, but then I'd collapse onto the couch, too weak and blind to change the channel or turn off the set. It would be hours before I could drag myself back into reality and turn it off.

I swear, the weeks of fever must have burned the little station-identification jingle into my brain, because to this day I get a little chill every time I hear it.

Hey, does anybody out there have any sick-day favorites? Comment on this entry and let me know, eh.