I'm a pain in my own ass these days.

If I lived with me, this would be my list of complaints:

• Cries incessantly about never-ending neurological distress
• Disappears for 14 hours, then comes home covered in HCl burns and refuses to do laundry
• Complains irrationally about Phillip Seymour Hoffman's success
• Can't see out of left eye, but has zero sense of humor for pirate jokes
• Eats all the peppermint ice cream

This is the super-taper. It's also the super-bitchy taper. I haven’t exercised since Sunday’s long run, trying to stave off the vision loss of round two by taking it easy. The odds of running the marathon diminish as my head pain lingers on, my vision goes in and out, and my confidence in my health continues to wane.

Had you asked six weeks ago how I would rate my health in comparison with the rest of America, I would have said I was significantly healthier. At least two standard deviation above the mean, I would have told you. I had faith in my body and its ability to do whatever my little brain told it to do. Now I don’t trust it enough to commit to JQ’s birthday dinner in 5 hours. I admit it - I am whelmed. I want to sleep for a month and wake up when this is over. Without health there really is nothing else.

We had a little convo about living in America here today. Henry, my nerdy one, is all hopped up on patriotism as the anniversary of Pearl Harbor approaches. He likes America for all the standard reasons: Freedom, hotdogs, baseball, wars.. Wyatt, however, is just here for the video games. Sky likes America because the cockroaches all freeze in the winter. Whatever that means.