So. Damn. Frustrating.

One thing. I only had one thing to do, and I couldn't. A simple blog post, that's all. A couple paragraphs, a few sentences... anything. Just to live up to the "write every day" promise I made to myself, only to see it blown on Day 2.

I woke up with a cold. And not just any old cold, folks... One of those deep-down-in-your-chest kinda colds that makes it feel like your lungs are filled with rancid honey, gurgling with every breath and rattling wetly with every cough. And cough I did. Lots. Before long, I could have sworn I had taken a sledgehammer to the chest but blacked out the event.

And let's not forget the aches (as if I could). Persistent and relentless, forcing me to constantly roll over to a more comfortable position, a position that I would never be allowed to find. The mattress was at once a back-bending valley and a mountainous range of sharpened peaks. No amount of squirming or contorting could make my body conform to its demonic landscape. My pillow was but a cinder block, whose sole-purpose was to slowly merge with my head, grinding through my skull and, finally, squeezing my brain into a white-hot diamond of pain.

And so, this was the way I spent my day, whether it be in the bed, on the couch, or pacing the floor... A constant struggle to simply endure and, hopefully, come out on the other side.

At one point, I pulled out the big guns and went with my tried and true method for beating a cold... a swelteringly hot bath. So hot that I had to raise the temperature while I was in the water, or I'd never be able bear it. With a Stephen King novel in hand and sweat pouring from my face, I let the heat do it's magic. Like the Gunslinger obliterating the town of Tull, I pictured the heat killing every last virus cowering deep inside my aching muscles.

It was then the words started to form in my head. A brilliant, witty, insightful collection of thoughts that I would craft into a magnificent blog post. Inspiration seemed to be practically flowing through every fibre of my being and my brain was afire with creativity. One more chapter of the book, two more long pulls on the bottle of Gatorade, and I was ready to leave the heat behind and commence putting brilliance to paper, as it were.

The hard reality is that these incredible snippets of prose were nothing more than fever-dream, carried swirling down the drain with the now-salty bathwater, leaving me emptied of both inspiration and the will to stay awake. And leaving you, dear reader, with this post; a day late and brilliance-free.