Today I have become a true writer! Like Kafka, I now suffer from tuberculosis (or at least I hope so).

It was lunch time, and I was walking over to the library to read Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons by Kurt Vonnegut (I only read things from one writer because I'm narrow-minded), and I coughed and spit on the ground. I know this is a very cheap thing to do, but I did it anyway. But as that phlegm came hurling out of my mouth, I noticed for a split second that it was red. Believing I was mistaken, I turned around, and sure enough, to my disbelief, was a tiny puddle of blood and phlegm on the ground.

At this time I got light headed as hell and ran to the bathroom. I coughed up in the sink. Streaks of blood were in my mucus. I coughed again. More puddles. Of course it wasn't as bad as the first time, but it still scared all hell out of me.

I walked over to the cafeteria, trying to reassure myself that everything was fine. I ate a slice of pizza and refused to acknowledge I had a problem. I then started panting and I got very dizzy, so I walked over to my friend Nathaniel who once told me he thought he had prostate cancer or a hernia or something, and I told him I had been coughing up blood.

"Um, go home man. That's not good."

So I did. I felt very awful about this since I've been missing so much English, which is my only real class I enjoy. I'm sure my teacher felt disappointed since I'm actually starting to open up in class discussions now. Well, only a little bit. I still like to be a shy bastard. I figure I only have a few months to ruin everyone's lives with my opinions, so I better start soon.

Anyway, I drove over to my parents' restaurant and sat in my car for an hour waiting for someone to take me to the doctor. I could've gone myself I realized, but I was just so dizzy! When we got there, my Uncle and I sat in the waiting room for about a dozen hours and a lady took me over to a room where she weighed me (I'm corpulent now they tell me) and asked me what was bothering me. I sort of laughed when I shouldn't have when she asked me if I was "vomiting blood". I regret saying no, because you could tell she didn't really have any worry in her face. I say this because afterwards when I was leaving, I heard her talk about the episode of "Survivor" instead of calling another kid up to be doctored to death.

I told the doctor that I smoked. I just couldn't lie. And as my Uncle pointed out later, I also told him I would quit smoking, just like the millions of other patients who tell their doctors that. I probably will though. I think I'm too young to die. Anyway, he said it was probably the smoking that was doing it to me, and that I would be fine, except he was worried I might have tuberculosis. I, of course, almost fainted at this. I got a TB test shot which hurt like hell because nurses always have to tell me I've got "tough skin". The shot left a bubble on my arm which is still there. My Uncle also pointed out that it will come out positive because I've had a TB vaccine in the past few years and that they'll do the x-rays and everything despite waiting three days for test results. Wonderful.

And even if I do have TB, that might be very good. Not really. I really wish I would've written a couple novels before I died. Maybe I can. I'll start now. They'll be about solipsistic snowmen and the dipsomaniacal fathers that build them with their kids. How fitting!

On a side note, I read an interview by Vonnegut with the late Isaac Asimov. I think Asimov was on the ball when he said "Hell is other people."

Love,
-George