Gratuitous Picture Of Myself On The Verge Of Total Sickness

Here I am in Paris in October of 2009, sitting in a pub, waiting for someone to bring me another Coca-Cola. The flimsy hoodie that’s zipped over my frame (K-Mart, $15) was the heaviest garment I brought with me. For some reason, I thought France would be agreeably warm so close to Halloween. I’m not sure why. Guess I really earned that C+ in tenth grade geography. October in France offers plenty of unbridled chilliness, and while I was visiting that chilliness was generally coupled with endlessly dreary rain-streaked skies. This photo captures me mere hours before the worst cold/flu of my life, which I helped nurture by staying up all night at a raucous dinner party where I was the token American who had to explain why Obama hadn’t fixed the world yet. Hey man, I don’t know, just pass me the embalming fluid so my corpse looks presentable for the plane ride home.