on coughing and comedy

One of the true perils of being a teacher is that, as you have to handle stuff from a slew of students, you tend to get their germs and get sick a lot more often than does the normal person.  In my case, this naturally leads to stand-up comedy.

I thought I avoided the various student plagues when I started making all my students turn in essays electronically.  This semester, though, I'm teaching a literature class, and I decided to give quizzes again.  Last time I taught some lit, I had complaints from the good students that the evil students weren't actually reading.  So now they get the pop quizzes and more students read the material.  However, I now have to touch their germy papers and, true to form, I started coughing last Friday...and unfortunately, I have yet to stop.

For some reason, this coughing is always worse at night when I'm trying to sleep.  This does not really bother my wife all that much...it just means that I'm waking her up instead of that task being accomplished by my girl.

Last night, I woke up coughing around 5ish.  I quickly chewed up a Ricola, which did quiet down the throat.  However, sleep did not come quickly.  My mind started to race, as it tends to do when I can't sleep.  I started to think of a comedy sketch I wrote and performed on a friend's radio show.  Then I started to think of an article I read about the art of writing jokes.  Next thing I knew, I was deep into writing a stand-up comedy routine...which I'm pretty sure would take at least half an hour.  Great.

Don't get me wrong.  I love creative bursts, and I love the feeling of creating my own little chunks of culture.  It would be nice, however, to actually have the spare time to take advantage of my ideas.  Right now, I'm trying to balance being a father, being a husband, being a teacher, being a guitarist for my band, being a songwriter for my band, and being a solo musician.  I'm also constantly looking for more chances to be a photographer. I'm deep into doing the artwork for my band's album and related merchandise. I have three or four solo songs which need lyrics.  This all on top of the piles of grading I perpetually have waiting on me during the semester. 

After last night, though, I now have a burning desire to find an open mic comedy night and try doing a set. Gee, just what I need...something else to do.

Beats coughing, I guess.