By reading this, you've been exposed. Well, not really.

But I have.

I came home Thursday to a very lethargic Max, a happy Drew and a tired Wife. They'd just gotten home from the park where Max had laid down on a bench for 5 minutes. For a kid that normally spends his time running at top speed, that was unusual.

The next day, a friend of The_Wife's who happens to be friends with a kid we met at a birthday party the weekend before told us that the new kid (got that?) had come down with H1N1. Max went to school (before we found out about the other kid) and had a good day but was very tired. He had a horrible gravely cough and didn't really nap. He had 102.5 temp when he woke up from his nap.

I had dinner with an underwriter who was in town (his wife and sister-in-law had tickets to Oprah) and was hoping to meet up with Pony Potato and Amonkie later on. The_Wife was supposed to go but cancelled because of how Max felt. I...

The moon dreamed of the night I would finally visit her
at that vast sky of a window
which I pass by in short intervals of busyness.
In those brief obscure moments,
I sometimes accidentally see her,
mostly on that crest of colour
between day and night.

My mind balks at the sight of her
as I continue on my impulsive way.
I often take her into my half-conscious landscape,
and she blends in like a set piece.

Months pass, and the moon will do her work,
and I will do mine.

It was too late by the time I learned the summer had fallen ill,
and the autumn sighed at my indifference.