My Cardboard Balcony

My Shirt by Belinda Roddie Once upon a time, I was a hypochondriac; it's worth noting that I still am, technically, a hypochondriac, because as experts like to tell us, once a crazy person, always a crazy person. But for the sake of conventional storytelling, let's stick with the liberating past tense: was.  From 2011 to 2012, I was obsessed with sickness. It began with a tick bite that wouldn't go away, and even though my immune system was like a steel factory, melting away mischief with T-cell cogs and teeth, I went to the doctor to get useless antibiotics. That was when, coincidentally, the headaches started. I was prescribed way too strong a nasal spray. Then I couldn't sleep. And from there on out, anything that proved remotely precarious to my health and happiness was always on my mind. I could get a bruise on my leg from a simple slip and fall on the asphalt right outside the interfaith building where I attended noon Catholic mass, and

A friend liked to claim that he was all about chivalry - even after he had gotten seven drinks poured down his shirt, nine slaps in the face, and at least two jabs to the nutsack over one week alone. It was hard to remind him that being chivalrous and being overtly forward were two entirely different things, because he wouldn't budge on what he believed was the true path of romance. Last time I checked, someone hit him in the head with a baseball bat.