conjunction, junction...what's your major malfunction?

that's right folks, it's conjunctivitis for me...better known as pink eye. it's about the most humiliating sickness i can think of, aside from the gout or syphilis. or tourette's. here i am, a (mostly) grown man, with an illness that afflicts four year olds that don't wash their hands. i kept telling the nurse there must be some mistake. herpes...sure. pregnant...uh...perhaps. but pink eye? all kidding aside, this sucks more than the last time i had it--over a decade ago, as far as i can remember. i can't see so good. can't drive. reading is pretty difficult. and going out in public is out of the question. i am not permitted to give my daughter a hug or really even look anyone in the eye. i am a pariah. b keeps making me yell 'unclean' when i decide to move about the house. the only good thing, if there is such a thing in this state, is that i can lay down all day for no good reason and my cats can lick my eyes to clean out the ooze. just kidding. that's hideous. i did get to go to the zoo on my "day off." i wasn't allowed to touch anything and the animals all looked like blurs of different hues. but still, it was great seeing greta gawk at things that i wouldn't have even noticed. like cigarette butts. monkey's pooping. geese that she can see anywhere else. but since we have a membership, we figured it's okay that she isn't paying attention to the exotic and mostly endangered animals that may be extinct by the time she's old enough to know better. the south bend zoo is...well...its a place for animals to hang out and wonder, as i did when i first really got my bearings here, what the hell am i doing in indiana instead of where i'm originally from? it's more of an existential question, really. i'm not sure there is an answer. it's more about just posing the question and then getting therapy. anyway, i'm putting some antibiotic goo in my eyes to combat the other goo that's already there. then i'm going to sleep. hopefully i'll be able to open my eyes in the morning. and hopefully the cats won't lick me in my sleep. i fear these things.