Do you ever feel like the world inside your head is so much better than the one you actually live in?

I do.

That’s why I love writing fiction… it’s the adult version of playing pretend. Only, you can be as bossy as you want and your characters do the dramatic things you tell them to do. Nobody is arguing over who gets to play who.

This imaginary world I live in is also the reason I am able to stay thoroughly entertained on a piece of exercise equipment for an hour at a time armed with nothing more than headphones and awesome people watching skills.

This quality time with my brain is the reason I haven’t been posting “I’m going crazy” rants as often as I used to.

Unfortunately, shortly after I bragged about how healthy I am I came down with a serious sinus infection. I feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he pulled that weird thing out of his nose in Total Recall… I’ll spare you the image, it’s really gross.

Up until this point I was on a fitness high. Everyday I would get my sweat on and feel awesome for the rest of the day. For the first few days of my illness I kept working out anyway. But by the end of the day I was completely drained.

Brent insisted that I take a few days off of working out to get healthy again and I argued of course because that’s what I do when people tell me what to do.

After feeling like crap for a few days I finally conceded, and by that I mean I skipped two workouts.

That’s when I could feel the funk starting to creep in. The one where my friend the excuse maker starts to rear her ugly head…

“It’s cloudy outside, you should drink some sugar coffee…”

“Your throat hurts, I think ice cream would help that…”

“You’re too sick to cook dinner, I think chinese is in order…”

I’ve been battling her all weekend. On one hand I want to take the bait because that’s really what I want, on the other hand I know what I need to do.

So far I’ve stayed strong… ninety percent of the time.

Since I couldn’t go to the gym and have pretend dance parties in my head I felt that a little fiction in my life was just what the doctor ordered.

So I finally bought my required reading for wine club… I mean, book club.

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

When I put Penelope down for a nap I boycotted any type of house work and snuggled under my covers with a hot cup of tea and this book.

At first I thought this may not have been a very good idea because every chapter is named after a type of candy and the main character takes solace in her closet where she stashes away her sweets and romance novels… This is an all too familiar story.

So far there is more to the story than the cover eludes to and I’ve enjoyed the little mental vacation while my body stays on workout strike.

I’ll let you know if it’s worth the time when I’m done reading it. Until then I will continue to rest and resist the urge to pity eat.

FYI: When I was a kid my pretend name was Roxy… always Roxy. What was yours?