You Give Me Fever.

You know when you're on the subway, packed in way too tightly on your morning commute, and since you hear the people around you sniffling, you keep your gloves on while holding the pole? You know when you glance around you and try to determine the best position to put your face so those pesky germs won't jump from the snifflers onto you? And then, after all the precautions, and all the hand sanitizer and breathing through your nose (those nose hairs are supposed to filter out germs, right?), you see it all go to waste in the course of a half-second, when the man standing next to you sneezes right onto your face? I know you know what I'm talking about. It can be Mister Business Suit standing over there reading his Wall Street Journal just as easily as it can be Mister Camo Pants Hanging Off His Butt rocking out to his ipod. (I should note here that it could also be that woman in my office who has been coughing for a week straight and touching MY copy machine, MY elevator buttons, and MY water cooler, but I don't want to blame her.) Whomever it was, I am now paying the price for going out in public without my breathing mask. Lesson learned.

Tonight I noticed something that made coming home from work at 930pm on a Wednesday much more tolerable than it otherwise would have been. I saw Christmas lights on balconies. The city looks so pretty outside a cab window when there are Christmas lights on balconies. (By the way, doesn't that sound like the beginning of a terrific song? "Colored lights on bal-co-nies, eager kids say "Santa, please" - these are just a few of my favorite Christmas mem-o-ries..." Okay, fine, so I'll stick to writing heartfelt rock ballads and acoustic rants instead of Christmas carols.) Thank you, Christian folk of Manhattan, for making me loathe leaving the office late on a Wednesday night a tad less.

I was in Boston this past weekend, walking up the street to Small Asian Friend's apartment, wearing my super cool white knit winter hat (if you have seen me at all this winter, you know the one) when something noteworthy occurred. I give you permission to laugh as I recount the (what Small Asian Friend has termed) "Beth Luck" which befell me. As we walked under a tree (which was decorated so delightfully for Christmas, I should add), I suddenly felt something drop onto the side of my hat. I glanced up, hoping to see a rogue squirrel knocking forgotten acorns off the tree above me. Instead, I just saw a barren tree, devoid of any such furry animal friends. I put my hand to my hat and felt the gooey goodness seep deep into my fingers. I turned to Small Asian Friend and said, "I hope a bird didn't just poo on my hat." She looked at me surprised, as she had not been similarly doused with gooey goodness and had not noticed my skeptical glance above. As I pulled my hand from my hat to inspect the damage, I saw the goo was not the white-brown birds are notorious for leaving on unsuspecting pedestrians for "good luck." No, my goo was brown. Red-brown, even. The poo of a sick bird? Tree sap? Small Asian Friend suggested I smell the goo. This sounded reasonable, so I smelled the goo, and you know what it smelled like? Pancakes! With maple syrup. As it turns out, I was sapped by a tree. I think that's a Boston thing. Could you imagine pedestrians in New York being sapped by trees? At least when a bird poos on a New Yorker, the New Yorker can get all irate and attempt to kick the nearest bird, while cursing and spitting. But who can get mad at a tree? Not this lady, I'll say that.

I'll leave you with this final note: I have decided to become the first big Jewish country music sensation. Have you ever heard of a Jewish country star? Don't laugh at me. Not for this, anyway. Why should that be so impossible to imagine? When I was in 6th grade, I did a rendition of Leann Rimes's cover of "You Light Up My Life" for my chorus class's MAD Day (which, redundantly, means Music Appreciation Day Day). I even used my country twang that I picked up while watching "Hey Dude" reruns. You know what my music teacher said? She said I was BETTER than Leann Rimes. I wonder where that music teacher is now. I'd love to have her represent me when I make my first country demo. Just wait for it. Five years from now I'll be saying "I told you so."