Like every other day this week, I woke up feeling like crap this morning. I've been down ever since my mom called the cops and said I was trying to kill myself.

Why, I have no idea. It's not like I rely on healthy relationships with friends and family to maintain my self-esteem and some sense of normality in life.

Ha!

I laugh in the face of togetherness!

I laugh in its face!

Watch as I laugh!

Ha!

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha!

Hee...

While there might be a slight bit of flippancy in my tone thus far, I assure you: I feel fabulous.

No, no - not because I've patched things up with mum. No.

It's quite definitely because I'm not alone.

Yes. It's true. I've found a companion in which to confide. To keep my spirits up. To be the wind beneath my wings, the prism in my rainbow, and that incredibly sick but satisfying sensation of pulling a long black hair out of a mole (an unusually dark patch of skin on your own (or, if you're totally sick, somebody else's) body - not the animal) and examining the small orb of hardened sebum at its tip.

Either that, or it's the medication I've been given. Not sure.

My friend is this disgusting patch of ulcerous skin on my soft palate (the "soft palate" is that big, hanging arc of skin at the back of your mouth from which your uvula hangs like a punching bag for the gallons of whisky you throw back to Forget).

I wouldn't have any medicine for it, but, when I showed my roommates my throat ulcer two days ago, proud of the thing I had brought into the world, I received only negative responses, as though my throat ulcer was a press screening of the movie FX 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion in which a man with a robotic clown (probably the most potentially psychologically damaging thing ever created) defeated bad guys who were so generically bad that I can't even remember what they did that was so bad, but I'm willing to bet that, at some point in the movie, someone stuck a knife into a plastic bag, pulled it out, licked the white powder off, and said, "Colombian. Pure. One million dollars on the streets of Miami. You have a deal," after which the robotic clown arrived on the scene and beat everybody up.

I got a little off track there. Normally I'd go back and "edit" a section like that, but I'm going to leave the paragraph in so that you know that FX2: The Deadly Art of Illusion is NOT a movie you want to see.

The point is that, when I showed my roommates my throat ulcer, they all said stuff like, "Gross," "That's disgusting," and "Keep it away from the cat."

I took the hint. Nobody liked my throat ulcer. OK. Fine.

I went to the doctor yesterday to see if he'd like my throat ulcer. I had very high hopes that he would greet it with excitement and song. It was an urgent care facility, which means he had just spent the entire day treating hypochondriacs (I'M NOT A HYPOCHONDRIAC SHUT UP), telling them that they weren't having heart attacks, watching them leave with disappointment on their faces, and... Lather, rinse, repeat.

My throat ulcer was something different. I brought forth to him a white, pus-leaking, sometimes bleeding, and definitely much-too-large sore in the back of my mouth. I expected him to call the medical students in to see Rory and his great anomaly.

No such luck.

The doctor looked at my ulcer and, instead of reacting with joy, told me that I should probably get rid of it, unless I didn't want to ever get laid again, in which case I could have it for the rest of my life for all he cared.

I sat and thought a while. Did I want to keep my exotic throat ulcer, or did I want a chance at mating with a female of my own species?

Ulcer or mate? Ulcer or mate? Ulcer or mate?

I deliberated over the matter for a while while hypochondriacs in the waiting room screamed at the staff. I could hear them from the examination room in which I was sitting.

"OH MY GOD, I'M HAVING A HEART ATTACK. I FEEL FAINT. NO, IT'S NOT AN ANXIETY ATTACK. IT'S A HEART ATTACK, AND I'M DYING, AND IT'S YOUR FAULT, AND LET THIS BE ON YOUR HEAD, AND WHEN AM I GOING TO SEE THE DOCTOR, AND PLEASE DON'T CALL ME BY MY FIRST NAME - THE FACT THAT I COME HERE FIVE TIMES A WEEK FOR THE SAME MEDICAL EMERGENCY DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO ADDRESS ME INFORMALLY. OH SHIT, I'M DYING, CRAP..."

I chose to remain sexually attractive.

The doctor sent me away with two prescriptions printed on enormous sheets of paper that were specially designed to thwart fraud, as though I had any intention of replacing what he had written with a note that said:

HELLO FARMICIST I AM RORI'S DOCTOR AND I SAID I TOLD TO HIM TODAY THAT IT WAS OK FOR YOU TO GIVE HIM COCAINE SO PLEASE GIVE HIM AS MUCH AS HE WANTS AND ALSO I'M HIS DOCTOR MY NAME IS DOCTOR UM SMITH YEAH THAT'S ME NOW GIVE HIM HIS GIANT BAG OF COCAINE THAT HE NEEDS BECAUSE HE HAS A THROAT ULCER OK THANK YOU IF YOU NEED TO CALL ME THEN CALL ME ON THE TELEPHONE OK MY TELEPHONE NUMBER IS UM... 1. BYE NOW KEEP IN TOUCH THX DOCTOR SMITH.

I had no such intentions, and was, one hour later, in possession of a bottle of ulcer-numbing juice (to be applied with cotton swab "as needed" - that means whenever I want) and a five day course of steroids.

Yeah. I'm not kidding. My doctor gave me steroids for my throat ulcer. He said it would fix me right up WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY CRAP BECAUSE YEAH LIKE WHAT I WANT IS TO HAVE A BIG MUSCULAR THROAT ULCER WITH BOOBS AND FACIAL HAIR OK YEAH THANKS, DOC, THANKS A MILLION I'M GLAD YOU WENT TO MEDICAL SCHOOL FOR FIFTY YEARS SO YOU COULD MISDIAGNOSE MY HEART ATTACK (LAY OFF I SAID I'M NOT A HYPOCHONDRIAC GAWD).

I had to take six steroid pills this morning, and each one tasted like urine. Like a pill that was made out of dried urine. Which makes me wonder if you can make pills out of urine. I mean, if urine is dried and turned into a powder, is it still urine? And is this a scientific or philosophical matter? I mean, should I call Stephen Hawking or St. Thomas Aquinas? I don't have their phone numbers (no big deal since the first guy talks all slow with his computer, and the second guy is WAY dead), so I'm just going to have to say that, no, urine is no longer urine once converted to a powder.

There. Is the matter settled? May I continue?

Thank you.

I don't know what's in steroids (probably steroids), but whatever it is, I feel really good today even though my pits are sweating. It kinds of makes me wish I could have throat ulcers every day so that I could have steroids all the time, but there's "the rub" as learned people who have memorized Hamlet (or dumb people who have overheard learned people who have memorized Hamlet) say: If I do steroids all the time, then I won't have throat ulcers, because without throat ulcers, I won't need steroids.

That's all I had to say.

I hope you're OK, too.

Come by my office if you'd like to see my throat ulcer.