Swine Flu

Every other day I get some memo from the University of Colorado sent to me over email, all about swine flu. We’ve had 49 confirmed cases on campus so far. I think I read predictions that 50 percent of Americans will fall ill with swine flu some time this year.

Now, I am never sick. I am so flagrantly, defiantly healthy that I can shout this from the rooftops: “I am never sick!” – taunting the universe, daring it to do its worst. In my 18 years of teaching at CU, I think I have only once canceled a class because of illness. During one previous flu scare, my son asked me what would happen if we all got the flu. “We won’t,” I told him. “Our family doesn’t get sick.” And we didn’t. I’ve never had a flu shot, and I’ve never had the flu.

But maybe this time the universe will have had enough of my shameless boasting? If 50 PERCENT of people are going to get the swine flu, maybe I will, too?

So I’m using the swine flu as an excuse to get some extra work done. If maybe I’m going to get the swine flu, I should leap into action on that quarterly publication I’m guest-editing for the University of Maryland, right? Finish at least the first draft of my new chapter book – write that book review I’ve promised to the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly – face the talk I’m supposed to give at a feminist philosophy conference in Seattle next month – get busy writing up a proposal for a chapter on Rousseau for a book on Romanticism and the Child in Literature.

Gotta get a head start! Swine flu may be coming!