2015-01-27 – I wasn’t going to mention this, but I’ve been inspired by the National Weather Service. For almost two weeks, I’ve been suffering from shingles.

My original thought was to keep my kvetching to myself. You know? Who wants to hear about someone else’s rash? That’s what I thought and I was going to keep it to myself.

But then I saw reports of snow in the Northeast. Last year we had “polar vortex.” This year we have “bombogenesis”! What could be cooler than making up new names for ordinary misery? So I am going to make up some new names for the pain that I am now feeling.

It is very extreme. And it’s cool to be extreme. Or should I say X-treme?

Here are my top five candidate words:

• Trombogenesis – as painful as the lowest note on a trombone.
• Off-the-chart-ache – you can’t even get a bigger chart.
• Agony of the feet – which is really bad when it occurs in your stomach.
• Scorched girth – it hurts already.
• X-cruciating – it’s more X-treme when you leave off the e.

The funny thing is that, while we are busy making up new extreme words to describe ordinary things, we’re not so creative when it comes to describing truly extreme things. For these, we seem to have two words that we apply to everything: Hitler and terrorist.

That’s kinda trombogenetic, don’t you think?

The weird thing about shingle is that it hurts you only on one side. For me, it’s the right side, from my back to my front. And the worst thing about it is that I was thinking about getting the vaccination. Oh the humanity!

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809 NOTE: This post was written before the Bombogenesis bombed. Now that we know that winter storm Juno (they have names for them, now) was totally unexceptional, the hysterical jargon is even funnier. Louis C.K. asked how something can be historical before it happens (or, in this case, before it doesn’t happen).

One last point, even though Juno failed to become the storm of the century, I still have shingles. It feels like scorched girth. Please feel sorry for me. The pain is historical.

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809 UPDATE: I’m not kidding. Ouch!

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809 LIVE-BLOGGING: Sitting here, trying not to move.

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809 LIVE-BLOGGING: Still sitting here.

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809 LIVE-BLOGGING: Still.

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809 LIVE

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809

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8

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Don’t these asterisks look like little snow flakes?

It’s a blizzard of little asterisk snowflakes.

Ouch.