Not Of Lyme Disease

1. Damn tick. I think I

   killed it

   with unclean or unpotable (not intended
   as) BOOZE. No lodging of head in wound,
   though!

   No burn other than
   sting, no itch so far.
   I'm starting to think

   maybe Lyme Disease explains some
   Of my present symptoms,
   though. TOUGH. I got tick-bit! As a lil' kid, I remember
   dad drawing a "magic circle" (magic MARKER circle: don't
   get all het up in the retreaded sci-fiinfantsasty! No such THING
   as magic

   has ever been, save alchemy
   {originally} and prestidigitation
   in any universe!) around the big,

   itchy,

   spreading

   welt.

   This was a full decade or
   more before Lyme Disease made the news, but
   it'd be just my Jersey Luck to get bit on the selfsame ass

   who stood up dressed
   EXACTLY as he was about to suggest
   in college Public Speaking 101: For Dummies!

   That'd be back in oh...ninety? Ninety one?
   Seventy? Fifty-four forty or FIGHT? I mean,
   come on me I was serious with that speech!

   I just didn't want to walk in with a lot of props,
   or make a joke out of showing them all off in
   sequence so I walked in like that, very basically.

   Then-People said "it was fun to pay attention to," but

   that

   it was supposed to be strict
   quick in-and-out action: a hot hard
   fresh act of speech! Right there, in

   front of us all! I went,

   *dayum* like 90 seconds
   over and over, getting a huge
   wet "F" from the student assistant

   lecturer for fucking up so
   easy.
   

   I sure
   enough learned her
   NOT to give me so hard an F!

   Grade-wise though, she was like, OH
   OH, OH OK OK YOU CAN GO FOR
   IT, but strictly as "bonus credit"!

   We laughed at our little
   joke and walked off in separate
   times, by disparate roads until

   (tragically, as always),

   she died

   Not of Lyme Disease