I have spent the last three days laid low by an absolutely vicious stomach flu, then a migraine because I couldn't eat for two whole days. It wasn't a pleasantly indulgent kind of sick either—it was the kind where you lay there, staring at the back of your eyeballs, praying for deliverance.

But it is gone today—hurray!—and all the world is made fresh and new and hopeful again. That is the one lovely thing about suffering through illness—when it lifts, it really is like being born again. Plus? ...