It’s been a full week since I got sick.  Have I been to the doctor?  No, but don’t worry, this isn’t a Perez Hilton situation.  “God, I’m bleeding!  I should call the police!”  I have a viral infection, not bacterial, which means the only thing I’d get at the hospital would be a bill.  (Contacted doc via email, he concurred on my viral suspicions.)

My friends get worried when I go down for the count like this.  But I just got labs done, and all my numbers are great.  T-cells are steady in the high 500’s, VL is detectable but under 48 copies.  It’s just a bug.  The real tragedy here is that I missed going to Roanoke for Gwenn and I’s annual Miss Virginia trip.  We’ve been there every year since 1999, when I made it there to see Gwenn compete despite really being sick with close to 100 t-cells.   This year a contestant, Chinah Helmandollar, is doing the comedic monologue similar to the one Gwenn did when she competed in 1999.  Gwenn is now officially a pageant legend!

>But wait, that’s not to say I haven’t carved out my own niche in the last decade.  I hosted a pageant last fall, and judged a pageant where two girls were crowned.  If either of them win tonight, I plan on collecting royalties.  At the very least, I’ll solicit a discreet donation to Decker’s Daily Coffee.  Aside from those contributions to pageantdom, my real mark has been my uncanny ability to predict the top finishers...

Every year, I make a poster that I unveil before preliminary competitions in Roanoke.  Since I wasn’t able to be there this week, I emailed it to our pageant buddies.  And now, for the first time, unless I’ve already done this and forgot, I am unveiling my prediction here!

(The reference on the poster to last year’s “misstep” is that neither of my two picks in 2008 made the Top 5.  Probably the most embarrassing moment of my life.)

But this weekend is all about returning to my rightful glory.  Not only are these two ladies going to finish at the top, my 2008 Person of the Year, Mike the Miz, has been getting a lot of heat in the WWE. Tomorrow he is wrestling the company’s biggest star, John Cena, at the Bash, a pay-per-view I am not getting because I am so confidant in a dominant Miz victory.

miz.jpgNothing will help me get over this cough like a little redemption- er, redempshawn.  So go get ’em, tigers. You, too, can watch the Miss Virginia pageant, live and streaming at 9 PM EST.  (The ladies pictured on the poster, by the way, are Caressa Cameron and Caitlin Uze, respectively.) 

As the Miz would say, tune in, because it’s going to be AWESOME.

Positively Yours,
Shawn