her.

If I were going to fall for the long COVID story, that's exactly what it feels like. It feels exactly like long COVID. Because here's what the feeling is: all of my muscles hurt like crazy all of the time. And I thought I was just working out too much. So I took a little time off from my workouts to just see if maybe I just overdid it. No difference. My muscles are sore all the time. I can barely walk up and down stairs now.

By mid-morning I will have loosened up a little bit and I could walk up and down stairs easily. I can run up and down stairs. So by this afternoon I'll be fine. Later in the afternoon I will again be so tired that I will just sit on the couch and stare into space. Now you're going to say to yourself it's old age. Except that it happened at the same time I got COVID. Is that a coincidence? Did old age just sneak up on me the same week I got COVID? And were my exact COVID symptoms, is it just a coincidence that the exact symptoms I had during COVID, which is trouble walking up the stairs, are the same symptoms I have now? Trouble walking up and down the stairs.

Now when did I get my vaccination? You're all desperate to find out, aren't you? Well, I only got the original series for the alpha. So that was over a year ago. I did not get a booster beyond the first two that were basically one shot but two parts. So I didn't get anything beyond the first set. A year went by when I didn't really have this problem. As soon as I got COVID, I haven't been able to walk upstairs for two months now. Two months now. And then I also had the brain fog for a while, but I have less of the brain fog right now.

Now here's another factoid. See if you can figure this out. When I'm completely wiped out and I can't even move, I can just barely stand up and get to my car, and I mean it's a struggle. At three o'clock in the afternoon the act of standing up, walking to my garage, and putting the key in it is actually pretty hard. It's a struggle. Then I go to Starbucks and I order a venti sized iced espresso almond milk something. I don't know what it is. I sit there and I drink that espresso almond milk iced tea, whatever ice thing it is. And when I'm done I feel fine. Like I want to go to the gym. My body's all great. Pain is gone. I want to work. I want to work on my book for hours.

Now here's the weird part. If I drink warm coffee at home it just puts me to sleep. What's the difference? Does anybody know? Is it the sugar? Because I don't have sugar in my coffee when I'm home. I just have black coffee. But what I have at Starbucks is I assume it's got sugar in there of some kind. You think it's the sugar? Do you think it's the sunlight? No. You know the other thing I've been doing is going out in the morning and standing in the sun for a few minutes every day. I've been hearing good things about that. Like just the first thing I do, as soon as I'm done with this I'll actually go stand in my driveway for 10 minutes and just feel the sun.

Now you're also going to say it's because of marijuana, right? Yeah, the obvious things. But my marijuana smoking is identical to how it's been since I was 18 years old. Hasn't changed that much. And it's not like the weed got better this summer. I mean it's gradually improved but that's not it. I know exactly what it feels like to be stoned and this is different. Very different.

Now somebody said take a nap. I've tried that of course. And then I wake up from the nap and my muscles are still sore. So the nap doesn't help the muscles.

So here's the thing. Do I have long COVID? If you were to say, Scott, you've never learned anything about psychology or confirmation bias, tell us, do you think you have long COVID? And I'd say, well I've never heard of those things you just mentioned. I defin