Dear Journal,

I just resurfaced after being bedridden with the flu for 2 weeks. The "two-weeks flu" of course, is the much less sexy version of the "24-hour flu." The two weeks flu forced me and my girlfriend to watch every episode of Bret Michaels' Rock of Love and Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew. I am confident that I'm officially dumber than I used to be.

We did watch some good things like the entire box set of Freaks and Geeks and repeat viewings of my favorite Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense - which eventually started making sense.

Robots love Vermont

So after two weeks, my first venture back into the world was a trip to Middlebury College in Vermont and I made the mistake of listening to my satellite navigation machine for directions. Now, to give you a little background my brother Joe bought me the navigator with my own money and he keeps it at his house, usually in his car. Every time I want to use it I have to pick it up from his house which is difficult because his house is hard to find, so I could really use that navigator I'm going to pick up.

And while the navigator is convenient, I find the level to which we trust these machines is a little dangerous. There was a news item a few weeks ago that a satellite navigator had directed a woman to drive into an oncoming train.

She actually made the turn and then jumped out of the car and the car crashed into the train. Which means she trusted the machine more than her eyes. She was like, "You're right, nav, but I'm outta here!"

Now to get to Vermont the navigator directed me through the mountains in a snowstorm. If I had used my human brain and human eyes to look at a map I might have noticed the little triangles that indicate mountains and said, "Well, this isn't gonna work." But I didn't. I'm too trusting of the navigator. I'm like, "Whatever you say, robot lady!"

So I'm driving in Vermont and the navigator says, "Turn left," and I turn left and I find myself driving up a mountain. I mean, there were roads of course, but I was driving on snow up a steep incline in a Hyundai Sonata. And I get about 6 miles up and all of a sudden I'm going slower and slower until I'm no longer driving at all. But my foot is still on the gas. And the tires are spinning out. And on the dashboard all of a sudden there's an orange exclamation point. And I was like, "I know! That's exactly how I feel." And I look at the satellite navigation and it's not offering any help. It's like, "Continue 4 miles." And I'm like, "Look navigator, I'm trying to continue 4 miles but I can't."

So I turn around and head down the mountain. And the navigator lady starts freaking out. It's like, "Turn around. Go back...turn around." And I'm like, "Navigator, are we in the same car?" So I call my brother Joe and he gets out a map and helps me figure out an alternate route and I get to the show just in time.

Now Middlebury had me performing in their basketball gym-which is unusual-me getting applause in a basketball gym. Basketball was always my worst sport. I remember in 6th grade actually crying because I played in a competitive game where my shots didn't even reach the hoop. I had no upper body strength and I didn't realize that a lot of shooting basketball is in the wrist. And I'd had plenty of practice with my wrist.

But I'm in the basketball gym and 5 minutes into my performance an industrial heater goes on, which was very smart for those basketball games that can get very cold. But for the comedy show it created quite a quandary because comedy is very dependent on hearing the comedy. My physical comedy clowning skills only go so far. Once I had exhausted "the wall," "the robot," and "blowing up a fake balloon," I had no other tricks in my bag. So I felt very fortunate when they were able to find the heater switch and I finished my show, with 15 points, 55 punchlines and 12 rebounds. Just another triple double.

The next morning, I drove back to New York. It was a sunny day; the roads were clear and I mapped out a route to the highway that didn't include snowy mountains. When I got the NY State Thruway I was home free. Just cruisin' at 85 miles an hour, which just so happens, is 20 miles above the speed limit. As the cop explained this to me, I nodded and braced myself for the ticket. It cost me 4 points on my license, which is more points than I scored in a full season of 6th grade basketball. And when I called my brother Joe and told him what happened, he said, "You shouldn't be driving that fast." And I said, "You know, the cop told me that. I was kind of hoping for a second opinion."

But I continued on. At this point, I had typed in "home" on the navigator and after 6 hours, eventually it said, "30 miles" then 20 then 10. Then 2. And I'm realizing that I'm actually nowhere near my apartment. And then finally the navigator says, "You have arrived." And I look up and realize I'm at my brother's Joe's house in Westchester, NY and that Joe had set his home as the home in the satellite navigator.

And I thought, "This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife."

And then I left the navigator there, I took out a map, and I drove home.