I Got The Fever
I love the digital camera. Since the weather turned nice I've been leaving the office in the afternoons and wandering around taking pictures which is a nice break for my brain.

Yesterday I felt a wee bit sketchy as I was driving to work but I thought I might be imagining things since Bob had been sick and I figured once I drank my tea and started working, I'd be fine.

I held onto this notion, even as I felt gradually worse and worse. I had one project I wanted to finish and a couple things to follow up on. But I felt tired and headachy and not hungry so I figured I'd cut my losses and go home early and go back to bed and I'd feel fine on Thursday.

By the time I had gathered my stuff and was leaving the office, there was nothing wee bit about sketchy. As I drove home I developed a rapidly escalating fear that I was going to yak in my car. The speedometer crept up to 70 - 75. I passed on the right. I rolled down a window. I assured myself that I was fine, but hurry.

Drama for nothing. I arrived home intact. My innards continued to roil but since I hadn't eaten anything, no action. I put my jammies back on, sipped some water and collapsed onto the couch with a pile of blankets and commenced to be achy and fevery and unhappy.

This morning I felt better except still a bit achy, a wicked headache and weak from not eating. The idea of food has become interesting again, but the actual eating part not appealing.

I found some bread and thought: hey bread, that's neutral. I had two bites and that was enough. Later I opened a can of peaches and picked at a toddler sized portion before putting the rest in the fridge. Maybe I'll try some soup later.

And The Cow Said Moo
Somewhere I have a picture just like this of Bob in Germany posing with a cow. I'm going to look for it this weekend.

Bob went down with some horrible non-Superbowl related flu on Sunday. He's been staggering around here with a sad look on his face. One more day at home and he should be back in action.

Crying Party Boys
This morning I finished my book The Dirt by the band Mötley Crüe. I was a big Crüe fan back in the day and saw them when the Shout at the Devil tour came to the UCSB campus. I would love to have been a bug on the wall in the ECEN (the venue) admin office the Monday after that show. I'll bet a few heads rolled. My own personal experience of that weekend lived up to the Crüe search and destroy ethos and was fun the way that the irresponsible and inconsiderate asshole behavior is when you're 20 years old. We'll leave it at that.

At one point, I owned every album up to Girls Girls Girls but I didn't think I had any of them any more. I was wrong. I still have Too Fast for Love AND Shout at the Devil. I listened to a little Shout at the Devil yesterday afternoon and it sounded fantastic.

The first 100 pages of the book is hard to read without running to the bathroom to take a shower. A phrase like pure unmitigated debauchery doesn't begin to cover it. And they went on like that for years. Drugs, booze, women and destruction. And they're pretty straightforward about their personal shortcomings.

But after awhile they're just whiny and come off as addicted to their own victim-drama. How sorry am I supposed to feel for a filthy rich and famous rockstar who's indulged himself in every urge to please himself at the expense of virtually everyone around him? Like it's a major personal insight that life is hard and less of an insight that they brought a lot of it on themselves.

After I finished the book I did a quick trip through the NY Times and there's a story about Jay McInerney and he's going on about what it was like being young and successful and famous and how hard it was to hold it together. wah.

I am already tired of Bode Miller.

Seahawk Mountain
I wish I skied. I don't think there will ever be a better day to ski in the PAC NW than this Sunday.

100 Best First Lines from Novels

#7 riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. -James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

On the basis of this I can tell you with great confidence that I will never read this book.

#17 Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. -James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Now I can tell you that I will never read James Joyce period.

#21. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. -James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

Oh. Maybe I'd try this one.

Two favorites from books I've read:

30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. -William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

47. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. -C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

Two favorites from books I haven't read:

58. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.-George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)

76. "Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.-Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond (1956)

Survey Says
Last night I got a call asking me to participate in a survey having to do with healthcare in Washington. My usual policy is to refuse to talk to anyone I don't know when they call me on the phone during the evening while I'm trying to eat and watch my shows. But in this case, I'd already eaten and I did have a vague recollection of some flier sent to the house about a problem with Washington healthcare so I went along with it.

He said it was 15-20 minutes and he wasn't kidding. Geez, there are few things we didn't talk about. Both actual questions about my health, habits, recent illnesses mental and physicial and questions about my healthcare coverage and random situations in my household. Like: did we have a carbon monoxide detector? (no) did we read the little flier we get about our drinking water quality? (yes) do we have a gas powered generator in our home? (no) in the past year have we gone without phone service for more than two weeks not related to weather outages? (no) have I ever heard of radon? (no).

It went on and on. A lot of the questions were about my general health and as we were going through it was like, "I am kicking ass on this survey!" have you been so depressed you couldn't get out of bed? (no!) have you ever been diagnosed with heart disease? (no!) used drugs with needles even just one time or had sex w/ someone who has? (no!) something about chicken pox in the past 2 years (no!)

Then we got to the alcoholic beverage intake question: in the last 30 days, how many days have you consumed at least 1 alcoholic beverage? (um, 30) how many days have you consumed at least 2 alcoholic beverages? (um, 30) how many days have you consumed 4 or more alcoholic beverages (zero, yes!)