When I Was Young I Was The King Of Carrot Flowers

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 14.5% BF

 

Speaking of Neutral Milk Hotel, I once did see a bunch of two-headed boys in jars, in some low-rent museum in Russia. (I sang along with "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" on the way into work this morning.) I'm feeling much better, thank youvery much; I had a good night's sleep last night, and I think the meds, especially the antibiotics, are doing their job.

 

What Else I Did On My Day Off: I got a few emails from Amazon saying my recent orders didn't process, because my credit card wasn't authorizing. Uh oh... I thought I forgot to pay a bill or something, but I checked online and all was well, so I called them. Turns out, some unknown entity tried to process a $0.01 transaction over the Internet using my card (and an incorrect expiration date), and the credit card company blocked it, locked my account, and tried to notify me via my old land line. Oops! Better update my contact info... Everything should be OK now, I'm happy, Amazon's happy, and I am now up to my ears in fraud protection add-ons.

 

Emmi's home, probably at her dad's now but we'll see her tonight, and Ben -- Happy Birthday, Ben! -- should also be back soon. There's snow on the ground, it must be Christmas Time.

 

Amoxocillin, Garliczilla

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 15.5% BF

 

Well, it's an ill wind that doesn't at least knock a few pounds off the scale...

 

I am officially sick, took off yesterday and went to the doctor. She gave me antibiotics, an asthma inhaler (sigh, but I do need it) and a couple of homeopathic remedies and food supplements -- ie some pills that make me stink of garlic -- as well as some advice for relieving the symptoms. So, instead of doing the Two Brew Tuesday thing, I spent last night alternating between glasses of water and cups of fresh ginger tea, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. I feel better today, but then I always feel better during the day, and last night was pretty rough eve with my new regimen, which admittedly didn't start until almost 8:00 PM.

 

I yesterday playing with the computer again (Skype works fine now, as does Ekiga, though I have no one to call with either one), waiting for the doctor, reading a bit, and napping, and then I followed all that with an early bedtime. Tonight I'll be crashing early again, I can tell. Hopefully I'll feel better by the weekend...

 

Apres Le Deluge

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 14.5% BF

 

I have a pretty decent head cold, with sinus and chest issues, probably the first one for this year. (Anne has been fighting a similar cold, but it seems to have lodged in her ears, which is its own brand of not-fun.) Daytime is reasonably OK -- except I have no wind, and no physical energy -- and every day I think I've turned the corner, but every night it's the same all-night coughing fit. Needless to say, sleeping has been difficult.

 

Woke up to the sound of rain, so I spent most of yesterday watching movies, playing with the computer, or reading in bed -- the rest of the day I just wasted...

 

Reading: I just finished two books: Bike Snob by uh, the Bike Snob, and Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball. I probably wouldn't have thought of this if I hadn't read them together, but in some ways they're like two sides of the same coin, two different views of recent trends. I'm not sure everyone would agree with me on that, even if they both mention hipsters and New York life, and both get into the thing itself rather than the trend of the thing, but they had one other thing in common: they were both very good.

 

Watching: Saw Amadeus again, haven't seen it in years. Great movie, but I think this falls somewhere on the "power of narrative" side of things, fitting Mozart and his circle into some kind of Procrustean "tortured genius and the little men who held him back" trope. (I looked up both Mozart and Salieri the other day, and just started counting the misrepresentations.) We also watched The Glory Of My Father last night, which was recommended by a friend but -- sorry Lori! -- just didn't seem to be able to engage either of us. Books won this weekend's cage match.

 

Computing: My mom threw a birthday party for my brother Chris yesterday. Neither of us were up for the trip though, so I called and begged off, but happened to mention that "maybe we could Skype later." This sounded agreeable to Mom, so later in the day, I fired up Skype and -- found it didn't work. Somehow over the past few upgrades/changes/whatever I'd broken it; worse, I managed to knock out my laptop's webcam. I spent a good portion of last night -- no point in sleeping if you can't lay down without drowning -- messing around, Googling device driver issues and reinstalling software; I knocked out my sound and got it back, and I did get the webcam to work again, but Skype still eludes me.

 

Exercising: Nope, except a towpath ride on Saturday with Anne. Almost two hours to go sixteen miles, and we were both exhausted long before it was over. I was thinking of hitting the gym tonight, but a rest day is a better idea so I'll probably do some chores around the house, maybe wrestle the computer again.