De profundis clamavi…
From the depths I cried…
Thanks to those of you who sent email or left comments about the screwed up template and ‘invisible text’ experienced here over the weekend. I thought Blogger was just having one of its regularly scheduled weekend FUBAR events, but actually I was most probably to blame, having once again tried futzing with every single style element of the blog until everything got so screwed up the only thing that could fix it was replacing the entire template with my emergency backup.
Yes, I actually am rational enough for just long enough periods of time that I can plan for such eventualities by having an emergency backup template. I know, I know — hard to believe, but nevertheless.
I spent all of last week in the clutches of Mutation III of the seemingly neer-ending cycle of illness that has afflicted me for yea these many weeks [since Sunday February 13th to be exact].
The progression of my own personal Andromeda Strain has been thus: I begin with flu-like symptoms characterized by sudden-onset body aches, fatigue and nausea.
Mutation I: four days later, illness turns into a chest cold with laryngitis. A doctor is seen; a five day pak of Zithromax is prescribed. Just as I’m finished with the Zithromax and feeling just-about back to what I call ‘normal’,
Mutation II hits: another cold, this one in the throat and sinuses. I sneeze and honk and pop antihistamines like there’s no tomorrow. A few days of this and I’m thinking I’m gonna be through with it soon. But no! Along comes
Mutation III: the Face-hugger sinusitis changes into the Chest-burster bronchitis and there isn’t enough expectorant in the entire world that can enable me to cough up all the crud in my lungs and gullet and get it out of my system. The doctor is seen, again. A Zithromax Z-pak is prescribed, again.
When I’m able to sleep I’ve been having some of the weirdest dreams I’ve had since the legendary [in my family, at least] adventure dreams I had when I was 12…
Example 1:
I am living in a totalitarian state somewhere behind the Iron Curtain, where the only way you can get out of the country is to buy your freedom by bribing the border guards with bunches of those tickets for Palisades Park that used to be printed in the back pages of DC comics. In my dream I run from one safe-house to another, clutching a dry-cleaning plastic bag filled with the precious tickets while being chased by the secret police, who are ruthless and terrifying even tho they’re actually the Three Stooges [with Curly!].
Example 2:
My seventh-grade choir has been invited by Indonesian strongman Sukarno to make a concert tour of Indonesia. Our airplane crashes in the middle of the Pacific and the surviving choir members manage to swim to an island where we live a happy castaway existence even tho one of us, my friend Pam Boyer, transforms into a squid every day at 4 pm. Later, the Rolling Stones arrive, driving up out of the ocean in my family’s white 1961 Chevy Bel Air station wagon.
In a drug-addled half-awake dream state is no condition in which to do any writing, altho that never stopped Hunter S. Thompson. So, I spent the weekend trying to improve my CSS stylesheet and clean up my blogroll and of course ended up trashing the place. The only thing that would have made the experience more satisfying would be if GWB had been found passed out in my bathtub and then, like HST I could have had the extreme pleasure of reporting that ‘I had to have him taken away’.
But now — Ahhh! It’s Monday morning in America, with a bright new shiny two-column template in place and a bright new shiny header graphic too. And it’s Estrogen Month! All hail mighty Woman. I am Woman, hear me roar!
Actually, in my case: I am Sick Woman, hear me cough!
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