I am feeling better. Started washing my hands more. Being sure to take my vitamins. Relaxing in bed. Get over this cold, and then figure out how to move forward. My immune system was down from Shingles, I imagine. But I still get sick too often. So I've got to pay attention. Fortunately, I've got a lot of great comments and advice. Thank you for that, particularly Abbe.

Yesterday I kept thinking I should write and post something on my site. But I finished a deadline for TheFeature instead ("Korea's Mobile Multiplayer"). Went out to eat something besides vegetable-laden pizza from Pastino's (they deliver, hallelujah). Then I stopped by the game store to pick up something to play after finishing the excellent Max Payne 2 (today I posted my reflections on that game experience to Game Girl Advance: "Max Pleasure.") So I spent all late yesterday in bed playing DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball - a combination gambling, sports, fashion, collecting game staring computer-generated pin-up girls. (With a break to chat with a reporter from Wired News about social network backlash). I would say it was a relaxing afternoon on the beach, but I played the volleyball so much I lost some feeling in my right thumb. Hard to relax here. But at least I was in bed. Oh, and I couldn't resist - I ate lunch near a movie theatre so I snuck in and purchased a large buttered popcorn to bring home.

So today I woke up and worked and felt good about that. Fired off so many short correspondences that tell people I'm aware of their emails and tho I haven't dealt with their questions or requests, I'm available and competent. Mom suggested I go buy some chicken soup so I bought two quarts and downed one in front of the computer. Then I took my mostly uneaten day-old popcorn, covered in brewer's yeast, and sat in front of the tele upstairs to watch Adaptation I bought used at the video game store. I was marvelling happily at the total media experience I have available to me when I need to wind-down. But the movie amplified me still more. Call it Kaufman's infectious artistic consumption. I left the experience still giggling and laughing but more amazed that I find any meaning in anything I do. So I called a few of my friends on the east coast at midnight, having a satisfactory conversation with no one.

What did I want from them? I thought I might describe it to myself. So I sat down and wrote 1600 words about intimacy while "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service played 19 times in the background. And now I think I'll go back upstairs and finally watch Rules of the Game until I pass out. Tomorrow I meet the Trotts again for lunch and drive off to Howard's to sit in the sauna. Then Friday leave early for New York, carrying only carry-on bags and the vestiges of a cough that should be leaving my body if it knows what's good for me. Rereading this I seem to myself like an insane person.