Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

It seems that I'm far from the only one to have gone down with a horrible lurgi: most of the office seemed to be coughing and sneezing, spreading the infection to the healthy few. At times it felt like being stuck in a Seanan McGuire novel — except with less wise-cracking, coke drinking and brain-hungry members of the living dead community. In fact the only things that stacked up to expectations were the virus levels and in-jokes about maths...

I've been rather under the weather for the last few days with a slight temperature and general badness, but things feel like they're finally starting to look up. I've my time intermittently trying to finish the first version of Half-Life, trying (and failing) to work out why Neverwinter Nights causes the display to go crazy & the machine to fall over, and playing lots of games of Freecell.

I've also been chewing my way through Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels, which I've rather enjoyed. They have a bit of early Anita Blake about them, but with more humour and with more clearly defined urban fantasy — as opposed to horror — tropes. They're not entirely without problems — read in quick succession, the identical descriptions of things in the first few books grate slightly, and none of the early female characters really seem terribly convincing — Susan Rodriguez doesn't really get into her groove until relatively late on and Murphy's constant attempts to arrest Dresden in the first couple of books don't really seem to chime with Dresden's descriptions of their friendship. But that's just nit-picking that could charitably be ascribed to (a) filters imposed on the first person narrative by Dresden's own biases, which lift as he comes into a better understanding of himself; or (b) the conventions of the gumshoe style. As light, recuperative reads they're ideal.

Despite the strike, I managed to get a doctor's appointment to get my hearing looked at. It seems as though the proximate cause might be some sort of infection but if it is, it's being exacerbated by large amounts of accreted gunk. So it's ear drops for a couple of weeks in the hope that things will clear up on their own, with a follow-up appointment in a couple of weeks to get everything scrubbed out and my eardrums closely inspected for signs of anything more sinister.

Meanwhile, it looks as though I'm just going to have to put up with not being able to follow conversations. If nothing else, it's going to wonders for my productivity...

On the plus side, after weeks of tedious delays, work finally seems to be building up a bit of momemtum and I've managed to put most of my big changes in place. But on the on the minus side, I'm suffering from an epic outbreak of lip ulcers compounded by damage from the recent cold weather. I blame a combination of stress, concentration — I think I tend to bite my lip when I'm working — and all the meetings I've attended where I've had to moderate my usual sarcastic tendencies.

Yesterday I rather foolishly burnt my mouth; reading and eating at the same time, I failed to notice that my lunch was hotter than the surface of the sun until the damage was done. Today I've noticed everything tastes faintly of burning and blood, and eating requires meticulous care.

Just as last week's damage has finally started to heal, something else has failed: my ankle. Still, it's not as bad as it could be. I'm able to get around and the pain only kicks in after a hundred metres, so I can just about make it to the bus and from the stop to the office and back without suffering too badly.

I'm still not sure what caused the problem. I don't remember doing anything to provoke it. It just suddenly seemed to happen when I left work yesterday evening. Maybe old age is finally catching up with me...

Maybe it's just old age catching up with me...

The nebulous feeling of badness that has been lurking around in my throat for the last couple of days chose last night to ambush me and I woke up feeling as though I'd downed a couple of litres of battery acid. And for the record, I'm pretty sure that's not how I spent my Saturday evening.

After spending most of the day reading and recovering, I conducted a late and somewhat frantic raid on the bookshops but in I my weakened state, I was too indecisive to buy anything. I did, however, manage to soaked after being caught in a downpour so severe it was beyond the ability of my umbrella to keep me dry.

Then, to add to my woes, I discovered on my return home that I was out of tea. Or more precisely, the only tea I could find was lapsang souchong, which tastes rather as I imagine would the swillings of rainwater recovered from a particularly foul ashtray. Needless to say, I didn't let this put me off and managed to make it through a whole half-cup before the sheer vileness of taste overwhelmed my determination.

On the plus side, my malfunctioning back is once again responding to treatment. On the minus side, both productivity and inspiration seem to be down in line with the lack of pain. Hence, I suppose, this post...

I shook off the final lingering symptoms of last week's cold less than 48 hours ago. So I'm not best please at the puffy feeling that has taken up residence in my throat and which seems to presage yet another bout of viral illness...

Despite swearing off seeing the sawbones yesterday, I changed my mind after my damaged finger went a particularly horrible shade of purple (the rather lame photos don't really do justice to the full lurid quality of the mackerel striped bruising):

( grostesqueries )

Consequently I've been told to keep my bad finger buddy taped to a good one, so now I'm deficient to the tune of two digits instead of merely one. Wonderful.