A Day in the Life: Tuesday

I was already starting to feel sick last night when I got home, but sometimes that sick-feeling is the result of low blood sugar, which I certainly had. So I tried to convince myself that I hadn't caught a cold from my Station Manager, and -- with a lot of trouble -- finally conked out around 11:30pm.

Midnight - 6:00am - Slept intermittently and suffered the usual "I'm getting sick" dreams. I dream that somebody's given me a box with four racoons in it, and when I open the box I see that the racoons are dead and that bats are attached to their heads. I dream that a very young Robert Jan Stips -- member of the band "Nits" -- offers to buy me both a Nits T-Shirt and a "very thumpy keyboard" if I'll loan him $25 until Christmas, and meanwhile my mother tries to explain bisexuality to my grandmother. In between these dreams I often wake up to find the cat lying on or against my torso, which is both cute and uncomfortable.

6:00 - 7:00 - I wake up briefly and make the sensible decision not to go to work in a Hallowe'en costume. I set my alarm from 6:30 to 7:00 and go back to sleep.

7:00 - 7:10 - A reporter on CBC radio is interviewing a child who apparently is the world ambassador for UNICEF. He asks the child why they're doing away with the old orange UNICEF boxes, and the child replies, but his voice is cut up due to technical problems; only half the words are transmitted. The thing is, the technical problem doesn't really SOUND like a problem, it sounds instead like the child is only saying every second word. The reporter doesn't seem to notice this problem and he asks how one becomes the world ambassador for UNICEF. The child doesn't hear the question and I quickly turn the radio off because I hate listening to awkward situations. Though I do wonder if one of the criteria for UNICEF's world ambassador is to "speak English."

7:10 - 7:30 - I evaluate my health. I have a headache, I've got gunk forming in the back of my throat, I'm slightly achey...in short, I'm 100% sick. I decide not to go to work, because I know (from experience) that if I don't take today off I'll just get sicker. But I can't call in sick until 8:30 because I'd like to speak to my supervisor about it rather than just leave a message. I think how incredible it is that only three hours after meeting the CKMS Station Manager I was already showing symptoms of her illness. This makes me sad because all my life I've gotten sick easily and often, while this year -- thanks to better food, sleeping, and vitamin-taking habits -- I've been ill much less, to the point where I proudly crowed that I'd turned my life around. But now I've gotten sick twice in the last two months, which makes me feel like I've both failed at looking after myself, and that people will once again be justified in considering me unhealthy. I think about all this while eating tasteless Golden Grahams, then offering my cat the tiny 1/2 spoonful of milk at the bottom, a morning ritual that we both love equally.

7:30 - 8:30 - I lie down and read about windmills, views of the Niagara, wildflowers, forest fires, bullfrogs, mosquitos, squirrels, and rabbits. At 8:30 I call my supervisor and she gives me her blessing, so I fall asleep.

8:30 - 12:15 - Surprisingly benign dreams considering how crappy I feel. Something about finding intruders in the basement of my new apartment, and about "Men Without Hats" releasing a new song, and then a short fat man is walking along Hollywood Blvd with me and we go into a diner. The narrator in my head says that the man's flabby arms "hang like gaffs on the counter," then says "Everybody hated Joe Comb, but they loved what he could do for them." The script-writer in my head wants to describe Joe Comb as looking like Danny Devito, but the producer in my head complains that men like Joe Comb are always being played by men like Danny Devito, it's stereotyped, it's type-casting. I wake up feeling stubbly and thick-throated, thirsty but not thirsty, and the litter box is starting to smell.

12:15 - 1:30 - Battlestar Galactica episode 2.6, thanks to a lovely loan of DVDs from Henning. I still find the series to be contrived and obvious, but they're doing a good job of tackling human issues in an easily digestable form, and their story arc has me hooked. I love these "working towards a goal without knowing what the goal is" sorts of stories. But it makes me sad that it's an ongoing series instead of a mini-series. In a mini-series, you know that the people who write it are working towards a conclusion, which tends to mean a more logical and thought-out storyline. But with an ongoing series, they can tantalize you as long as their ratings hold out, they tend to artificially "stretch" the plot and create a lot of convenient loose ends to give them something to hold on to later. This is what I mean by "obvious."

1:30 - 2:00 - Finally get my crap together, shave, and walk to Belmont Village for the cat necessities. It's windy, but warm, and I'm reminded as always that it's a bad idea to sit cooped up in a house when you're sick. The fresh air does me good. I take a side-trip to Vincenzos to explore their daunting list of expensive and exotic groceries. Buying halva is a no-brainer -- it's a comfort food -- and the Eggplant Parmiggiano is a tried-and-true slab of healthy deliciousness. I also buy rosemary raisin pecan crackers. A woman is painting a Remembrance Day scene on the window of a shop, with lots of gravestones and a sign that says "Freedom wasn't free." I wonder if this is a message in support of the Bush administration's "Stay the Course" meme, but I doubt it. What Canadians think about the Iraq war doesn't have much of an effect on American policy, but there's a hard-core minority in this country that is definitely in lock-step behind it. They seem to think that making definite decisions and taking an aggressive approach to a problem is admirable, even if the decisions are flawed and the aggressive approach just makes things worse. We're a country that doesn't make many definite decisions and that frustrates people who are a tad more knee-jerk than I am. And oh yes, I buy stuff for the cat.

2:00 - 5:15 - It's pathetic that the days I have off are usually the days when I'm least able to accomplish anything. Sore throat and fever now. It's not like I'm dying of bilious fever, just that I've got the flu. Instead of cleaning the house, recording music, or solving world hunger I sit and watch episodes seven to ten of Battlestar Galactica, season two. I really am hooked. Just when I think there's no new complication they can add to the storyline, they throw in something new. This doesn't disguise the fact that the characters all continue to have diametrically-opposed character traits: their heroic traits and their flaws. Maybe this really IS the basis of human nature, but I like to think some of us have traits that are ambiguous. You know, most of us can't be described as, for instance, "heroically loyal and dependable, yet unable to love and a maker of snap decisions." Or, say, "defenseless, maternal, in love, a source of good intelligence, but a Cylon." I suppose the rest of us would not make good characters on network TV: "Quite talented, good work ethic, okay lover, but bad with finances and can't cook." I am NOT describing myself. And oh yes, I cleaned the litter box, partly because I didn't want to say that I still hadn't done so by 5:15.

5:15 - 5:45 - Finish reading the book about early pioneer life in Upper Canada. It's a bit of an anti-climax, ending with appendixes. At this point I'm just killing time. I'm exhausted but I don't want to sleep too early, otherwise I'll wake up at midnight.

5:45 - 6:00 - A nice bath. My legs aren't too hacked up from that useless shaving exercise yesterday. The cat moans horribly and glares at me like I should know what she's moaning about. I think that just being around water puts her into an hysterical state.

6:00 - 7:15 - Start reading "My Canadian Journal," a book written by Harriot Dufferin -- wife of the Governor General -- between 1872 and 1878. These things can be hit or miss, but Harriot is a real gem, spunky and outspoken and adventurous. By day she's hosting croquet parties, by night she's going fishing for salmon and making snarky remarks about her attendants. More on this later. Anyway, it's time to do the final bloodwork and try to sleep; I'm looking forward to aspirin, Halls, and an easing of this crappy sore throat.