I hate being sick.
I realize this isn’t exactly a brilliant insight. But it wasn’t always true. For much of my childhood I preferred being sick to going to school. I got to stay home where it was quiet and read instead of having to deal with other kids.
Actually, that still sounds pretty good. But I find it hard to read, or play video games, or work on random side projects (like getting Ubuntu to load the proprietary drivers for my video card with both monitors and 3D acceleration enabled — I think I’ve mangled the installation sufficiently that it’ll be quicker at this point to reinstall from scratch.) I’m physically and mentally off just enough that I can’t really engage with anything. And I’m the sort of person who needs to be mentally engaged with something whenever I’m conscious. So I’m mostly just feeling twitchy and directionless. I spent a lot of time yesterday doing the mental equivalent of opening the fridge, staring at the shelves for a while and then closing it again.
We also have a project at work that’s been going pretty slowly, and I’ll be out on vacation for the second half of this month, so I’d like to make some real progress before then. I’m just starting to get past the awkward bits that require other people to get back to me to the straightforward coding bits that I can do quickly. I’m tempted to jerry-rig something that would let me work from home, which officially I’m not supposed to do. But I’m not sure I have the focus in any case.
I got called in for jury duty yesterday, and I went in and postponed my service until May. I feel a little awkward about that. Some hint of a sense of civic duty, perhaps? A jury with me on it would likely be more fair than one without me. I think I also feel bad for passing up the opportunity to find out what it’s like — to experience something unfamiliar. I was enjoying chatting with people for the hour or so before I went home. But I’m not really in any condition to be on a jury right now, I’d get other people sick, etc. And I’m sure I’ll get called in again eventually.
Books: Greg lent me Warren Ellis’s Crooked Little Vein, and I read it last week. Ellis’s writing style is a little psychotic, but it’s new to me and thus interesting, and it was a quick read. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of The Listener, some of which Ellis put online (and here’s where he stopped).
Then I went back to The Rift, which I bought (in one of those huge Powell’s shopping trips) entirely because I believed it was by Walter Jon Williams. I’ve gone back and forth on that since (on this book he’s listed as “Walter J. Williams”, with no mention of other books) but most recently I think it’s actually his. Not as interesting as his other books, but good enough to make it through the 950 pages or so. More recently I’ve started on The Zenith Angle, by Bruce Sterling, but I’m not making much progress right now. I hate being sick.
I suppose this would be a good time to mention Goodreads.com. I’ll add a link to the sidebar.
Music: I stumbled across a band called Rilo Kiley recently, courtesy of Phil, and I’ve been listening to them pretty consistently since then. Perhaps that qualifies as my latest obsession. I’ve also been listening to Wintersong in the car, which has a lot of childhood holiday nostalgia value. This gives my evening commute a comfortable, strangely festive feel. Gorgeous sunset a few nights back, too. Driving home at dusk is more pleasant than I’d expected.
I told S I was feeling antsy, and she said “well, you could still go in to work.” So maybe I will; I’m not likely to get a lot of rest at home. I’m going to go have some tea and see how I’m feeling.
