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November 24, 2003
Cough Sneeze Rant
I feel compelled to update, although there is not much to report, unless you all are interested in a detailed and necessarily gross passage on the progression of this nasty cold. You probably are not, so suffice to say that I am really ready to not be sick any more. It has been a week and a half, yo, more if you count the comparatively little cold I had at the beginning of November, which sort of dwindled into ongoing low-level tiredness and crankiness as this new supervirus prepared to take its terrible hold.
There are things I like about being very sick in a sort of twisted way, like how it makes you just stop and say whoa, now, okay then, there’s no way I can fulfill my obligations in this condition, it’s time to call in sick, get taken care of, go limp and respond to the demands of the body. It’s kind of pleasant to get back to basics, and the Puritan in me is soothed by the reassuring thought that I just simply can’t function, it’s not slacking off.* However, this minor source of enjoyment wears thin after a couple of days, and I get impatient with the fact that I can’t do stuff, that work is piling up and I can’t concentrate well enough to get it done.
While I eagerly await the time when my head does not feel as if it is stuffed with cotton, let me take this opportunity to give a shout-out to Josh for taking on more than his share of grocery shopping, dish-doing, cat-wrangling, blanket-getting, and foods-in-the-form-of-a-liquid preparing. He is my heeero. Beep beep hooray!
And on that tip… I don’t know if it is due to some sort of unholy confluence of advertising events, or the fact that I’ve been watching an unusually large quantity of daytime TV, or if I’m just noticing it more right now for some reason, but it seems like there are an awful lot of particularly annoying gender-role commercials floating around out there lately. For example: those dead stupid “Guys like Philly cheese steak – guys like pizza” ads featuring Guys doing Guy Things (video games, hardware store) and responding to the sound of a doorbell with Pavlovian, drooling idiocy. Or the flu-season ads where Mom is sick and Dad cannot dress himself, dress the kids, or make a meal that does not involve a microwave oven, color coding, and pictorial instructions. Or those “Guys’ Night Out” commercials featuring all the fun things you can do when you are with the guys, and not those pesky, always-dieting, how-you-dress-criticizing, makeup-constantly-applying women. Gah.
I know it is nothing new – this sort of thing has been around forever. But why why why do they still make these ads? Do people respond to them? Do men see ads telling them that they are dumb, gross, dirty, and loud and say “Hey, that makes me feel like ordering a pizza?” Do moms see their husbands as helpless bumbling morons and think, “Oh, heavens to Betsy, I had better drug myself up so as to release my man from the unfair burden of knowing anything about his kids or how to use a single household appliance, the better to be a thin-lipped martyr to the cause of Womanhood?” What?
If men see women as their smarter, prettier, better-smelling, but fun-killing, humor-lacking, disapproving counterparts; if women see men as hapless jerks not much better than overgrown children in need of care, well, I guess we are screwed. But what would I know - I guess that since I enjoy burping and farting, like fried food, and don’t wear makeup, I am also a Guy. I mean am I naïve in believing that this gender war bullshit is mostly a sick little problem of our own making?
*The purity of this thought is sullied a bit by the existence of people who go to work on the brink of death, sporting influenza and ebola and all sorts of nasty things, and manage to get all their shit done with a smile. “Oh, I just took a Sudafed, gotta keep on trucking, you know.” I hate you people. Must you both infect the weak (i.e. me) and make us look bad?
Posted by hilatron at 10:26 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 18, 2003
Ow.
I only find this moderately comforting.
Posted by hilatron at 09:50 PM | TrackBack
November 17, 2003
Mucous 1, Robots 0
Where the hell have I been, you ask? I have been laid out flat, knocked over, completely and utterly trounced by a real humdinger of a cold. Despite a generous helping of to-dos, all I've been able to manage for the last few days is to sit on the couch or lie on the bed, keep my giant throbbing head from falling off, and watch a truly frightening number of episodes of Buffy. My functions are gradually returning, but don't expect anything spectacular around here for a little while.
Posted by hilatron at 03:24 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
November 10, 2003
How 'Bout That Weather?
Well now this is disheartening.
Of late, the WB 5-8pm sitcom lineup has been providing my after-work "entertainment." No that is not the disheartening part, shut UP.
The disheartening part is that on the particular episode of "Friends" I saw tonight, one of the wacky subplots involved an awkward evening between two casual acquaintances hanging out one-on-one for the first time. It was supposed to be the kind of situation so boring, so stilted, so very not fun that it's almost beyond belief. Oh, the silences. Ah, the desperate struggles to find some light chatter to fill the endless minutes. Gracious, the social backwardness. My my, the hilarity.
And all I could think was: this is like 90% of the conversations I have had, ever. It's weird - I mean it's not like I don't have plenty to say, as evidenced by the oh-for-crying-out-loud-shut-up-already-itude that can often be found amongst these very pages. But at the slightest hint of We Had Better Make Conversation Now..I've got nothing.
Schooled by "Friends." Could I get any lower?
Posted by hilatron at 07:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 09, 2003
No More Mr. Nice Day
I propose that we rename Sunday. It needs a name like Futilityday, or Thwartday, or Whatthehellhappened?day. Sunday has already hidden behind its innocent, oh-so-pleasant sounding moniker for too long. But we know the truth, don't we? We know that Sunday is the day of wasted time regretted, of looming Monday fear, of to-do lists that leer, uncrossed-out, unchecked-off, in the background. Harrumph.
Posted by hilatron at 10:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 05, 2003
Sew Forth.
So then. Sew, then. So? Sew! Sew-sew. Sew-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. Say it ain't sew.
Sew, yes. I dream about monster stockings. Color combinations to make grown men weep with joy. Fabric that practically stitches itself. I assume at some point that I'll write something decent here again, but for now I must apologize for the ever-shortening entries column.
Tally sew!
Posted by hilatron at 07:41 AM | TrackBack
November 03, 2003
Consume! Consume!
Eleven monster stockings are for sale at the 3WA Crafts Fair. (My auctions are here.) Pictures and stuff to be found there. I'm off to bed. It's been a long weekend. I may have crafter's lung. I definitely have a hole in my right index finger. Work tomorrow no good!
Posted by hilatron at 12:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack