Obviously, I stayed home from work today. My fever dipped to 99.x for a while today, but it's gone back up to 100.3 again. That weird queasydizzy feeling is back again, so I'll keep this short. Same symptoms—sore throat, tiredness, stiff and sore neck, headaches, lightheadedness, fever.

I'm having trouble concentrating on things for more than a minute or two at a time. I have to point out, though, that some of my friends would probably say that this is beneficial for a worrywart like me, and not something that could be classified as a symptom of something wrong.

I'm trying to decide what to do about work tomorrow. If I'm still running this fever I have no business sitting in the middle of a cube farm. But I'm desperately needed there right now, and no kidding on the desperately part. (I have two major deadlines looming on the 29th that must be met.)

"This planet has billions of passengers on it, and those were preceded by infinite billions and there are vaster billions to come, and none of these, no, not one, can I hope ever to understand. Never! And when I think how much confidence I used to have in understanding—you know?—it's enough to make a man weep. Of course, you may ask, what have numbers got to do with it? And that's right, too. We get too depressed by then, and should be more accepting of multitudes than we are.

Welcome to the psychedelic end of the rainbow. I ask that you pardon my incoherency and just roll with this for a day or so; it'll all make sense in a moment. This is me trying to make sense, and something tells me I'm not doing a good job of it.

I started feeling very strangely this afternoon; my throat felt like it was trying to close up on me. Then I was tired, very tired. I listened to the changing weather reports throughout the day. Snow? Sleet? Rain? Ice? No one seemed to know.After work, I went over to Heather's. She drove me to the surprisingly-empty mall, where I picked up a badly needed new pair of jeans (medium blue and utterly boring) and finished up all but one last gift on my Christmas shopping list.

Sigh. Time for one of those moments where I look up and say, "Not again. I'm not laughing, dammit."

Another email from Mom tonight. This one had words that I've known that I would hear someday: "The doctor told us yesterday that [your] dad has some spots that have shown up on his lungs, so we are scheduled for more surgery Dec. 26 for [a] biopsy on them."

Both of my parents are heavy smokers, and have been so for as long as I can remember. It's not necessary for me to say the word; you undoubtedly know what I, the nonsmoking child of two chain-smokers, have on my mind.There are other things this could be. It is true that my father has had pneumonia several times, and this could be scar tissue resulting from those illnesses. He was also exposed to asbestos during the 1960s; this could be a reaction to that.

Talk about interesting—I just emailed my mother with a slightly condensed version of the events of the past ten days. I've had this urge to sing the events in order, in the style of "We Didn't Start The Fire."

Rather appropriate, given that a burning car was involved. Well, if nothing else, a nasty bout of stomach flu would explain to my mother why I haven't written her yet this week.

I'd planned to try to go back to work this morning, but I realized this morning that I still needed to be on my anti-nausea medication. Since the pills make me sleep for an extended period of time, it really wasn't worth my while to go in to work for the short amount of time I would have been coherent.

By noon I was curled up under my favorite quilt in the guest bedroom, cats stretched out along my side. I slept for nearly five hours. I'm not sure what's in this medication, but it's the best sleep aid I've ever found.

I've tried to keep the day a quiet one. Some reading, some kitty-spoiling. I'm starting on Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King as my next literary read; it looks good so far.