Complain, Complain

Someone was giving me a hard time last night for not having blogged for 10 days here.... I should point out that the aforementioned sickness rendered me completely non-functional for a significant part of those days. And now I'm at a sci-fi convention with a sinus headache. Is there no end to my self-pity? I think not, friends, I think not. But I do have a hot cup of coffee, and I'm about to go to a panel on picking fights with people at cons (in a nice way, I sense--though my temptation was to hum the fight music from Star Trek when tensions run high in the panel.....dun dun DA DA DA DA dun dun DA DAH...) We'll see if that gets me cordially evicted from the room....

Sicko.

Friday night, I played board games at a friend's house. His daughter was on the couch with a 103° fever. I didn't come within 10 feet of her, but apparently her plague aura had a longer radius than anticipated. Saturday, I started feeling a bit oogish. Saturday evening, my enjoyment of the Roller Derby was somewhat marred by an achy feeling in my chest and throat. (It was also marred by the worst hot pretzel I have ever been horribly overcharged for--who knew you could form kindergarten paste into a pretzel shape and then get some poor slob to pay $3.25 for it?) I stopped at CVS on the way home, picked up some Vitamin C, some Dayquil, and a new box of Kleenex. Then spent a semi-miserable night feeling my sore throat and congestion get worse by degrees until 5 am, when I took more Tylenol and symptoms receeded somewhat. Today I've been a pathetic lump all day; I finally went out and got some of that "Zycam" homeopathic stuff, and I'm going to try one of its little fizzy tablets right now. Hang on.

********** <---represents tablet dissolving on my tongue.

Ok, this is simultaneously more gross and less gross than I was anticipating. I'd envisioned something sort of alkaseltzery exploding in my mouth, and instead it's like mushy, vaguely-cherry flavored chalk. I'm not supposed to drink for 15 minutes after taking this thing, and so of course the one thing I want more than anything right now is to rinse my mouth and rid it of this grainy residue. Uk. Well, if it makes my cold go away faster I am all for it... but next time I think I'll get the nasal spray version of the stuff.

Ding! Toast is ready.

OK, grading is done. Done-ish. I still need to go down to campus and determine whether anyone slipped a last-minute please-don't-give-me-an-F assignment into my mailbox. I somehow doubt it though. I do still have to figure out this whole online class I'm teaching; my style is so lecture based that I have a hard time understanding how I am going to convey all the coolness that is art appreciation in an online format. Mmmm.... maybe I'll link them to the Museum of Bad Art website for week #1....

I went to a concert on Friday, and I was going to do a post on "Why I am not a good concert-goer"--but think I will save that for the main blog. I'm not saying I don't like live music--far from it, I love going to shows both big and small when I can. I'm just saying I'm not anyone's ideal audience. Especially when it's a concert where 90% of the audience is taking the music very.....VERY.....seriously. My own ability to take any music that seriously is long ago impaired. I far prefer a relationship song by Christine Lavin to endless "you changed my life" or (conversely) "you ruined my life" sentimental chick with guitar songs--one or two is fine, but when it's more than 50% of the set list I do start squirming around a bit in the seat. And then Rat Girl whispers something funny, and I lose it completely. And then Coaster Woman punches us both. Yeah. I'm a bad concert-goer.

Grading Blows.

Hm. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Just as last time, I am avoiding grading exams by blogging about how much I hate grading exams.

So far, the best thing I have seen on the Art 101 exams was the person who identified Georges Seurat's "Sunday at La Grande Jatte" as "Sunday on La Latte Grande." Starbucks really IS everywhere these days....