In a rare instance of successful negotiation with my immune system, I managed to remain at a functional level of wellness all week and become horribly ill only today, when it's perfectly acceptable for me to spend all day in bed reading Soul Music and occasionally stumble conspicuously into the kitchen to sniffle and make more tea. I have to say that I can think of worse ways to spend a Saturday, sore throat and runny nose notwithstanding. For a while I exploited the strange ivy-covered light well of a side yard that my room abuts by leaving my sliding door open and curling up naked in the afternoon sun on top of my bed, serene in the knowledge that nobody ever goes back there and if they did I still wouldn't care very much.
The only substantial downside to this arrangement, still leaving aside the malady which occasions it, is that while the sun was coming in full-strength through my window I had a deeply annoying dream. I was leaving someplace vaguely San Francisco-ish and trying to take BART home, but missed three trains on account of being unable to use the new ticket machines. They were oddly elaborate and presented me with confusing options and irrelevant animations, and I couldn't see clearly either what they were showing or what I had to push to make them behave normally because the sun was in my eyes. I was squinting painfully, constantly, no matter which direction I faced or how I tried to shield my eyes with my hands. The machines kept taking my money and leaving me unable to figure out how to get it back, so I kept giving up and trying other machines in the hope of just getting a ticket and getting out of the damn station. It went on for ages while trains came and went and I realized I also wasn't too sure which platform was which -- they were all kind of swoopy and Escheresque and seemed to defy their somewhat meager signage.
When I did finally get a ticket of some kind, I started walking across what seemed like the right platform but soon wound up on an elephant (or was it a hippopotamus?) flying in circles around the squishy, organic-looking Art Nouveau base supporting the platform. By the time it let me off at the bottom, the plan had changed from "get on a train and go home" to "wade barefoot through ankle-deep water in a polluted marsh with people who have appeared from nowhere, and I still can't see anything". It was kind of aggravating.
I leave you with this piece of information: how to say "sick" in American Sign Language. Spread out the fingers of both hands, and bend both your middle fingers inward so they're pointing at rough right angles to your hands. Hold one of these hands in front of your forehead so your middle finger is pointing toward the forehead, and the other one in front of your stomach in the same orientation. Move them side-to-side simultaneously (i.e. one goes left while the other one goes right) a few times. Look pitiful. I'm not kidding about that part.
Posted by dianna at March 3, 2007 04:52 PM