Still not feeling so great, and there were times throughout the day when I wondered if I’d made a mistake going in to work at all. I’m still not entirely sure if this is a cold or just a severe allergy attack I’m nursing; none of the symptoms that are supposed to differentiate the two are definitive in my case; and in fact, I think I’d feel better if I was running a fever because at least then I’d know it was probably a cold, and therefore likely to end sooner rather than later. I’m leaning towards cold, if only for that wishful thinking — who knows when allergies would start to lessen, given the changing weather we’ve been having — and because I’m pretty sure I felt this coming on as far back as Monday or Tuesday. Then again, I’ve heard that yesterday, when I definitely knew I had something, was a particularly bad day for allergies… Maybe if I got myself a hookworm infection to get rid of allergies, I’d know for sure…
Yeah, I’m going to lean towards cold for the time being. All I do know is, I have a runny nose, watery eyes, and a persistent cough, and none of it’s very much fun. I’m not horribly sick or anything — I still have an appetite, mostly, and I did go to work — but I’m ready to feel not sick at all, thank you very much.
Is it any wonder that the rest of my day seems so uneventful?
The reading I went to on Tuesday night got a little bad press, causing a very minor kerfuffle online among genre (and specifically Neil Gaiman) fans. My feeling is, the article in question was very poorly reasoned, riddled with cliche and few factual errors, and not really representative of what I saw there at Columbia. Maybe it’s just that I’m naturally attracted to geeky women, but I don’t remember a crowd of only “balding Goths, girls with jutting chins and faux punks.” I do remember wishing, offhandedly, that the evening hadn’t been framed as “Neil Gaiman Returns to Columbia University,” since it was primarily a discussion of the new Stories book and focused equally on the other panel members. I do think some people came thinking it was going to be all Gaiman and nothing but and adopted maybe too worshipful an attitude towards him. But that was a minor not-even-quibble in what was a really excellent night.
This night has been quite as excellent, but at least tomorrow’s Friday.