What Can You Do When You're Sick?

[Daniel Hatadi]

On Tuesday afternoon, the air-conditioning at work spent a good couple of hours feeding me with bacteria that came from all the other people in our wee little office. Upon arriving at home, the colonies took the whole evening to build new civilisations within me, thus incapacitating me for work yesterday.

I'm back at work, still feeling rat-shit (can I get away with a four letter word here?), but it's interesting to me how I found ways to occupy my time yesterday.

Most of it was moaning on the couch, very similar to Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, but I actually powered through an Orson Scott Card novella and started another John Connolly. I attempted non-fiction (RAZOR, an account of the razor gangs in 1920s Sydney), but I found I had to keep re-reading sentences for them to sink in.

When I'm sick or hung-over (yes, that happens on a rare occasion), I find it impossible to write, difficult to read or play computer games, but generally it's pretty easy to watch some kind of light movie (I ended up whiling away my evening with Ring Zero, which while not light entertainment, did have a relaxing pace).

So what do y'all do when you're laid up in bed for all the wrong reasons?

[Daniel Hatadi]

As long as my sickness caused someone to laugh, even if in a roundabout way, all is well. I even watched Blazing Saddles again while moaning on the couch. Moaning while laughing sounds very strange.

[I. J. Parker]

Yikes! Now there is inspiration!

[Karyn J. Powers]

It's not surprizing that as sick as you were that you could only manage TV. I read somewhere that scientists have spent plenty of time and money to study the brains of people while they are watching TV. Apparently there is a function level somewhere between REM and serious head injury where the brain is at it's lowest synapse output and that is in front of what my father lovingly calls the "Boob Tube."

I can't believe they found that true from anyone watching Blazing Saddles. "Badges? Badges? We don't need no stink'n badges!"

I'm glad that you have recovered. I was laid up recovering from carple tunnel surgery on both hands a while back. Let me tell you, after five weeks without the use of them, opposable thumbs should be worshiped like Gods!

[Shannon Chenoweth]

I just got over a two day headache late today which kept me home from work (just today, I toughed it out yesterday). I didn't do any writing until the middle of the day today. What I did do was watch some DVDs I had on my "to watch" pile, mainly Curb Your Enthusiasm season 4. I wanted to watch some of my new noir and detective dvds I recently picked up, but I just needed some mindless fun.