Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"The one thing I have seen that trully[sic] got out of hand was a group of knights on a hilltop in Pennsylvania doing the semiphore[sic] version of swing low sweet chariot for ESPN." -- "Thumper", 2003-06-03

[I think I wanna know more about this ... and does anyone have the video?]

Dear refrigerator-that-intermittently-thinks-it's-a-freezer,

Baba ganouj should not be crunchy. That's just wrong.

kthxbye.

Not doing well today. Started off feeling logy and off-kilter, after not enough sleep.

I have a great whopping pile of recorded television shows to watch (so far I've only seen two episodes of the current season of Gilmore Girls and I haven't even started on Alias, much less 24. A day when I'm not feeling well enough to do much else sounds like maybe a day for catching up on stuff I recorded back in September, no?

No. Fuzzy-head gradually morphed into significant head-and-neck pain, along with the distinct impression that watching television would make it worse, and difficulty paying enough attention to follow a show anyhow. But the point of this entry isn't to whine about that (it's a fairly ordinary -- and all too common for me lately -- complaint, which I'm not inspired to find a way to make funny right now, so no point.) It's to record and ponder an observation:

I'm feeling too wrecked to handle television, so I turn instead to a novel. Following the plot of a one-hour show with familiar characters seems taxing, but following a much more involved story involving (so far) four sentient species and SFnal technology to keep track of feels okay. All right, it's not like I'm reading Dostoevsky, admittedly, but I feel as though I could handle Camus or Shakespeare today (and maybe Doyle but probably not Christie). On a day when I don't think I can handle The West Wing or Veronica Mars. (I could probably cope with House, but I'll get a lot more out of it if I wait until I feel better.)

On a day when I don't think I can deal with a medium I can mostly just listen to with occasional peeks (depending on the show) without increasing my headache, I can read lots and lots of words on the screen of my PDA. Go figure.

Of course, part of this must be that if my attention wanders, or my brain speeds up and slows down, or I need to rest my eyes, I don't miss anything (and rewinding a book -- 'lectronic or dead-trees -- to make sure I caught something correctly, is easier than finding the right spot to flip back to on a videocassette). But still ... reading news articles and political commentary seems like real effort right now -- even reading random LiveJournal chitchat feels like a strain -- and sorting out culture-clash issues between unfamiliar imaginary species feels easier? Go figure.

Brains are curious things. (Feel free to parse that multiple ways.)

And yeah, it did eventually dawn on me that feeling gradually crappier and crappier meant I should probably take something. Took a while to sink in, it being a slow-brain day and all.