Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Yesterday I had few pressing commitments and therefore, at least theoretically, a gargantuan amount of time in which to read the early evening away. However, my sinuses decided my four to seven-a.m. office shift would be the most opportune time to flare up as far as possible without blowing my upper skull apart. Tylonel proved ineffective.
The pain lasted the entire day. I could hardly concentrate on the hilarious videos about arachnids and select other arthropods during entomology class. I ate lunch with Adrian and tried afterward to begin reading The Clouds (by Aristophanes) between then and the entomology lab, but my head was pounding so that I simply collapsed on one of the Flinstone benches (they look like and are about as comfortable as slabs of concrete) upstairs in the foreign language building.
I told Sharada I would have to blow off our rock-climbing date, and I considered also playing hooky from lab, but I literally turned on my heels mid-path and went to class, like a good egg. If the professor assigns homework, it would probably only be during a lab. Fortunately, we merely viewed five or six different bugs on slides, as an introduction to learning how to focus the equipment properly. I was eternally grateful that the period required no analytical thought on my part, because it felt as though my forehead was attempting to give birth to some hideous alien being. Usually I just think of those as my thoughts, but this one hurt.
At this point I really did desire nothing more than to curl up with The Clouds, but I lay me down in The Lauree Lair instead until the time arrived for walking to The Rec for another swimming session with Jenni. Not seeing her (I discovered later she had left just as I arrived), I spread out on the bleachers for about fifteen or twenty minutes, until a lane finally opened. I swam five laps with a kickboard and felt much better; I would have stayed longer, but I was a little shy about sharing the lane with someone (an older, forties-ish gentleman).
I returned to my bed at The Lauree Lair around six-thirty and did not vacate that spot for anything other than the relief of my bowel movements until three-thirty this morning. I finally began reading the play during the present office shift, and I suspect already that the version I have might not be the most apt translation ever produced, but it suits well enough to familiarize me with the basic storyline. Later, when I read the Greek, I'll have a better appreciation for it.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 4:12 AM]