In Which Our Heroine Exhibits Symbols, If Not Signs, Of Wellness

2 May 2004

First things first: am I feeling better? Oh yes: just better enough to have delusions of grandeur. Fabulous. My brain actually was chirruping on that when I've finished "Docile Bodies" and "Five Brothers Underground," maybe I should just finish "Even Without Deceit" while I'm at it. This afternoon. Not better enough to have my voice back. Not better enough to stop coughing. Not better enough that bumping up and down the stairs doesn't make my head protest considerably. Not better enough to have the energy to sit and type for half an hour without feeling worn out. No. Just better enough to get grandiose notions of what's possible for the next twelve hours. I think maybe I should try to convince my body to change the order of these things around a bit.

The lake and the house behind us have almost disappeared. Suddenly the light coming in through the back windows is green, green, green. It's been happening while I've been sick, or else I've had more "lying down staring out windows" moments in this time frame. It's lovely but very strange. I'm a fall person, with a healthy dose of love for winter, and we moved here in October. Having green and green and green is a bit hard to get used to. Even though it's May and the appointed time for such things, and even though it's not hard in a bad way.

Read, watched hockey, read, rested. That was my day, mostly.

Did you see the footage of that junior hockey league thug winding up and smacking the other dude in the head with his stick? Do you know who I blame for this? Well, the thug, first and foremost, as he was the one who moved his arms and his stick. But I also blame that little bastard Todd Bertuzzi and the officials who have not made it immediately and absolutely clear that that kind of behavior will in no way be tolerated. You do that kind of thing, you shouldn't even be able to get a ticket to the Ice Capades. That's how far from hockey you should have to stay. You should have to drink all your beverages lukewarm, because you, my friend, should be off the ice. Completely. Forever. No exceptions. And the NHL should make that so absolutely crystal clear that anyone who had any thoughts of even going to a game sometime would know it.

I do not understand announcers and sportswriters who perpetuate such wimpy phrasings as "this regrettable incident occurred" and "the accident" and so on. It wasn't an accident! Dude wound up and swung his stick! My grandfather always refers to car accidents as car collisions, because he says, "When two bodies of that mass attempt to occupy the same space at the same time, the result is no accident." No; but the attempt to occupy the same space at the same time usually is. This was not. At all. When something is clearly deliberate, referring to it in the passive voice is irresponsible. "When the stick was slammed into the other player's head" -- no. No, no, no. This is not acceptable.

Ah well; nobody has asked me to be a sportswriter, you may feel sure, and if they did I would turn them down. But writers shouldn't use the passive voice to transmute purposeful action into tragic coincidence.

I'm reading Rats and Gargoyles now, and I'm liking it even better now that Casaubon has come into things. I love Casaubon. I know that it's a disproportionate and irrational fondness, but I can't help it; I just do. And it's just as well if I'm going to have irrational feelings about a book that they be fond; much more pleasant than the other way.

Things are looking up. I am wearing, as of this writing, a bra, my contact lenses, and my watch and ring. (Also various and sundry things like the rest of my clothes.) This must mean I'm all better. Yes indeed. Symbols of wellness, bra and eyes and basic jewelry. I feel so much better, in fact, that I'm going to go have a nice lie-down to celebrate.

Stupid virus.

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