caught a light sneeze

The official welcoming of the holidays for me is greeting the flu bug. Here it is. Flu vaccine, be damned. Nothing- I'll do this one myself. Actually, for now, it's just a sore throat, and general fogginess. Perhaps with a little eucalyptus and some oranges, I'll skip the flu altogether. Oh, sorry, I thought I was on Lost for a moment... ah, Naveen Andrews... sure, go ahead and be an Iraqi with a bit of a lisp for an accept... I'll take that crazy French broad on to get you. Okay, so it's not just general fogginess, it's delirium. Can I go home now?

I'm still smarting from getting schooled at Texas Hold 'Em several times by cousins five to ten years my junior. There wasn't even vodka involved. It's a sign that I don't give my cousins enough credit. I was continually convinced the youngest one had nothing in her hand, and would try to call her bluff, only to be met with trip aces or some such. I demand a rematch. That's all I have to say about that.

Last week, I went all girly and spent far too much on moisturizer at L'Occitane. Because, you know, moisture is the essence of wetness... and no, I do not tire of Zoolander references. Hey, when it's cold, the heat gets turned on. When the heat gets turned on, it gets dry. Sure, I went a little overboard with the math, and felt the need to buy something with 25% shea butter. What in the world is shea butter, by the way? Tawk amungst yaselves.

I love this lunatic and his rantings. I love the way that some people have to write. It's not in them to be silent on the page. I am also intrigued by the tightrope of creativity and madness. Technically, Nikolai Gogol was a total nutcase. And yet, you read The Nose and it's just pure genius, even in its insanity. It's important to the arts, I think, to do a better job at titrating drugs, at modulating their effect, so that pharmaceuticals make life bearable for those struggling with mental disorders without dulling them completely. Help them mind the tightrope.

This weekend, I'm picking up and reading a short biography on Marie Curie, because she is another case in point. She struggled with periods of great depression, and yet won the Nobel prize twice. Too often, arts and science are set up as adversarial, as contrary to each other. In fact, I think they're strikingly parallel. You look at great artists and great scientists, and both display eccentricity and passion. Both live and breathe their work. Both require a creative mind. I used to share an apartment with two Literature grad students, who used to say that life could exist without science, but not without art. Why must it be one or the other? Life must depend on both; even in the most ancient of civilizations, both artistic and scientific tendencies are unearthed.

Oh, how I love being sick, as I can ramble completely incoherently, and completely pass it off on being dazed and confused.