chicago '08

Ilona and Steve are here from london, and they keep giggling about the English names of the towns. it's especially amusing to them that the city of new london has a river called the thames. they also find it riotous that shopping carts (trolleys, to them) are called "carriages" here. speaking of stupid things to say, Hugsband has a student who refers to facial tissues as "puffs." that's infinitely dumber than calling them "kleenex." he's from the south, though, so there you go.

I am better. I am a good, productive worker again. Hugsband is laid up now, and I may have also infected Kara, who was here visiting at the beginning of my illness. I feel so powerful and wish I had enemies to ensicken, except now that I am well my power to inflict sickness may gone. I need to test it. I also feel guilty. Hugsband never catches my colds and flus, so as a joke, at the height of my fever/sweating/coughing, I kissed him right on the lips. it seemed funny at the time. oops.

Hugsbandly tidbit: on his desktop, there is a folder labeled "albinos." it contains about 15 pictures of albino animals. every once and awhile, he makes me look at all of the animals while he oooohs and ahhhs. I guess, it's more of a giggle, point, and "look at that whitey" than an oooh or ahhh. when we got our first computer together, he downloaded a video clip of a monkey touching his ass, smelling the hand with which he touched said ass, and falling out of the tree. he watched it at least once a day, often laughing to the point of tears. there's always something odd or disgusting or adorable for him to force me to watch. last night he was feeling somewhat better and started to show me new bigfoot footage, but he quickly lost interest and went to lay back down. get better, Hugsband; I haven't been forced to watch anything stupid in 2 days.

I am recovering from a crazy sickness that caused me to sweat through my clothes. I even soaked my coat, which was super heavy when I went to take it off. my clothes were wet for 36 hours. I know because when I got home all sweaty, I dumped them on the floor. then last night when I finally felt well enough to put them away, I realized that they were still wet. I never realized what Ferris was going for with the whole sweaty palms thing, but now I get it- cold and clammy!

yesterday I slept for 5 hours during the day. I also watched 'send me no flowers.' it's really the perfect sick-day movie, rife with hypochondria and cocktails.

when we were in corpus christi, Hugsband found this owl pellet. when he examined its contents, he found a rodent skull and other assorted bones.

I just realized that in 'the secret of n.i.m.h.' the letters refer to the same agency that provides lots of funding to people at work. in fact, n.i.m.h. has paid my bills in the past. somewhere in my building, there are even rats. rats who are trying to learn to be autistic so the bad n.i.m.h.-funded dudes can take out their brains and see how they work. on a related note, if someone in the autism clinic talks to you about d.m.r., don't assume that they mean dexy's midnight runners because the department of mental retardation comes up a lot in conversation over there. also, if you search dexy's midnight runner in google without the apostrophe or the 's' at the end of runners, the first thing that comes up was written by Chris Clark, I surmise.

at the mexican restaurant where we often eat dinner on weeknights, there is a box trivia cards on each of the tables. after the hostess seats us and leaves the room, Hugsband runs from table to table and gathers all of the cards from the blue deck, the original trivial pursuit deck, and replaces them with whatever crappy cards were our table to begin with (baby boomer, usually). we then read each other questions while waiting for our food.

in this context, the following interaction transpired:

me- what's the capital of switzerland?

him- (very long pause) uh, oslo?

me- nope. that's norway.

him- what?! that's the name of a city? norway, are you sure?

me- no, oslo is in norway.

him- and it's a city in switzerland?

me- no, oslo is in a different country and that country is called norway. I think the answer is zurich. (looking at back of card) no, it's bern.

him- did you say 'burn'? like you knew zurich so you totally burned me?

me- yes