Sick-day diary

I'm out of commission due to what feels like a really bad cold, but, in light of recent weather, may actually be malaria/yellow fever. This is my second sick day ever, and it sucks. (Also, if you're reading this and I had weekend plans with you, they're canceled.)

To ease the pain, I'm going to update this post throughout the day with a little bitching about TV shows.

• 6 a.m.-7 a.m.: Wake up early for illness-related reasons. Can't get back to sleep. Watch Mama's Family on TBS. Mama's Family doesn't seem as funny as it did when I was a kid. Some plotline involves kinky sex between Ken Berry and Dorothy Lyman, the former dressed like a bull and the latter like a matador. Yuck.
  
• 7 a.m.-7:05 p.m.: I haven't watched the Today show since high school. Back then, the first half-hour was hard news, followed by silly features, which is acceptable. Today, their fucking lead story was the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes engagement! What the fuck? And then there was all of this shit about earthquakes in California and how a few goods fell off grocery shelves, but no one was injured, and then they yellowed up the story by asking whether the "Big One" was next. All in five minutes. Fuck that show. It made the Styles sections look like The Economist. I guess that the key difference is we all can afford to lose the Today show, but not the Times.
• 9:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m.: Jerry Springer's program on "Air America" is lousy. He has a voice made for print, and nothing original to say. That's what you deserve, "Air America," for moving Rachel Maddow to 5 a.m. and underutilizing Chuck D. (More on this in a future post.)
  
• 10 a.m.-11:00 a.m.: Man, that show Dawson's Creek was a piece of work. I didn't know Katie Holmes was on it -- I always thought Wonder Boys was her big break, but I guess not. She was quite the pretty lady before she became corrupted by that lunatic Tom Cruise. (His behavior is killing my interest in War of the Worlds.) Now, back to Dawson's Creek: This show's lighting, music, editing, and dialogue appear to be heavily influenced by tampon commercials. Tampon commercials begat Dawson's Creek the way that The Aeneid begat The Divine Comedy. Now for the Aeneid/Dawson's hook: there is a lot of Dido music on the Dawson's Creek episode I'm watching. Later, the naked guy from The Dreamers makes a cameo appearance, and the lead character, Patrick Fartleby, watches The Last Picture Show, which is an excellent movie indeed. A doughfaced character named Pacey has been Frenching Katie Holmes, which upsets Fartleby. Suck it up, Pat.
  
• 11 a.m-11:30 a.m.: Bob Barker is timeless.
• 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.: Nap.
  
• 1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.: Cancel plans with a friend I haven't seen in a year. Buy and consume Alka Seltzer. I hate taking medicine, but Alka Seltzer helps.
  
• Ever think about how, for a pretty obscure name, Rosemary is used in a lot of songs? There's that Interpol song; "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes"; "Scarborough Fair." I'm leaving out others. Please contribute in the comments.
• 5:30-7 p.m.: Nap.
  
• Finally finished reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
• Watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on Tivo, and it was tremendous. Never read the books but the movies make me happy.
  
• As of 8:45 p.m., I'm feeling much better, though I won't be heading out tonight (or doing any boozing tomorrow night, either). Hopefully I can salvage part of the weekend, as well as spend a little time in the office to catch up on what I missed today. Thanks for reading and for the e-mails and comments. They eased by grouchiness.