Hence the absence from work. It feels like the long week­end burned me out, and I need anoth­er one. Thank god it’s already Wednesday.

Really, it’s prob­a­bly just a mild stom­ach bug, caus­ing my body to reject every­thing but very dry, thin­ly sliced toast that comes in packs of eight, named after the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell. I sus­pect that I’ll also be able to con­sume col­la­gen processed from pork skin, cat­tle bones, and cat­tle hide, but I’m still wait­ing for it to set in the freez­er.

I feel so help­less when I’m like this. I gen­er­al­ly don’t wor­ry about much, but health is the only thing that I can’t look at cere­bral­ly. I’m not even com­fort­able writ­ing this. It just keeps mak­ing me think of how bad I feel. Too nau­se­at­ed to fall asleep. Too tired to do any­thing else.

I’m sick.

Going into work today was a mis­take. I’ll be stay­ing home tomor­row.

I’m sick. There’s been a virus going around, start­ed by Mr. Wheaties, prop­a­gat­ed by god-knows-what. Wheaties is over it now, and Nick and Trolley are just fin­ish­ing up. I woke up yes­ter­day with a very slight­ly sore throat, but this morn­ing the irri­ta­tion is much more dis­tin­guished. I don’t seem to be hav­ing any oth­er symp­toms though, such as a run­ny or stuffy nose, which are gen­er­al­ly extreme­ly com­mon for me. I’m begin­ning to sus­pect I may just have a throat infec­tion, but I won’t be able to tell any­thing until tomor­row. One thing is for sure though, with the rate that these symp­toms are spread­ing, I’ll be sick for a long time.

The good thing, if it can real­ly be con­sid­ered a good thing, is that I’ll be able to down some Neo Citran, which tastes like yum­my metal­lic lemon­ade, or god-awful what-the-fuck-did-you-do-to-these-cher­ries cher­ry juice. The best part is how well I sleep after Neo Citran makes me too drowsy to oper­ate heavy machin­ery.