The sickness did not go away as I hoped. Yes, I’m wasting more time with irrelevant discussions. While clicking around today, I found a blog with a Christmas post. In it the author wrote that he provided personal information only once a year, during Christmas. He added that he was not one of those people who wrote “what he ate for breakfast” and “what type of socks” he wore each day. (The rest of the time he provided important links to humor websites—clearly a much better use of his time.)

Am I turning into one of those people? With these long entries, I’m beginning to wonder if this is the direction I really want to take. I’m wearing tan socks, for the record. My socks are thick and match most of my khaki pants, except for the khaki pants I packed for Dallas. These pants are darker and more brown than tan. I still wear the socks, but I’m more self conscious of their color. As for breakfast—it was more at lunchtime—it was a one-time box of cheerios with a surprisingly small plastic spoon. I didn’t even know they made such tiny spoons. Doolies bought the cheerios for me sometime over the last couple of days. I can’t seem to remember exactly when. I’m sure if I had that information and shared it with my dear readers it would be very useful, and it would not in any way turn me into one of those people.

I feel a bit loopy from the DayQuil. Doolies has been drugging me. I was coughing and sneezing all day and congested. I woke with a bit of a headache along with the aforementioned symptoms. Two oversized DayQuil pills made short work of the headache. I drugged myself once again in the afternoon. My congestion lessened but my sneezing and coughing did not. Did you know that they changed the rules on covering your mouth when you sneeze and cough? I learned as a child that an open hand or a closed fist were both acceptable. It turns out that that is no longer the case. You now have to sneeze and cough into the crook of your elbow, with your mouth covered by your arm. It turns out—and this makes an incredible amount of sense, almost to the point that you have to wonder what the doctors and parents were thinking—that sneezing into your hand, and then shaking other people’s hands or touching objects that other people touch, is not very sanitary. And, to go further, actually spreads germs, which in turn spreads disease. It’s amazing what a little science can teach you.

As I sit here finishing this writing (I would have finished earlier, but I got into a heated debate on spirituality and then political science with Doolies’s middle sister), Doolies is threatening to take my NyQuil away. She claims I’m not sick enough to drink it. Clearly this is not the case. All day I’ve been very much looking forward to my binging on NyQuil. It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world to wake after a night’s rest amplified by NyQuil, especially if you can wake, turn over, and fall back to sleep to your heart’s content—which, seeing as I’m on vacation, is what I plan to do. Doolies is sleeping now and will have no control over the suggested dosage. After I finish up this entry and post it, it’s off to NyQuil land for me.

We went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere about what Jews do on Christmas Eve. There were carolers at the restaurant, moving from table to table to try to collect donations for some charity related to a flood. (It wasn’t clear what flood they were raising money for.) Many of the tables were taken up by Jews (and other Asian people), and they didn’t have much luck. All in all, they were not very impressive for carolers. When they did sing they were not very talented. And they didn’t even bother dressing the part. The only concession one of the two singers made was to wear a Santa hat.

I rushed through some of these words to watch rented movies. It turned out that my impromptu debate with Doolies’s sister negated the movie plan. I did have big writing plans today. It turned out (lots of turning today) that I never did get around to implementing them. Isn’t that the story of my life? I’ll see if I can at least put a description around my plans so it won’t be a completely wasted day.