12 November On Wednesday it was 78°. Yesterday it was 48°. Today I have pneumonia. Actually, it's just a cold, but honestly, I've already been sick this fall, and I had a flu shot! Isn't my childlike faith in flu shots adorable, year after year when I just keep on being sick anyway? Yesterday I babysat Bonnie on my lunch hour while Cynthia auditioned, and the child was in a very giggly, fun mood even though she was having another one of her neverending colds, with a crusty nose and a giant eye booger. I complained to Cynthia that I was perfectly fine until I held her child for an hour, and then I was immediately ill! "Well," she said, "I think that the incubation period is just a trifle longer than that!" What up with these people who see you reading and think that it's only because you have no-one to talk to? Let alone the people who think that if you like to read, then you like all books. I was in the lobby of my office the other morning, when the guard asked me "So, what are you reading now?" Silently, I showed him the cover of the next to last Betsy-Tacy book, Betsy and the Great World, and assumed that that was the end of that. GUARD Have you read Mick Foley's book? ME Who? GUARD The wrestler, Mankind, he wrote a book. It's on the New York Times bestseller list, you should read it! Who on earth would see a person reading the girliest children's book in all the land besides possibly Pollyanna and recommend a wrestler's autobiography? Presumably an illiterate. Earlier this week, I had a great craving for a grilled cheese sandwich with ham and tomato, so I went across the street to the deli (that is actually about 50 yards up the block and across the avenue, but for some reason we always say "across the street") and said to the counter man, "I'd like a grilled ham cheese and tomato, please!" COUNTER MAN On a hero? ME (confused) Nooooo... COUNTER MAN On a roll? ME (even more confused) Nooooo... COUNTER MAN On white? ME (relieved) Yes! So I leaned against the wall and read while he fixed my sandwich. When he gave it to me, I have a premonition, so I opened it up and looked at it, and it was a nasty raw sandwich with uncooked bread! He had grilled the ham, but not the sandwich, so I asked him to grill the sandwich and he just put it on the grill as-is and I was looking at it sort of horrified, and when he turned it over it looked so icky that I just told him to forget it. But before I left... ME What did I say wrong? What didn't you understand? COUNTER MAN You asked for a ham and cheese sandwich! ME I asked for a grilled ham cheese and tomato sandwich. You made me one last week and we didn't have this problem! COUNTER MAN You wanted grilled cheese sandwich? You should have said grilled cheese sandwich! So it all comes from saying ham first rather than cheese. They are very precise at our deli across the street. Fran and I had our first read-through for our show last night. This living in the same house as the director thing really works out well for having impromptu rehearsals. It's only eight pages long, but it's eight pages of me talking. And with a clearly marked trap of easily being all on one shrewish level. But I think it will be fun. In the stage directions it says that she is "in her early twenties, but looks much older." Lucky for me, huh? Phew! Sigh. Here's the message that I just sent to Columbine, Patrick, Jette and my friends Robert and Kerri. "It has occurred to me that, since my show is opening on the 30th and I can't really start rehearsals until next Thursday, since two of my actors are in a show until then, that only leaves me eight days of rehearsals if I spend three days in Boston. I really can't do that. It breaks my heart, but I need to stay in New York for Thanksgiving. Of course, I can come to Boston for a long weekend the beginning of next year or something, but I will miss Jette. So I guess she'll have to come back again!" I am annoyed that it worked out this way, that I didn't realize to start with that it would be like that, and I planned to go anyway, but this morning I realized that I need to be an adult about it, that I don't want to do a half-assed job with this show that I love, and neither do I want to let my cast down, so I need to give up my long-standing plans. Dammit. Today's horoscope: Literature or media may offer ideas or spark an interest. Be open to the new and different in discovering paths to pleasure. One year ago today: Now we know why you have so much soap! * Yesterday / Index / This Month / Tomorrow * E-Mail Whole new way of looking at life by: Michael Moore! This page was written by hand. My hand. Only pussies use HTML editors. Last Updated Fri 12 November 08:36:09 1999