Melissa Dunphy

My head aches, my sinuses are blocked, I can't think, and to top it off, I have conjunctivitis - my first ever case! According to my internet-researched self-diagnosis, the variety of conjunctivitis I exhibit is viral. This means that green pus does not come out of my eye, which is actually a little disappointing. Also, there is no cure; I just have to wait it out. Since it doesn't really hurt or itch, the most annoying thing about having conjunctivitis is that every five minutes, someone feels the need to run up to me, point at my eye, and inform me that I have conjunctivitis. I only wish the disease were more socially embarrassing so people would shut up about it.

In conclusive proof of my lack of brain power, this morning on the way to school, I clipped a curb I have never clipped before, chipped my wheel, and destroyed my tire. Two firsts in one day! Never before have I had a flat tire (aside from that one time some punks in Summer Hill slashed my tires - possibly the same punks who firebombed my next car).

However, thanks to the uplifting power of cold medication (oh ephedrine, if only you didn't cause psychosis, I would be a happy and boundlessly energetic person 24 hours a day), none of this can possibly get me down! Tonight I am recording the first part of our entry into the Prairie Home Companion talent quest. On the radio, nobody can tell that you have conjunctivitis!

I am halfway through Matthew Polly's book American Shaolin, and it is a wonderful read! (And not just because the author came to my blog and told me so, wahaaaah! The power of Google Blog Search revealed.) I was looking over a paper I wrote the other day, however, and I decided that my tone has become too colloquial to satisfactorily call myself a wanker, so last night I purchased the first three volumes of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. (I actually bought it in English, because I can't understand a word of French, but gosh, don't I sound like a wanker saying À la recherche du temps perdu.) When I'm done, I'll give you a summary. In song.

This is the second time I have referenced that particular Monty Python sketch on this blog in a month.

Speaking of Monty Python (another side effect of ephedrine is that I talk too much), I heard Ira Glass on Fresh Air the other day talking about how the new television adaptation of This American Life has a wonderful new and original take on the host's introduction: the host will sit at a desk, but the desk will be in all manner of crazy locations, such as on a mountainside, or on a factory floor. The host will never acknowledge his situation. Perhaps by "new and original," they meant "popularized in nearly every episode of a thirty-year-old cult television program which ran for four seasons." I dunno. Maybe I'm not qualified to comment; I don't even have a television. I guess that's why I'm always talking about things I heard on the fucking radio.

• Some lucky kid with cancer might soon have the opportunity to swim in Stephen Hawking's vomit.

Labels: books