cold_comfort epitome of incomprehensibility Sunday, given a choir practice and outdoor art exhibit, the subject walked around a lot, not overly bothered by the salty nasal drip - clear snot as if allergy-generated, but with a steady sinus heaviness and a throat seemingly parched. At night she woke up in the dark, confused by the feeling of a grain of sand in her throat below the uvula, and trying to relate that to the Tetris-like early dream. The grain was painful and more tangible than an image. The next time she woke with a pain in her neck and removed the American poetry anthology from under her pillow. There was enough light to file it in its rightful gap on the bookshelf. She doubled up her pillow and closed her eyes to the headache. In the day she tried to comfort her cold. A hot bath with unnecessary hair-washing; a children's book on Roberta Bondar's space shuttle flight, written by the astronaut's sister; a seat outside in the semi-shade, slowly filling a notebook with first-person meandering attributed to another, more convincing, character - all these fulfilled their purpose of being actions other than nose-blowing. Tea, tea, lactose-free yogurt, peaches and plums, radio, no radio, nonsense, no-nonsense, hyphens, adjectives. It's been six months since the last one. It was about time. (Last adjective? Misplaced modifiers more like. One needs a minor respiratory-tract virus to get nostalgically nonsensical.) But it does make you feel slightly colder. That part is true. How it does that without a fever is beyond me. Maybe it's something to do with the inner ear? No, I'm thinking of the space shuttle again. 140908 ... e_o_i Short version: I have a cold, but at least I got some writing done. ("There, there," says the teacher, each "there" like a pat on the back, "was that so hard to say?") 140908 ... unhinged impermanence 140909 what's it to you? who go blather from