*cough cough*

Here are the circumstances under which I actually kind of LIKE to take a sick day:

1. It's rainy outside and leaving the house would involve bundling up, carrying an umbrella, and possibly a change of shoes.
2. The illness is readily cured by over-the-counter drugs and home remedies like chicken soup, hot tea, wearing socks, taking a bath, wrapping a hot towel around your head, or pity.
3. The illness involves the following tolerable symptoms: sniffling, tiredness, fever, sore throat, sneezing, napping, or watching TV.

Here are the circumstances under which a sick day is no longer acceptable:

1. The sick day is actually three days.
2. The weather is in any way nice, not raining, cool, pleasant or otherwise agreeable.
3. The illness defies all classification/medication (defiance of medication, being the most annoying part).
4. The symptoms include a 72+ hour migraine which means light-sensitivity (which prevents the use of the TV, computers and books), aches, pains, and, if you're really unlucky anything involving vomiting, bathrooms, bleeding or anything else that might tempt you to call an ambulance, but in my case, just the Migraine and something crazy going on in my lymph nodes, which is enough.

I know I shouldn't admit it, but I really don't mind having an innocent little cold. But after three days, and the worst headache I have had in months, I am SO sick of this apartment and SO, SO sick of this headache. Besides literally being a pain, it's such a waste of time. Jana and I have been trying to study for the GRE every Monday and Wednesday and we've missed every day for three weeks--which is especially painful because the GRE costs $140 to take. YIKES.

On the bright side, before the attack headache struck, Alsn came to visit and she, Tim and I played tourist on Saturday. We went to the National Book Fesival, which was pretty much a totally loss because, well, there weren't any books. It was too hot and muggy to stand around listening to some author I've never heard of talk about PTSD, so we went to the National Gallery of Art instead. Alsn is absolutely, hands down, no question, my favorite person to look at art with, ever. Here's why: she makes art too, but she doesn't take it too seriously. She knows enough about a wide range of artists to enlighten every conversation without ever making me feel like an idiot, which is particularly hard, because I feel like I should know something about art but am usually faking, so it's not hard to make me feel like an idiot. Also she's funny. So thank god for that.

Afterwards, it was Scrabble. And I got royally beaten by both Alsn and Tim. It was a fluke. I'm not claiming it.

It was clearly a prodrome of my on-coming mega-headache. Which, btw, if this headache ever goes away, I challenge anyone to a rematch.