sickness also simplifies. the key is to give into it. you have to love your sickness: the going to bed at 9 p.m., the inability to conduct phone conversations (hey, you never really liked them anyway), the fact that it requires you an hour and a half to eat a plain bagel, the fact that if all you have the energy to do is lie around you may as well catch up on all that tv and all them movies you'd been starved for in copenhagen. you have to love that you can read without guilt (presently, as sir don, tho as amusing as i remembered, was a little heavy -- literally: the only edition we have is a super-hardback, which is why i couldn't lug him to europe -- , the history of danish dreams by peter hoeg. oh, i can't do the little slash-o anymore. oh i may cry.

the point is, sickness has perks. i can't remember the last time i went four days eating so little. while in some respects it's killer seeing the container of oatmeal raisin cookies my mother bought specifically for me on my return and know i can't indulge, i also feel very buddhish. maybe that's just the malnutritioned lightheadedness talking, but who's to say? the doctor thinks i have a stomach infection; various nonessential parts of me are undergoing tests. meanwhile i'm just floating around. i watched jedi yesterday -- there was one terrific line that now i fear i've forgotten. oh! i remember (and am grinning again): "now you will pay for your lack of vision!" genius.