Let Your Heart Be Light

I'm trying to take that advice myself. I'm headed for home in the morning; hopefully by the time I get there all my troubles will be miles away. I hope the same is true of you, wherever you are and wherever you go. Love to all of you everywhere.

I Would Have Preferred the Boogie-Woogie Blues

I thought I'd killed the cold, but it never really went away. Mornings and evenings are the worst. If I sit still during the day, I'm fine except for occasional coughing fits. It's livable, if annoying. But the slightest exertion leads to coughing. This morning I ran up two flights of stairs to catch the train, sat down in the only available seat and spent the next ten minutes convinced I was going to die. I couldn't catch a breath. I sat thinking how pathetic it would be to black out and die on a CTA train, lying in the aisle in my four layers of clothes (it's f*%#ing freezing here), turning blue and waiting for someone to alert the operator and call for paramedics.

I am now halfway convinced I have pneumonia. And me with no health insurance to speak of, and, well, I've been broke before but rarely quite so much. WebMD tells me I need antibiotics for this. How much is that going to cost me? Any advice appreciated, particularly that of the you-don't-need-to-go-to-the-doctor-just-pick-up-this-cheap-and-painless-herbal/magic-remedy variety.

On other fronts, good progress on numbers 1-5. Christmas is too close. eXistenZ is a creepifying flick. Ken Liu's "State Change" in Polyphony 4 is a stunningly good short story.