That is ingenious, meara.

I will add this to my list of reasons to visit Seattle.

That week is too hard, brenda. I think project 4 may need to be interspersed with the other projects for retention of sanity.

Bad fiction contest winners: [link]

This is the "Vile Puns" winner:

I was in a back alley in Fiji, fighting desperately and silently for my life, fighting desperately for oxygen, clawing at the calm and almost gentle pressure of the fabric held over my face by implacable, ebony thighs when I realized -- he was killing me softly with his sarong.

This one (in the "Purple Prose" category) is good:

She had curves that just wouldn't quit, like on one of those car commercials where a stunt driver slides a sexy new sports car around hairpin turn after hairpin turn while some poor musician, down on his luck and having been forced to sell out his dream of superstardom for a lousy 30-second ad jingle, sings "Zoom, zoom, zoom" in the background.

I have a lot of research to do to figure out if I can afford to work at a place like USC, though. I'm unsure of the pay range for administrative staffers.

One thing about USC is excellent benefits. Another thing is that I would be able to have lunch with you once in a while.

ita, there is yummy--and cheap!--pho in your old neighb on SM Blvd. Mmm, now I want pho, except my body is having some weird water-retention thing going on and I suspect it may be the won ton soup I had yesterday.

the sick did not leave overnight. shocking. so I am still a giant snot monster, the throat is sore and the glands at the very back of jaw kinda under my ears are sore as hell - I think this means infection. I have flushed the sinuses - ugh - and taken both cold medicine and expectorant and am sucking down the nast zinc losenges since they make the throat tolerable. in 20 min I have to head out to the Y, I am dreading outside. Working out while mac is in class is right out, so I guess I'll take a book, but I bet I fall asleep.

oh msbelle. you poor thing. snot monstering is no fun. Can you sit in a steam bath at the Y? Might that help?

I think my cold is progressing -- I seem to be able to breathe through my nose, drug free, but I keep coughing up globs of nast. That's good, right??

Eeek, msbelle. It sounds more and more like a throat infection rather than just a cold. Warm salt water gargles?

I'm currently in class, although today is a work day, so I can goof off from time to time when I need a break....

In a miracle of miracles, with friends and coworkers and even my sister staying over being hosts to snot monsters I've been spared so far. I lose my voice from time to time with an uncomfortable to painful sore throat, but that's it.

Much sympathies to you, msbelle. I'd go ahead and sleep at the Y. It's not like sleeping ever made a cold worse, or anything.

Burrell, you don't happen to remember the name of the place, do you?

Ugh, not happy this morning. I'm feeling weirdly uneasy, like I did something stupid or left something important undone. And I really don't think I have, but I can't shake the feeling. And I've just had a massive toothache erupt, of course on the weekend. I just hope it doesn't get too bad before I can have something done about it.

OTOH, for the third time this month, it's nice enough outside that I've got the door propped wide open. Madness!