Just chalk a cross on the door and pass us by

We ail, we in this house. Karen woke up with a headache and stayed home sick, though she is working regardless. I now have a headache of my very own, despite having swallowed all the medications, all of them. As you know, Bob, I am terribly brave in many ways, but I hate it when my head hurts. And now there's nothing more I can do until the clock says I may swallow more of these ineffective pills, and waaah.

I too am doing stuff regardless, but it's not exactly creative. I'm suggesting cuts in a story of K's, and trying to decable my desk, and - oh, all sorts of ways I can find to continue not to do my urgent accounts.

There is really no point having a huge desk if it is permanently cluttered. I want a clean sweep, bow to stern (I may be reading too much Patrick O'Brian, who does delight in using common-to-us phrases in their original context; who knew - before they read O'Brian - that this one had to do with stripping out bulkheads and cabin furniture in order to fight the ship? That's if it really does, of course. He might have made that up). That's not actually achievable, but I have spent the last couple of months with my computer on the desk and all its wiring running hither and yon, "just until I have the dual-boot set up the way I want it". Now I do, more or less. Now I really shouldn't need to touch the box at all, beyond turning it on first thing in the morning; so it can go down in the space I left for it, between the desk and the wall, and most of the cables can be rehung or restrung or invisibilised. So, yeah. Lots of unplugging and crawling around lies ahead of me. Oh joy. [EtA: also, I shall respray all the cabling as I lay it, in hopes of dissuading Barry from chewing through it.]

I wonder if the computer is actually making more noise, since I moved it; or if it's using the drawer-well that side of the desk as a soundbox; or if it's simply resonating within the canyon there, between desk and wall? Maybe I'll get used to being droned at. Or maybe it's the same noise it's always made, and my bad head is making me more sensitive than hithertofore. (That's what we call a compensation: how often do you get to use a word like hithertofore, without even needing to think about it?) (In slightly connected news, I am increasingly distressed by the increasing endangerment of the word "twice". It's a wonderful handy word, and far more euphonious than "two times", which is just ugly in almost all contexts. I was about to say "except in the times tables," only then I remembered that we learned our times tables with twice: "once two is two, twice two is four, three twos are six," and like that. Kids these days don't seem to know the word exists. It probably sounds as old-fashioned as "thrice" - which even I only use ironically, or for other effect - but I want it back, I want to see it reclaimed. Also, you can get off my lawn any time now, that'll be fine.)