This, That, and The Other Thing

So.  It appears I DO have a cold.  I have been keeping away from the kitchen as Matt is making goodies to take to church tomorrow.  I have only been in there to have a soda handed to me.
It is surreal how my head feels right now.  There seems to be an ocean in there, and the tide goes in and out on a whim.  I hear it, and feel the pressure in my head.  Also, just as soon as I am convinced that the medicines I took have kicked in, the nose will start trying to drip, I will sneeze repeatedly, and the roof of my mouth AND the insides of my ears will itch.  (I guess it still could be allergies, but I really doubt it)  It sometimes feels like I am going back and forth between two dimensions...
Guess I won't be auditioning for any solos on Tuesday night.  If the ears don't clear, there is NO WAY I'm going to be able to sing.  Tallulah hasn't shown up, but her evil henchmen have.  (Congestion plays havoc with resonance and the musculature used in singing.  Also, ear congestion can get painful when you try to sing, and the sense of pitch is adversely affected.)
There is an online Beauty and the Beast "convention" going on right now.  It's called Winterfest Online, and it is a great deal of fun.  I have read stories, played games, chatted with other fans, looked at art work, watched fan made videos, there are even round robin stories you can add to if you want.  (I can't write fiction worth beans, so I'm not even going to try, but I want to read the finished stories!)
There are some extremely talented people in this fandom.  They are really nice, too.  More nurturing of newbies than most Star Trek fan groups are.
It's February already.  How the heck did THAT happen?  Did somebody mess with the TARDIS and speed this timeline up or something?  Or is it just that time escapes more quickly because I am older now?  I remember when I was a kid, it seemed like FOREVER between Christmas and my birthday.  Now, it zooms past in the blink of an eye.  (Ooh.  Said blink.  Don't blink, not if you're a Whovian and there are Angels nearby!) (I've had several antihistamines today.  Can you tell?)
Oh, yeah.  I think I have laundry going, too.  Guess I should go check on it...
OK, I'm back.  Dryer still needs a few minutes.
I have a couple of books going at the moment.  One is the latest of one of the series I follow, but I haven't been able to get into it much yet.  The other is Dave Barry's new book Insane City.  It is really funny.  It also has some sad parts.  Amazingly enough, there is more to it than a series of jokes.  I seem to remember that quality in his last novel.  It has been a LOONG time since I read that one.  And I read so much.  Between the fan fiction, the non-fiction and the series mysteries, I am surprised I can keep  anything straight in my brain anymore.  But Insane City is turning out to be strangely compelling.  Not riveting, not so that I can't stop reading and must continue no matter what, but I must go back and read some more, mull that over, perhaps laugh out loud a few times, read some more and wonder when it stopped being all about the gags.  Good job, Mr. Barry.  If I can follow your writing and enjoy it, and find myself thinking about it when I am on THIS much antihistamine, you have really done a good job.
The other books I am currently reading are Phillip DePoy's December's Thorn, which I am sure is a good book, just not one I have had the chance to spend a lot of time with yet.  I am also reading The Mole People about the homeless in New York's subway tunnels.  (Sound familiar to any BATB fans out there? Well, this is a serious look at a real tunnel society, or societies, and none of them as nurturing as the tunnel society WE love.)  The author is Jennifer Toth, and it was published in1993.  I am also reading, in bits and pieces, Anna Quindlen's Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.  There are also all of the Lord Peter/Harriet Vane mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers on my Nook waiting for me to re- read them.  It;s been awhile.

So, that's about all for me today.  Nothing very organized, I'm afraid.  I blame the antihistamines and the germs having a party in my head.  Gotta go check on that dryer again.  Something more coherent in a day or two, I hope.