Now we are sick

That's me, trying to read Milne with this !#$% stuffed-up nose.

This was the sort of day in which you have to conclude that 2009 is just a mean, spiteful year that's trying to get its last jabs in. This was the sort of day for which I really did try to just hide in bed, until K tempted me out with H&H bagels (accidentally frozen, thawed, refrozen, rethawed, because the common-law in-laws we were visiting didn't have room in their freezer for them and they remained in the car trunk for several days, but you know what? Still miles above Harris Teeter.).

So let's review: big, ugly arguments with K last week; the first for us in a gratifyingly long time. To our credit, we stepped up to, but not into, the precipice before agreeing on the shape of the ensuing narrative ("I'll move out...you'll have a fling...I'll be angry until I counter-fling...the late-night phone calls will start...the calls will lengthen...I'll move back in...you know what? Let's just not do this." [E agrees, though not until after a quick assessment of the hedonic value of the most likely fling-ees.]). Peace is restored, but at the cost of an unsettling sort of mutual wariness.

Next, we survive an overlong car trip to Long Island, where three hyperactive pre-teens summarily decide I am Yoko Ono to their relationship with their beloved Uncle K. That notwithstanding, K gets dragged off by said munchkins from the moment we open the door, abandoning me for the duration among the assembled adults to make my way, unguided, through the minefield of complex and apparently longstanding family dramas over the course of several days. (Upside: I am inspired to begin writing again...)

Even longer car ride home, during which I abruptly -- like someone flicking a switch -- go from perfect physical health to florid mucousity.

Last night, my beloved multi-functional iMac dies. We don't panic, because it does sometimes crash and then remain stubbornly quiescent for a period never exceeding six hours.

This morning: I groggily reach for my iPhone (like a [insert your own addict metaphor here]; I don't try to claim otherwise). There is a blast email from an also-ran ex, of the subset for whom but the narrowest twist of circumstance separates him from being who I wake up next to today. The email announces the birth of his second child. Who does not look like a newborn at all, but looks fully-formed, keen-eyed, and deeply complex. You can already see in his face the person he's going to become, and his own pedigree, the interesting-ness of his parents, writes his college application essays -- at a day old, a Harvard admission is his to lose. At the bottom of the email, I notice in the signature block that said ex has achieved a significant work promotion. In a field I really respect.

This isn't, strictly speaking, Erfolgtraurigkeit. I don't actually feel pain over his happiness, though it does invite an uncomfortable comparison with the state of my own life.

It was at this point that K leaped out of bed and to the study to re-try the computer. I strained to hear the reassuring chime, and heard only silence. It was also at this point that I attempted to burrow back under the covers with the intent of staying for a couple of days.

And have I mentioned that I'm buying a house? Which is going under contract (with various contingencies) to me at noon tomorrow? And that I understand just enough of the process to have it leap out at me when all the various players involved appear to be about to try to gratuitously extract some extra cash, but not well enough to know what to do about it? And that I suffer from moderate social anxiety and find few things more hellish than having to do these kinds of transactions with multiple players? And that I'm hesitant to ask K to play a larger role in the process lest the above-mentioned mutual wariness trigger a "yes, but should we really be buying a house right now at all?" conversation that will eventually and inevitably be resolved in the affirmative but that will cause us to lose the house in the meanwhile?

Achoo.