I am the first person to admit that I am really bad at the whole pills and medication thing. You give me something to take every day and it will last about twice as long as it should. I don't remember, I don't bother. I've always been relatively healthy so I just don't stress too much about stuff like that. (When and if I ever need birth control? Not going to rely on the pill. Not if it is up to me to take them.)

So I have some prescription anti-inflamatories for a continuing knee problem that I have. I am under the doctor's orders to take them "when it flares up" so already I am great because I can't mess up the whole taking pills on schedule thing. No problem, right? Well, these poills came with tons of other little instructions. Each one another sticker on the bottle. Some of the stickers wouldn't fit so there is this little sticker flap attached to the side of the bottle. How do I measure up? Let's see...

Limit alcohol use while taking this drug. Daily use of alcohol may increase the risk of stomach bleeding. Good thing I don't drink alcohol daily anyway. I did have half a glass of wine yesterday.

Do not take aspirin without the knowledge and consent of your physician. Cool then. I'll stick with Advil.

Take with food or milk. Um, I ate some toast an hour or so ago.

Take this medicine with a full glass of water. Does half a can of Squirt count?

May cause drowsiness of dizziness. Not so that I have noticed.

So I guess I'm not horrible. But on the other hand, I pretty much know that I should go back to the doctor because it still hurts after months and I'm pretty sure he said to come back if it didn't go away. Plus after a really long hike I did last month it hurts more and in a slightly different way. But I haven't been doing the physical therapy either and I feel bad going back to the doctor when I didn't follow instructions in the first place. So, plan: do physical therapy as instructed (every day) for a month and bug the nice sports med doctor after that if nothing changes.

I hope this doesn't sound insufferably snotty, but seriously, if you apply for a job and are contacted by someone saying they want to do a phone interview, wouldn't you consider it somewhat basic to maybe, I don't know, look up the company for which you are interviewing? Yes, I know, I didn't give a ton of notice for when the interview itself was, but you got the email saying I wanted to call you, *you* suggested the next day. I expect you to have some clue as to which company you are interviewing with.

I don't particularly love the whole interview proces to start with. I hate talking on the phone. So when I am doing screening interviews, you gotta do something to make me interested in you. Anything. When asked why you applied to this particular position at this particular company, answering that you saw the position listed on craigslist so you sent your resume in is... not what I'm looking for. When I ask if you are familiar with our product, asking what product that is again... not wowing me with your interest or enthusiasm. So, blech. And I'm too nice (a.k.a. wimpy) to say "forget it" right then and there so I had to suffer through 15 minutes of trying to pretend I'm interested and then promise that I will get back to you after we have weighed the relative merits of everyone we're talking to.

Also, today? Not going well. Nothing earth shattering. Except they cancelled Joan of Arcadia and now I will never know how or when or if Kevin walks again much less if he dances at his wedding. I won't get to see what happens to Grace and Luke. I won't see Lily or hear her down to earth observations. Adam will forever be a schmuck in my mind because he was never given enough time to redeem himself and that is just sad because I don't want him to be what the writers made him in the last few episodes when he was so not that in the year and a half before that. This was a show that made you think. It talked about faith without being schmaltzy. It didn't claim to have all the answers. It had great actors and actresses. I cared about the characters. They never pretended that any of them were perfect when they weren't (um, hello Rory!) and I liked them all the more for that.

I'm not normally a nerd. Well, okay, I am frequently a little nerdy, but I generally read books without feeling compelled to make vocabulary lists. Really, I do. Except for books that my book club reads. For those I break out the dictionary. Now in a book about the making of the OED, you'd think the list would be longer than, say, the list for a Nero Wolfe mystery (Some Buried Caesar). But no. They are about the same length. Anyway, here are some of the fascinating words found in The Professor and the Madman:

lexicography - process of writing, editing, or compiling a dictionary
louche - of questionable taste or morality
wen - harmless cyst, especially on scalp or face (ewwwww...)
lubricious - shifty or tricky
reify - to regard or treat an abstraction as if it had concrete or material existence (I knew that!)
postlapsarian - after The Fall (as in the fall of Adan and Eve)
tocsin - a warning; an omen; an alarm sounded on a bell
pudicity - modesty, chastity
fascicle - small bundle; one of the parts of a book published in separate sections
rebarbative - tending to irritate
argot - specialized vocabulary or set of idioms used by a particular group, jargon

Priapism you can look up for yourself. Suffice to say that you learn surprising things when reading about the making of the OED.

Back again, after another year long break (or almost a year anyway). My weight is up. 178. Which isn't exactly a personal high, but it is close. Yuck. Also -- I am so tired making value judgements about everything I eat. So much so that it is becoming counter-productive. As in "I know it is *wrong* to eat this brownie but I want it and you can't stop me na na na boo boo." Gack! Could I live without the brownie? Yes. Do I eat a brownie every day? No. It's complicated. And a huge pain.

Anyway...

I am really tired today because I stayed up super-late last night reading. I swear, I need some sort of keeper. Something that makes books somehow inaccessible after a certain hour. 3 a.m. Ludicrous. And not only am I tired, but I have been on the verge of a cold for several days. Was finishing some random Greg Iles book worth getting sick? NO.