What doesn't kill me...

... has no impact at all?

I realized today that this is in fact how I see things. If I am not completely knocked down by something, then I should be fine. As if there's no middle ground.

I realized this after spending the morning asleep. As I mentioned last week, I've got a cold. It started to get better but then got stuck. I have a stabbing pain in my right cheekbone (thank you, sinuses), a hacking cough, and a sore spot on my right side which I think is from too much coughing and nose blowing.

But enough about me, how are you doing?

I was determined to work today. "I need to." Mr. W said I should rest. "I don't want to." "Well, you should."

FINE. So I lay down on the couch at about 10:30, figuring I'd be bored shortly. Sure enough, I heard the living room clock chime 10:45. OK, I'll stay here until 11 then get up and work.

The next thing I heard was the clock chiming 11:45. Hmm. Then 12:30 and nothing in between. Then 1.

I tend toward the "what are all these random things doing in the same place?" kind of dreams, and this was no exception. First, I had made some major changes to Aardvark's manuscript on paper and was dragging it around with me in one of two backpacks (with, inexplicably, a glass vase in there too). I eventually misplaced it, after a strange scene involving military men facing each other playing flutes and trading the flutes every few bars, and couldn't find it. I wasn't panicking, though; whenever I realized it was gone I just thought, "Well, I did it once, I can do it again."

I think that was the pre-11:45 dream. Later, I was following a man and what I recall as a dancing horse up a steep hill. At the top, they vanished and I was left looking down on a staircase. The thing started out steep, then became vertical, and then actually bent under itself so I couldn't see the stairs any more. At the bottom of that was a huge jump across to a platform that would let me climb back UP stairs and continue on my way.

There were spectators nearby, joking around and insisting I could do it and all that, and then someone yelled, "Make way for the children!" and a herd (pack? bunch? collection?) of penguins came marching around the corner.

The corner that was the alternate to the stairs and the jump and the stairs. Off to the side, where I hadn't looked, there was an easy, even paved, path to get where I wanted to go.

So I went, and eventually realized one of those spectators had my backpack. I turned around to go back and the penguins were following me and pecking at my legs and jumping up to wrap strands of my hair around my neck and try to strangle me, but I kept going.

I wish I could say I triumphantly grabbed the backpack, but I don't remember.

What I DO remember is seeing that alternate path and thinking, "There's another way. Remember to CHECK for one!"

It was after I got up and was making lunch that I realized I'm too insistent on "my way or the highway". This CAN be a good thing but not when my way involves plowing through being sick or refusing to acknowledge that I need a rest. Perseverance in the face of not feeling like working? Bring it on. Perseverance in the face of STILL having chills and a sore throat? Maybe not.

Mr. W was right. I HATE it when that happens. :)