Sick Day Liveblogapalooza ... er, not so much

I've got pills and sprays and slips of paper that will entitle me to more pills tomorrow when I go to the pharmacy. And of course I can't feel the medicinal effects yet, but I can tell you that there is squishy stuff sloshing around in my right ear every time I move. I lie down, it squeaks and slides its way toward the back of my head. I stand up, it squeaks and slides its way toward my neck. It's disgusting.

My day — which started abruptly at 5 a.m. — has been spent, for the most part, in the apartment, watching the dismal morning and afternoon television offerings. I have waited with muted anticipation for a good video to come on either VH1 or MTV during their asscrack-of-dawn-video-slots. I have squirmed during an embarrassing video by some band called Hinder. I have watched as CNN has cycled through the same string of three stories TEN TIMES. I have marveled at Robin Meade's unbelievably shapely eyebrows. I have half-listened to the president of this country mumble his way through another pointless speech. I have caught up on the last few episodes of that Celebreality atrocity, "Flavor of Love." I have returned to the apartment after a trip to the doc's to find the news suddenly shift to the plane crash in New York and, subsequently, the death of its passenger/pilot Cory Lidle.

And now it's 8:30, a time I'd normally be spending putting the finishing touches on my pages and printing out proofs for my editors, but I'm sitting at home, bored and coughing up unfathomable cellular mutations, hoping the bug busters take effect soon because I don't want to be sick the entire time October acts like Real Autumn, which really only happens every few years.