Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I started to develop an awful sore throat, and it got progressively worse all day. I stopped on the way home and bought orange juice and "Power C," which is a super-fortified juice drink, and carrot juice, and I took a couple of Vitamin C tablets, and I've been pumping myself full of orange things, but I fear it's too late.

I was even doing a mantra (actually, singing along with a CD) in the car this morning on the way to work, before I knew anything was even happening--"Om Ham Hanumate Namaha," which is purportedly for "vibrant good health" or something like that, although admittedly I just chose that one because I like the way it sounds.

I'd love to stay home from work tomorrow and curl up under an afghan with a book and a cat, but I know I won't. I never do. I have to be pretty far gone before I'll actually take a sick day. And really, I don't have any sick days per se, I just have a bank of "paid days off," which encompass both sick days and vacation days, and include holidays, even. So I always feel like if I do take a sick day, that's one less vacation day I have.

Even when I had jobs that had built-in sick days, I'd never take them, then I'd feel resentful of the people who did, because quite a lot of people just used them as extra vacation days. I always felt it would be tempting fate to do that myself, because I thought at least if something catastrophic happened to me, I'd have all this sick leave built up, which is, of course, the purpose of it, i.e., if something awful happened, I'd have full pay for longer than someone who had used all theirs up and had to go on short- or long-term disability sooner.

Of course, nothing ever happened, and I'd leave jobs with months of sick leave piled up. I remember calculating shortly before I left my last long term job that I could have been off for three months at full pay. Of course, I'd have to get sick to do it, and I just don't get sick. Well, except for now, of course.

Oh well. I'll struggle through it. I'll go to bed early tonight, and maybe tomorrow I'll feel better.

I ordered some more memory for my Mac today. The only thing I really need more memory for is The Sims, but since I have so much fun with it and enjoy it so much, and memory is so cheap right now, that I told myself it was worth it, and I went ahead and ordered it. I got 128 MB for $59, which I think was a pretty good deal. That will double my memory, and I hope it will help--the game's been crashing sometimes now when I save it, which I assume is because there's so much data in there now.

I also need to defragment the hard drive, and I need to upgrade the OS, but I think I'll wait until the weekend. That sounds a little too stressful for me tonight.