this is the most strength I've been able to muster in days so I might as well use it

Day 6. Still not teh prettiest king.

The week slammed me hard. Cat goes missing, shake-up at work means major internal changes (but no loss of job, thankfully, knock on wood) and the stress created by all this caused my immune system to say "screw this for a game of soldiers" and up and run to Tahiti which in turn causes the viral whatsits to then go "C'MON IN, BOYS, THE COAST IS CLEAR" and knock me flat on my ass.

This, by the way, is an actual diagnosis in actual medical terms and I should know because I saw it once on an episode of House. It was the one where there was this guy, see, and he was sick, and neither House nor his team of filthy assistants knew what to do about it, and House spends most of the episode annoying Cuddy and berating one or all of his filthy assistants (in sequence even) but they don't get anywhere near to saving the guy's life until near the end of the episode when House goes over to pester Wilson, and Wilson says something like "As much as I'd like to continue this amazingly poignant philosophical conversation, House, I've got one of those, you know, whatsits to attend..." which causes House to perk up like a cocker spaniel who just heard a Snausage drop to the floor five rooms away, and he hobbles in to the patient's room and goes "Check for viral whatsits!!" just in time and they check and what do you know, the guy's got viral whatsits all over him, and hooray the day is saved, here, House, have a Vicodin treat. Nom nom nom.

So I've got viral whatsits all over me and I've gotten to the point where Theraflu doesn't actually taste like ass anymore, and that's pretty much because the dextromethorphan in it KILLS YOUR TASTE BUDS DEAD but boy howdy my sinus passages are now amazingly free from blockage and I see all sorts of pretty things when I shut my eyes. Thursday was one of those days where everybody I met at the office said "Good lord, you [look|sound] like hell, go home" so I did. Turns out my voice ran off with the immune system to Tahiti, and neither of those rotten bastards has yet to send a postcard, the ungrateful wretches. After all I've done for them! All those antioxidants! Friday I don't remember much of except that I discovered the oatmeal-in-a-cup that I had purchased on Thursday with the express intent of eating it while at work, only I left too soon to go on break and eat it so I brought it home with me but that meant I could now eat it on Friday, and that pretty much was the Highlight Of The Day. Gold star. Today I haven't done much but I did watch some stop-motion Lego animations set to Eddie Izzard routines, so I can't honestly write the day off as a total loss.

Still no sign of Mr. The Cat, though there have been a lot of people helping the search while I'm stuck face-down in the bed with an arm dangling off and muttering something about goddamned bat country, and I really appreciate the rallying that you all have done 'round the fuzzball flag. Thank you very much. I'm continually telling myself the cat is fine and that he hasn't disappeared off the face of the earth; he's somewhere and now all that remains is to figure out where that where is. It's simple philosophies like these that keep a man going sometimes. ratatosk has taken up coordination of the search-and-recovery efforts so if you want to know the latest plans, he's the guy to go to. I think the next step involves moving the litterbox and maybe using some kind of cat pheromone, I don't know, to get him to go "Oh! Yeah! There's the house I want!" without, well, making the other neighborhood cats go "Oh! Yeah! There's the house we want!" I only want one cat back; I don't need a whole basketball team.

Okay. I think I'm losing it again. Time to toddle back upstairs and make friends with Pillow and the Blankets. I sort of gleaned from the comments in the last entry that the lost cat word files were comin out kinda weird, so ratatosk has created another one in Adobe Acrobat format which may prove easier to print out and distribute. I am grateful for the efforts underway especially in Memphis, Tennessee, for I know that one of Abbie's greatest dreams was to one day visit Graceland and with this newfound exploratory freedom he may have done so, especially if it meant hoppin' freight trains across the Alleghenies and down into Delta country (n.b. Abbie, do not eat any of the Peabody Hotel ducks.)

See you on the other side of a nap.