Feeling crummy with two enormous swollen lymph nodes and a sore throat. My ears threaten to slip into infection, my energy lapses into nothingness, I wear no underwear all day under my pajamas. My cat tiptoes across the lawn. My husband has taken to wearing a blue and white sweatband on his right forearm–just cuz he likes it. The floor needs vacuuming, the tomatoes are surprised by the sudden rain, our inside temperature reaches 66 degrees. No way am I turning on the heat in August, I think, and when I sit outside I realize it is warmer there then in the living room. We watch the Olympics all weekend long–the swimmers are glorious in HD. Josh makes pancakes for the first time from my father’s recipe. They are delicious, the blueberries spurting. I make cookies as an apology for a bunch of drama that happened at the theater on Friday. I feel bad. On Saturday I woke up too early after a night of fretting, stewing, and worrying about being disliked. I woke up to rain and realized I had to get on a boat and ride into Lake Union for a video shoot in an hour (how fancy does that sound?!) 9am and I am barely talking. I can’t believe I am standing at the water’s edge in a wonderful Bolivian skirt dressed like an immigrant with a light panel aimed at my face. Despite the beginning of a very swollen lymph node I have a wonderful Saturday morning on the water. It is dark and cloudy during the ‘immigrant’ shooting and sunny as soon as we switch into our Freedom Dancer clothes. I stand in front of a flapping American flag while my friends hum, “Coming to America” and the camera starts rolling. I eat mounds of Trader Joe’s chocolate cat cookies. I wear the sparkly pink hot pants that Abby bought for my birthday–God I would have loved those pants ten years ago at the height of my Origami Girl fame. I am reading an anthology of the Best Comics of 2007 and loving it. I have a box of performance art props in my office waiting to be played with again. I slow down…I slow down all weekend long.