Sam I am

Late Sunday night, I started to get really tired. I assumed it was because I had stopped in at work. I made some dinner and went to bed at 10. On Monday, all of my joints were aching, and even though I had slept over eight hours, I was very tired. I had an important meeting at work, and dragged myself into the office. It was painful, literally, waiting for the meeting to finish. Not only was it getting harder and harder to think, but also I was having trouble sitting still and keeping my eyes open. I realized I had a fever, and that my heart kept beating faster every time I did or said anything. After the meeting, I hopped in a cab and sped home to bed.

I “slept” from 7 pm onwards on Monday. It wasn’t really sleeping as much as it was tossing and turning. The good news is that my fever broke over Monday night. The bad news is that it is Wednesday, and I am still exhausted. Writing this note alone takes effort. Yesterday, I phoned into a meeting; I’m not going to make that same mistake again today. It took too much out of me.

I hope I get over the flu soon. Everything I have seen on the web says that fatigue and malaise can last 7-10 days. I am going to call my doctor today to make sure there is nothing else I can do or should be doing.

I hate staying at home while not being able to do anything. I will miss my friend Harri’s dodo exhibit opening; I was supposed to go with my friend Dan who is in town from Chicago.

I’m assuming that the New York Times will fix this problem quickly, but it was amusing to read the following paragraph in the middle of an article on stifling discussion on climate change:

Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing soI said I’d indicate this to help inoculate her against later tsuris. – andy.

The article was written by Andrew Revkin; the last sentence is almost certainly supposed to be a non-printing editorial note from the author to the editor. The error is especially interesting to me as part of my job at Sports Illustrated and Time Inc. is to make sure that technical problems are never the cause of such a mistake. Good use of the word “tsuris,” though.

[Update: A new version has been posted without the editorial note less than 30 minutes after I sent the New York Times a note regarding this error.]

I sent the following letter to the editor of the New York Times this evening. I thought both columns and the referenced essay were very interesting and thought-provoking. You have to be registered to read the New York Times; in addition, you have to be a member of Times Select to read David Brooks’ columns. If you are a subscriber, you are a member of Times Select. Even if you don’t read Brooks’ column, I recommend reading both Terry Martin Hekker’s column and Linda Hirshman’s essay.

“The Year of Domesticity” versus “Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)”

To the Editor:

I found David Brooks’ column, “The Year of Domesticity” (Jan. 1), very interesting, especially as I had just finished reading “Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)” by Terry Martin Hekker (Modern Love column, Sunday Styles section, Jan. 1). While Mr. Brooks dismisses an essay by Linda Hirshman that exhorts women not to comprise their careers as “1975 time-warp feminism,” Ms. Hekker writes of the difficulty of being divorced and single after a life of raising children and being a housewife without a career. In addition, Ms. Hekker discussed how the column she wrote for the New York Times in 1977 regarding her fulfilling life as a housewife now makes her “cringe.” If anyone should be accused of having a view from the 1970s, it’s Mr. Brooks. Ms. Hekker needed 25 years and a divorce to realize that women need to have skills and experience beyond keeping a household and raising a family; how long will it take Mr. Brooks?

[contact information]

For the millions of people who read my blog, you can now send me feedback via the helpful comments function!

Tom Dowdy (a.k.a. Butter Pig) linked to a really interesting page of spices earlier today. It is a great site containing descriptions of thousands of spices.