So I’ve been sick for pretty much the entire month of September. After going to the doctor three separate times, I finally have a potential diagnosis: pertussis, AKA whooping cough. Let me tell you, whooping cough is not nearly as funny as its name makes it out to be. Last September it was H1N1, this September it’s pertussis. What will it be next September? Bubonic plague?

To be fair, I don’t actually know if I have pertussis. They took some nose drippings (seriously) and drew some blood to test for it, and I’ll have the results back in a few days. The good news is, now that I’m on the proper antibiotic, I’m no longer contagious. The bad news is, the complications that go along with pertussis kind of have me freaked out.

I’ll make another post giving the yea or nay on whether or not I have it, but in the meantime, if you’ve spent any time around me, you might want to read up on the symptoms to make sure you don’t catch it in case I have it.

Ear infection’s kicking my ass! I got prescribed an antibiotic and some eardrops for the pain. Eardrops don’t do crap! Switching to liquid diet soon.

Check out Janelle’s post on the best birthday cake ever. (It was my birthday cake.) If you sampled the cake, make sure to leave a review!

1. Give up a few drinks a month and spend $38 a month to sponsor a child in a foreign country.
2. Make your voice heard: write a letter to Congress. You’d be surprised how few they get and how much each one matters.
3. When you go to the supermarket, get your cart from the cart return in the parking lot. That’s one less cart the attendant will have to push back into the building. And always return the cart to either the cart return or the building.
4. Adopt a child.
5. If you’re married or otherwise attached, throw a Valentine’s Day party for all of your single friends.
6. Volunteer to teach some sessions at a job training center in a poorer part of town.
7. If a phone service rep for your cable company or something similar is helpful or does a good job, tell them. They never hear positive feedback.
8. Buy flowers or a gift for a loved one for no special occasion.
9. Keep a jar of candy stocked at your desk at work for anyone who wants it. You’ll make a lot of friends in the process.
10. If you want a pet, do a search of rescue shelters before going to a breeder.
11. Tip well, and be nice to the wait staff when you go out to eat. They get blamed for everything that goes wrong in the restaurant.
12. Take up a cause, educate yourself, and see what changes you can make in your life to further this cause. Here are some ideas, if you can’t think of any: world hunger, illiteracy, human trafficking, animal rights, racial reconciliation, and women’s rights (especially if you’re a man).
13. Furnish a room in your living space for whoever needs it. Be willing to take in friends, family, or recent college grads who are trying to get on their feet.
14. Before you go on a mission trip to build a house or a church, see if there are any trips where you’d get to utilize your unique and/or professional skills rather than your probably mediocre construction skills. (If you’re good at construction, see if you can help manage a local project.)
15. Be careful with your words. Once you say something, you can never completely take it back.
16. If you’re not a vegetarian, give up meat one or two nights a week. If nothing else, you’ll save money, since legumes cost a lot less than meat.
17. Buy an acre of rainforest in a foreign country to save it from deforestation.
18. Wash your clothes in cold water unless they’re absolutely filthy. This saves a ton of energy.
19. Buy a surge protector that cuts energy to electronic devices when not in use. Without this, things like televisions and even cell phone chargers continue to suck up energy when they’re turned off.
20. Smile at strangers.

What are some additional ideas that you guys have?

For those who don’t know, Janelle and I are big Over the Rhine fans. We actually met while attending an OtR show in Cincinnati back in December, 2004, along with other fans of the band from all over the country. Well, this past weekend, Janelle and I made the trek back to Cincinnati to attend the same show we met at, with a lot of the same people that were there the first time around. The weekend was amazing, to say the least.

For anyone who’s seen OtR in the past three years or anyone who’s heard Trumpet Child, you should also know that Mickey, their drummer, is officially retired now (from Over the Rhine, anyway). His last two shows with them were this past weekend.

Fans should know that Over the Rhine will be considering releasing an album of the covers they’ve done throughout the years. Some songs include “Fever,” “Hallelujah” (as made famous by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright), “Moondance,” and “Orphan Girl” (Gillian Welch cover). There are tons more, but those are all I can think of off the top of my head.

Janelle took some pictures, so I’ll link to those when they go up.

Yes, folks, I’m once again showing symptoms of… something. Here’s what I’ve got:

• Headache
• Achy joints (I feel like I have freaking arthritis)
• Congestion in the ears (sore)
• Fatigue
• Dry, persistent cough

No fever… yet, at least. And no sore throat, so I doubt it’s H1N1. The real test, I hear, is to bite a pig and see how quickly it dies. You may need to bite a bird, too, since H1N1 is technically also an avian flu. Just don’t bite any humans.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a very vain person. I give a little too much thought to my hair, and I’m easily distracted by mirrors of any kind. I don’t do it as much anymore, but I used to take an awful lot of pictures of myself.

I dye my hair. Why? It’s more aesthetically pleasing. I don’t give a rat’s ass how girly it is. I want to make the world a more beautiful place and I’m starting with my hair.

This is not a new phenomenon. I’ve been dying my hair one color or another since I was about 15. Back in high school and college, it was colors like blue and red and green. Now, it’s colors like black and dark brown. My natural hair color is dark brown with a lot of grey.

I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at clothes. Somehow, I don’t mind the fact that I drive a Hyundai Accent that currently smells like Oktoberfest. This is probably weird.

So I’m sick again. Starting Saturday morning, symptoms started popping up, and by Saturday evening, I was effectively out of commission. Here are my symptoms:

• Severe fatigue
• Headache
• Achy muscles
• Fever of 100.7
• Sore throat
• Cough
• Runny nose

Informed readers might notice the similarity of those symptoms to swine flu symptoms. Well, Janelle noticed too, so I went to the doctor’s yesterday to get checked out. They had a sign at the check-in desk saying that if you might have swine flu, you’re required by federal law to let them know immediately so they can escort you to the room as soon as possible. So I let them know, and you know what they did? They gave me a freaking mask and made me sit in the waiting room. I got a few glares.

Anyway, as it turns out, I don’t have swine flu. But I’m still out of commission. I slept for fourteen hours last night (and that’s after a two hour nap yesterday afternoon) and I’m still tired as I’m writing this at 6:45 in the evening. The good news is that my fever is gone, and the rule of thumb is you’re ok to go 24 hours after that. So I don’t know if tomorrow is looking so good, but Thursday’s definitely good.

Ok, so I’ve been a total fatass these past few weeks, and my birthday’s to blame. Here’s a brief list of the stuff I’ve had in the past week:

• Key lime pie
• Klondike bars
• Snickers cake
• Cookies (probably about two dozen, although I received three dozen)
• Cheesecake
• Confetti cake
• Pizza

So that’s one week’s worth of damage. To make matters worse, I haven’t even really had anybody over for my birthday, except for family. Yes, I ate most of that on my own. There are times when exercise is an exercise in futility, and I think I just hit one of those times.

We have a gym at work, but I’m always intimidated to go there out of fear of looking like a pansy-ass newbie. I don’t use real weights. I use machines. Apparently, only women use machines (and even then, only girly women). I’m afraid if I go there and use the machines, someone will fix me a pomegranate martini and leave the Lifetime network on the television when they leave.

Don’t get me wrong—I still do some minor strength training at home. Yeah, laugh it up. Ok, I don’t actually do a lot of it. But I’m trying to do more, since I’m eating like a baby whale. I’m actually typing this right now in the hopes of sticking to it. I don’t think muscles will change my gangly demeanor, but it’ll make me feel better about the desserts I’ll be finishing off in the next few days.

Oh, did I mention that on Thursday nights, I go out for half price appetizers at Applebees at about 10:30? If any PlattFormers want to drag my ass into the gym, it will be greatly appreciated, pomegranate martinis or no.

My dad and his wife just made the trek up to Kansas to help me and Janelle finish out our basement. Improvements include adding two light switches and wiring for two lighting fixtures, putting in an entire ceiling, and adding a wall to block off a portion of the basement for storage.

If you don’t know, hanging drywall on the ceiling is hard! Even with the eight foot sheets, it’s pretty labor-intensive. So we got pretty tired out doing that, and the wall was the last thing we put in. We did some quick measurements, built the wall (if you don’t know, you build the frame for a new wall first and then put it into place), and put it into place, only to discover that my house was built crooked. The wall is seriously slanted. So we had some work to get it into place.

This is the most amazing part, though. Christine (my step-mom) just got a big-ass hammer and started hitting the wall until it went into place. I was so tired that it took me a moment to register, but it soon clicked: You could just hit it until it worked!

This got me thinking about how much easier my life would be if there was a web design equivalent.

PNG transparency not working in Internet Explorer 6? *Whack!*

Three pixels off in Internet Explorer 6? *Whack!* One pixel off. *Whack!* There, I fixed it.

I think, really, I just want a way to hit Internet Explorer 6.

Anyway, the ceiling and wall are in. Janelle and I still have to finish mudding and sanding both and at least paint the ceiling before we can put the lights in. Soon, band practices will be held, and I’ll be able to work out my web design aggressions on my congas. All will be right in the universe.