it's a nice day for a barnyard wedding

I worked from San Francisco today, which I intended to do all along because the big boss is in Dublin and so there were no meetings that I needed to attend in the south bay. However, due to my lingering illness and malaise (I have seriously had a headache since I got my shot, and it's driving me crazy), I worked from home rather than going into the office. I slogged during the day, taking a break to run to the store and buy myself an Amy's enchilada and some more tea, and eventually wrapped up what I needed to do so that I could lie on the couch and nurse myself with tea and a book.

The book in question was quite apt (or perhaps poorly chosen) - Andrea Barrett's "Ship Fever", a collection of short stories revolving vaguely around botany and nature, and the 100-page-long title story describes the horrendous typhus epidemic that swept through the Irish immigrant ships quarantined outside of Quebec during the Irish diaspora during the potato famine. Considering that I have been feeling plagued myself (ironically by something meant to prevent me from feeling plagued, which makes me feel even more acutely that I would have died of some hideous disease years ago if I had lived during one of the eras that I love to read and write about), this wasn't the best book for me to read - but it's the first reading assignment for the historical fiction writing class that I'm taking at Stanford this quarter, and since the class starts tomorrow, I couldn't put it off any longer. At least it was this book, and not one of the other assignments, which just happens to be about the Black Death (can't wait!)

Anyway, Ritu came over after she was done with a dinner in the city; she has an interview tomorrow, and I offered to let her stay here rather than at Vidya's since Adit is gone tonight and our place is much more convenient to public transport than Chandlord's. So, we caught up for a couple of hours just the two of us, which was fantastic; she of course had to go to bed so that she could get up for her interview tomorrow, and I should go to bed too so that I can continue to coddle my absurdly whiny and octogenarian style of lying abed sick. And so, goodnight; I'm going to Mountain View tomorrow despite the absence of the big boss, and so there will be no more lying abed for me. Goodnight!