I'm fighting a sinus infection...a la mode. De stijl. Le nouvelle vague...no...le old skool. Le new skool. That is to say...no antibiotics, just liquids and hoping/praying it goes away. I lost my voice yesterday...tis mostly gone still, except for some choruses of Johnny Cash. I am exhausted, it is a fight! I am almost to the point of preparing myself for a Nyquil night. Would do almost anything, including knocking head with cast iron skillet, for some uninterrupted sleep. Those coughs, you know, those coughs that come from deep down in the tar pits.

Last night I awoke shivering, muscles clenched from a fever-induced nightmare that was so detailed and intelligent that I couldn't sleep after, even with a dose of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was a trip!!! I absolutely hate awful torture-porn films, but this 'film' was so clever and detailed and seamless/impenetrable...my protesting subconscious couldn't make a dent. It *was* all...de stijl. Neo-plasicistic, somehow. Molded body parts and careful layers of meaning and stuff. Kinda AI. It is frightening when the part of your brain that can come up with the horrible detailed atmosphere/happenings are so smart. Wish I had recorded it more.

I am sick because I was traveling, and because I was traveling I missed the fact that Sydney Pollack died. SYDNEY POLLACK!!!!!!!! I have written about him a lot here...partly due to an obsession with his worst(-directed) films, which are really alluring. But I think I might have loved him most as an actor. I loved the kind of emotional space he took up, his complete believability, his humor, his adultness. He always made movies better for me. I saw the little interRIPstitial on TCM last night about him and just started bawling.

Someone in my family wrote the school play with him in high school. He talked a lot about growing up marginalized and alone as a Jew in South Bend, IN (where my mom's family is from) and it sounds as if it was a pretty sad childhood. The one bright spot, apparently, though, was high HS drama teacher, who showed him the way out. I think it's my Aunt M. who wrote the play with him...I have accordingly pumped her for details. I wonder if I did before and forgot.

The day after I got home from trip this guy showed up on my doorstep (announcing himself as "Spiro Agnew" to the doorman) with chicken soup and his usual easy-going self. It was great to see him. HALLO DAVID...the sweetness of old friends is very sweet indeed.