the Sunday Time

Wish I had something perky to report. It's a cold, grey, rainy Sunday; the terrifying political battle to the south drags on, Stephen Harper is making speeches in Africa, and my lungs still hurt. I coughed so much during a talk with my friend Chris yesterday that he said I was putting him off his dinner. Worse, I cannot sleep - all of last night wide awake, the light finally on at 3, making lists. I took sleeping pills for a few nights to knock me out, and always pay a steep price in insomnia when I stop taking them.

I did get to the Y yesterday, not to work out, but to spend a long time soaking my aching limbs in the hot tub and breathing in the mist of the steam room - paradise. And I weighed myself. My appetite has been so poor that I had images of fading away romantically, like the tubercular heroines of the 19th century - pale, thin, coughing. Images of fitting, even briefly, into the pair of jeans I bought at some ridiculously thin moment a few years ago, so the money wasn't wasted ...

Nyet. Maybe half a pound. I guess all the toast, dark chocolate and honey, and the fact that I haven't moved for four days, keeps this fine body as solid as ever. Thankfully.

My son started a new job yesterday and had a great time. My daughter has invited me over twice to visit her and Booboo, as he is now called, whom I can always hear in the background squealing with joy. He has discovered pumpkin pie. Just think of what other wonders await. But I cannot see my baby till I'm better.

While waiting to become myself again, I am working - reading, pecking at my own material, almost caught up with a pile of editing work. Just read a review of a new book called "Time Warped: unlocking the mysteries of time perception" in the Globe. It ends with some advice. How to get more done in a shorter period of time? Don't watch TV. How to stop worrying about the future? Visualize your problems as a cloud that you let float away.

It ends with a quote from Proust.
The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it; those that we inspire contact it; and habit fills up what remains." 

Time to drum up some passion in this limp rag of a human being, so that time, on this gloomy Sunday, expands with interest. May yours, too.