I have the Cold from Hell, and it is driving me insane. I spent the entire workday apologizing to patients for my uncontrollably drippy nose. I was about to do a finger stick on a kid and I said to his mom, "You'll have to forgive me if I have to grab for a tissue in the middle of doing this... I'm having kind of a rough day!" Fortunately, they laughed. I thought working in pediatrics was supposed to make me immune to this kind of stuff? I mean, I guess it sort of has -- I think this is only my second cold of 2009 -- but it's a doozy. The pesky sore throat and runny nose have spent the past 24 hours morphing into some serious congestion, and my whole head is pounding with the pressure. Not to mention I can't taste anything at all, which is a true shame when there's so much good food in the house (try fresh bruschetta!). The sole moment of relief today was when I went for a (very easy) run this morning before going in to work... the exercise just opened my head right up. I'm supposed to run a half marathon on Sunday, so I'm crossing my fingers that this bug remains a simple head cold (which I can run with) and doesn't migrate to my chest. I've been coughing more than I usually do with a cold, which is making me nervous. But I've had both flu vaccines already, so that rules out the two most annoying contenders. And my temperature has been hovering between 99 and 99.5, which isn't even technically a fever, so there's some more good news. If I can just make it through work tomorrow and come home and rest on Friday and Saturday, I think I'll be okay to run on Sunday.

Liz is at a conference in Knoxville this week with the Meredith study-abroad folk, so I've been entertaining myself with online Christmas shopping, minor household projects, and old kiddie movies on VHS (try Air Bud and The Indian in the Cupboard. I am such a dork). She'll be back tomorrow evening, and then we're going to spend the night at Norma and Terry's on Friday night (we're doing Halloween a day early so that I can be in my own bed the night before the race). Norma promised to make grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato-basil soup (which sounds sooooo good right now!), and there was even mention of a fire pit and s'mores, which should be lots of fun... almost like a summer camp flashback! :)

Oh, and one more thing (since if I can't brag on my very own website, then where can I brag?)... I stopped at Ann Taylor two nights ago on my way home after seeing that my favorite non-jeans pants were finally on sale for nearly half their original price. I have a pair in brown, which are size 8 -- I bought them in the middle of my "Biggest Loser" program, and was very stoked at the time to be able to wear an 8 instead of my usual 10. I had wanted a pair in gray as well, but didn't have the money for two pairs, so I contented myself with one. Well, they are super comfy and cute to boot, and I've barely taken them off since I bought them, so I've kept my eye on the website to watch for sales. And one finally came along this week... BUT... you may notice that gray is no longer listed on the website as an available color. In the store, there were countless pairs of the brown, pebble, and khaki colors... and exactly TWO pairs of gray left. Both in the same size... which was... a... six. Ugh.

But, on a whim, I tried them on. The waist was a teensy bit tighter than I'd hoped for -- not in an unsightly way, just more like my clothes used to fit, fifteen pounds ago -- but the length was perfect, as was the fit through the hip and thigh. I asked the salesgirls' opinions, and they both told me they looked great and that the size eight (which I also had in the dressing room, in a different color) was too big. I told them that I already had a pair in size eight that fit fine, but they furrowed their brows and shrugged their shoulders and made skeptical noises and basically told me to just buy the damn pants already. So I did.

So... I now own a pair of (gorgeous, comfy, amazing) size six pants. That actually fit. Me.

I never thought I'd see the day.

It's amazing how many tiny tasks there are to do on the computer that simply don't get done during the week anymore. Silly things, like performing a hard drive backup (which takes all of five seconds), or responding to someone's Facebook comment (the 2009 equivalent of answering an email, I guess). Anyway, I've made a list of things that generally need to get done on Fridays, and I've been sitting in front of the computer, snuggled up in my red plaid flannel PJ pants and Ton-A-Wandah sweatshirt, drinking coffee and trying to complete the list. Posting to the blog is one of the things on it, by the way. :)

Let's see... what's new with me? Well, I made the decision to drop my organic chemistry class -- to use Liz's accounting terminology, the 'cost-benefit analysis' just made it completely not worth it. It was $362 (a lot of money for me) for a 3-credit class that was, in actuality, requiring 9 hours of work per week (two or three times what it theoretically should have). Also, the exams were going to be a bitch to arrange (instead of being an totally online course, as I'd been told, it turned out that since I'm not from the Oregon area, I was going to have to get each exam faxed to a local college and go there to take the exams while a professor proctored me), and -- most importantly -- I only needed the class for 2 of my prospective schools (MUSC and Pacific). Not for Duke, not for ECU, and not for UF... the three schools I'm most likely to end up attending. So I decided to cut my losses and get out (on the last day to still get a refund, as it happened). It kind of sucks that I spent so much time and energy stressing over the details of it (finding a class that didn't cost two thousand dollars, enrolling in yet another community college, making sure I got into the necessary course, doing all the work for the first chapter or two...), and it does sort of suck that I have to email MUSC and Pacific and tell them I'm withdrawing my application (another thing on the Friday list...) but them's the breaks. I wouldn't have ended up at either of those schools in the end anyway. So, even though I may have to defend that choice in my interviews, I've been a LOT happier and less stressed since making that decision, so I think it was the right one.

Not much else to report... oh, yeah, I got my (seasonal) flu shot and my (H1N1) flumist yesterday, so if you guys haven't done that yet, go ahead and do it now. I love how cavalier we are about that stuff at work -- everyone, doctors and nurses alike, just rolls up their sleeves like, oh, yeah, as long as you're getting yours, I guess I'll get mine too. We don't even bother to sit down. It's a nice change from how serious we have to be about vaccines with our patients. And I literally did not even feel the shot -- or, rather, I guess I technically felt it, but it didn't hurt a bit. I hadn't had a shot of any kind since 2006 (though I've given thousands of them since then) and I sort of forgot that I'm really NOT lying when I tell my little patients that shots really don't hurt that much... even though they always think I am. :)

Also, the NC state fair started yesterday, and we live within walking distance of the fairgrounds, which is one of the many awesome things about this apartment. On the 4th of July, we just took an evening stroll out our front door and watched the fireworks. While other people paid $10 to park at the U2 concert last weekend, Liz and her friends just walked across the street. And every day for the next week or two, we'll be able to mosey on up the block whenever we the mood strikes us and ride a Ferris wheel or eat a fried Snickers bar. And my parents are coming up for a visit in honor of the fair and the fall leaves (oh, yeah, and I guess to hang out with me and Liz a little, too), which should be a lot of fun. :)

Anyway, I guess I'll brave the unseasonably cool weather and go ahead and crank out my long run for the week. The half marathon is on November 1st, so we're getting closer. Of course, I then get no break at all before I have to start training for the full marathon in February, but the end result makes the training worth it.

One of our best friends, Kelsey, is an incredible actress and singer -- the kind that makes the hair stand up on your neck. She's had countless years of vocal and theater training, and has lived all over the country while performing in various shows. Although she's in law school now and is doing really well at it, she admits that if she had the choice, she'd make her living through the theater. She is beautiful and hilarious, with enough personality and talent for three people. I've known her for three years now (she and Liz have been friends since high school), and although I love her to death simply for being Kelsey, every time I see her act or sing, she somehow becomes more than 'just' herself. When I'm watching her onstage, she stops being 'just' the funny, quirky chick who joins us for weekend brunch and becomes... this incredibly talented human being that I somehow have the privilege to know. Everybody is good at something, yes -- we all have our areas of skill and ability -- but not many people are as good at anything as Kelsey is at acting and singing. It's like the equivalent of an Olympic-caliber athlete or a Pulitzer-winning author. It's hard to explain, but her talent touches something inside me that isn't often awakened.

Anyway, so Kelsey is currently acting in a performance of The Pajama Game, and we went to her opening night performance on Friday. As always, I was blown away. She had the female lead, and so had a lot of stage time and a lot of singing parts. This was a 'Little Theatre' production, in a small town outside Raleigh, so for a lot of the other actors, this was one of their first shows. Some people were good, others were mediocre, and one young man was almost equally as brilliant as Kelsey -- but the uneven distribution of talent meant that she stood out even more. During the final curtain call, there was a huge swell in the applause when she took the stage for her bow.

We took her out for hamburgers afterwards and told her over and over how amazing she was. She grinned and thanked us and seemed truly touched. "I hammed up that last scene for you guys," she winked. But then, after a few minutes, her demeanor changed. "It's weird," she said thoughtfully, "but that's where I feel like I'm most myself. I mean, of course I'm 'myself' at other times, like when I hang out with you guys... but somehow, when I'm up onstage, that's when I feel the most like me."

Rarely have I ever been so proud of a friend -- but at the same time, it awakens a sense of desperation in me. Kelsey will make a great lawyer -- she's got less than a year left of school -- but she is so talented and so deserving that I feel like it's almost an injustice for her not to make her living doing the thing she truly loves. Some people have talent, but don't choose to pursue it -- we've all seen the teenybopper movies about the uber-talented piano player who wins all the awards and then decides at the crucial moment that she "just doesn't love it" and wants to go in a different direction. Other people have the drive to succeed -- again, we've all watched American Idol; we all know people who are desperate to be singers or authors or athletes, who want it more than anything -- but just don't quite have what it takes.

But Kelsey has both -- the love for the field, and the incredible talent to back it up. And yet the chances of her ever 'making it' in that business are slim, just by virtue of the way our world works. She made the necessary choice to pick a 'real' career, and she'll be wonderful at it, but it breaks my heart to think of her wearing power suits to a courthouse every day, doing the lawyer thing and making the money, and only acting in a couple of tiny community theater plays every year to give herself a little taste of joy. She's so much better than that, and yet there is nothing I can do to help give her what I know she deserves. Watching her was a bittersweet feeling -- if she weren't so damn good, I wouldn't feel so desperate to see her succeed.

Anybody out there with theater connections? ;)