Sickness lingers....

Okay, I’m sick again. This time I cannot blame stale plane air. This time I blame the subway, because no one I know has been sick and, well, hurtling down tunnels crammed into this little nasty little tube with thousands of people at a time, there are bound to be some germs.

The big step forward is that I'm admitting it. I belong to the “I’m really not sick” denial club. The first couple of days I say, “This isn’t bad at all. I can do everything I want to do. I mean, it’s a cold, but it’s not that awful pressure-in-your-ears-and-face kind of thing, it’s just annoying.” I don't believe in echinacea, but I have started placing my faith in Zyrtec—no, Zantac—no, Xanax—no, wait, Zycam. It’s made chiefly of zinc, which made my mother crow triumphantly, since, when I bought it (over Christmas) she had suggested I just take zinc, and I insisted, “No, the commercials say 'clinically proven to shorten a cold'! I must have this Z medication!” So for the past few days I’ve been taking it every 3 hours, as directed, and it’s this nasty don’t-chew tablet that tastes, well, of zinc mixed with cherry. “I’ll really be fine,” I insist, over and over. I keep going to work. I continue going to the gym. (I eat too much junk not to.) I still write when I get home.

And then...day three or four, I crash. This day occurred on a Sunday, last time, and mainly I lay on the couch of my parents’ basement and stared at a television. A television that wasn’t even on, for heaven’s sake. I haven’t reached that point yet. In fact, this morning I awoke and thought, “Oh, this cold is going to be a snap. It’s almost gone.” And as the day has gone by I have felt heavier and heavier, and going up and down in the elevator (I work on floor 21) seems, if anything, to have exacerbated it. Annoying. I went and got a peanut butter-chocolate sandwich cookie to make myself feel better. Sigh.

The practical effect of this cold, since I have not taken a day off work, has just been that I can’t go meet my friend’s brand-new baby. We are in a new baby boom, if you haven’t noticed, so in addition to the Mac who was born a week ago, I have a new Audrey to meet. I can’t very well go my friend’s house with a cold and sneeze on her newborn. Bad form. They sent out a video for people to watch, and I faced the inevitable technical difficulties and...did not overcome them.

This has been a running theme lately. I subscribed to an “increase your website’s traffic!” service, called Traffic Geyser, about two months ago. It seems perfect for me, because it’s advertising your website through video! Since my Unexpected Angel site is video, I thought...what serendipity! It has taken two months to convince myself I can actually try to tackle this thing. I began the process over MLK holiday. Slow, baby steps. I did well through the step of actually downloading your video. I talked myself into writing a script for one, and then I talked my roommate into being the spokesperson. (She did commercials, long ago, and she is a natural.) I filmed it, managed to get decent light and sound, and then tried to upload it.

Ha ha!

I cannot adequately describe the frustration; I will only say it involved a lot of bad words. I went to the Tech Support page and logged in and it rejected me. I got more and more worked up and finally wrote an email to their tech support with the subject line being “I HATE TRAFFIC GEYSER.” Happily they wrote me back and are willing to help me, if possible, but the guy noted that my video is in ASF format and will likely be rejected by most of the sites. It has to be in mp4 video, or mov format, etc.

How the hell do you do that?

That particular email question is still outstanding. I cannot address it, emotionally, because I am at work and need to reserve all my frustration for the consultant who is paid specifically for X number of days and cannot possibly remember the number of days he has actually worked, since 2004, so can I just go find that for him?

I will try to conquer the video thing tonight. Or maybe I’ll just go to the gym, come home, and read. That sounds easier. Actually, not going to the gym sounds even easier than that. I am sick, after all. Getting sicker as I write. Hmm.

On a happy note, this afternoon I called an independent bookstore in Salt Lake City, called Sam Weller’s, to ask about stocking the book. They told me to send one over, and the events coordinator said she’d consider an event, as well. Utah has nice people.