Once more around

 Yeah, tomorrow is my birthday.

It's not likely to be a good one - I am still kind of sick, I've developed a lung-y cough that, if I get going badly with it, makes me think I'm either going to throw up or not be able to breathe. I am being very careful about movement, and I'm trying to avoid laughing (that can trigger it). All my intercostal muscles ache; Tuesday night I was up much of the night coughing. 

I originally had plans to travel up to a city about three hours north of here where there's a student-research day but I don't think I'm up to it. I would have had to get up at 4 am - they have to leave at 5, and I'd be riding in the van driven by a colleague. Also with the coughing, I don't want to have to sit in a van and cough.  

I got a couple cards and a couple small gifts from friends. My mom had something sent to me earlier but she also said when I was up there over spring break, we could do something, we might go to the nice department store (one of the few remaining anywhere, it feels like) so I could look for clothes. 

I don't really have any plans, now. Until like Wednesday I was thinking I'd be fine to go to the meetings but then the cough started, and I just don't think it's wise, even if it is a little better today. Also, I am still very tired and having another day to sleep to a more normal time is probably good. 

At least my sense of smell is coming back (This is NOT COVID; I often lose my sense of smell and even taste with a cold). When I put the cocoa butter/petroleum jelly mix on my nose (It's chapped from blowing it), I could smell it this evening. (And I never really did lose my sense of taste; it was just blunted) 

I may do my usual of getting a carry out dinner from the good barbecue place in town; otherwise, I don't really have time after my classes (I am giving exams in both; my original plans were to have a colleague proctor for me) to buy and cook anything special, and it feels a little sad ON YOUR BIRTHDAY to eat a sandwich you slapped together if there's some other option. 

I'd really like to have something "fun" to do but I don't feel up to driving far, and there's really nothing in town right now for me. So I guess I just pretend it's not my birthday. 

I'm still working on the red resistance hat at home; I've got the green one packed up ready to work on while I proctor my exams tomorrow. (And it strikes me: in his first term, there were those, uh, "kitty" hats that a lot of women wore in protest; now they're Norwegian red hats. History is dangerously close to rhyming)