I’m starting to get another round of “Are you dead?” email, so I figured I’d better poke my head up and assure you all that no, I’m only mostly dead.

Incredibly, I still have bronchitis - this is two full weeks that I’ve been sick, long enough for even my doctor-avoidant self to seek medical advice. But I’m told it often lasts up to three full weeks, even with a round of antibiotics (which I’m finishing today). Most of my symptoms from last week are gone, like the fever, the full-body ache, the inability to concentrate on anything for more than five minutes, and oh yeah, the feeling like I’d rather be dead. But the two most irritating ones, the painful hacking cough and total lack of voice, are still with me. It’s been good times, not being able to talk for two weeks, let me tell you.

But it’s really not as bad as all that, and I am definitely getting better, so I suppose I’ll probably survive after all. The past week has also been more than a little insane at work, which is another factor in my lack of posting. I rarely have five free minutes right now, and when I do, I spend them getting yet another cup of coffee from downstairs. It’s a sign of something, I’m sure, that I’m known by both name and drink by all the staff of my local Starbucks.

With a little luck, both the plague and the work should ease up a little next week. We’ll see.

So I finally finished Atonement, which took me longer than it should have because I forgot it at home for a couple of weeks and had nothing to read on the train. My new train book is The Columnist, and for bed reading I’ve just started The Great Book of Amber, which was recommended by a coworker. It was a little slow to get going, but I’m fairly well into it now and it seems weird enough to be my kind of thing entirely.

That’s right, I’m 25 today. This year I thought I’d shake things up a little and give myself a present somewhat early, so I went ahead and got a nice case of bronchitis that’s already kept me in bed since last Saturday, coughing up various internal organs and generally having a blast.

Okay, it’s not that bad. I probably won’t be going out tonight but birthday fun is easily postponed until next week anyway. And I do have a brand new Nintendo DS from the ever-adorable Chris to keep me occupied until I can leave the house on a regular basis again. Hooray!

The weather’s been almost alarmingly warm the past couple of weeks. While we’re actually well within my ideal temperature range right now - I think it was 55 today - it freaks me the fuck out that it’s this hot in January. Because what does that mean for this summer - highs of like 150? 200? The Rapture? I guess we’ll see.

I don’t know what it is that Chris and I have, I guess a cold is really not the best description. Our symptoms are limited to the throat - tonsils the size of softballs and a soreness that doesn’t go away. But other than that I’m mostly fine, it’s pretty strange. I guess I’ll just wait another week and see if I get better or die; surely one or the other will come to pass.

I’m settled back into my normal work routine, now, and still fighting off that cold for the past few days - but I think I’m pretty much always either fighting off or recovering from a cold, so it’s no big surprise there.

Not much else is new in my world for the moment, just the usual cycle of work, sleep, and Warcraft. There’s plenty I could mention with regard to the latter, but I won’t bore the five people who still read this site and don’t play WoW. Well, not any more than I already have.

I’m still struggling to get back to my pre-vacation sleeping schedule. As I knew I would, I started going to bed later and later until I wasn’t asleep until about 3am around New Year’s. Since I now get up at 5am again, this is a problem. I think a week of sleep deprivation has helped to correct my inclination to stay up late, though. Last night I crashed at about 11:30 and didn’t wake up until just now.

Other than that, my first week back wasn’t bad. I went out and got drunk with my coworkers on Thursday night as our Christmas party had to be postponed during the transit strike. I actually kind of like having it after Christmas, anyway.

Chris and I have both been fighting off something all week - perhaps my usual Christmas cold was also postponed. I thought I had successfully beaten it, but last night I noticed that my tonsils were enormous, and sure enough this morning my throat is killing me, so it looks like a lazy weekend of tea drinking and catching up on sleep is in order.

My apologies - this is just a little nugget of geekery that nobody who doesn’t play World of Warcraft will appreciate. But in any case, an odd quirk of instance reset timing this week (thanks to patch day) resulted in many guilds (including mine) killing Onyxia on three consecutive nights - Monday, Tuesday, and tonight. That’s an awful lot of new Tier 2 helms floating around Orgrimmar, really. Who doesn’t love the phat epix?

Okay, okay. This time I’m really back from my Internet vacation. For reals! Mainly because I’m fully back from my real vacation, as well.

Chris and I more or less ignored New Year’s Eve, again, but that’s the way we like it. It’s not like we really need a special occasion to excuse staying up till midnight and getting drunk, anyway. And speaking of staying up late - good lord, it was difficult getting up this morning. By last weekend I was back in the habit of staying up until 3am, so when my alarm went off at 5am this morning it was pretty painful.

In any case, I’m off to drink another six cups of coffee and wade through two weeks’ of email, as this is the first time I’ve actually been back in the office since before the transit strike. Working from home isn’t quite as much fun as being on vacation, but I have to say - I miss wearing pajamas at two in the afternoon.