Yesterday a mysterious, whirlwind illness came upon me at about 1:30 p.m. I’d had a sinus headache all morning and taken an Excedrin and an allergy pill to no avail. Then at 1:30 I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. Being out Christmas shopping (yay me!), I hightailed it to my car and drove home. I spent the next hour on the floor of my bedroom, fending off kisses from the dog and trying to deal with my excrutiating headache. After picking up the boys from school I dropped onto my bed and was even more ill as the night progressed (let’s just say I tasted my lunch all over again…) I fell asleep at about 9:30 and didn’t wake up through the pouring rain or my husband’s alarm or shower. Then today I felt weak and heavy-headed.

My mom sent me a link to a sickness flowchart, and evidently I was either dealing with a migraine or meningitis. I cannot, however, count a sensitivity to light as one of my symptoms, so I think the results are inconclusive.

And other diagnoses?

Weird moment of the day: I’m sitting in church and the cell phone belonging to the lady in front of me starts to ring. Her ringtone? The theme from The X-Files.

In other news, while I didn’t get much reading done this weekend, I definitely caught up on the movies. Friday night we had a ‘Movie Night’ with a vinyl tablecloth spread over the living room floor to guard against pizza stains. We watched one of my favorite movies as a kid: The Secret of Nimh. I’ve never read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, but my son’s third grade teacher is reading it in class now.

Then today we went to see Madagascar 2. I found it very enjoyable, but then I am very fond of Ben Stiller. I loved the hippo flirting parts (my favorite line: “Baby, the answer will always be yes, unless a no is required.”) and how Marty (the zebra, a.k.a. Chris Rock) says Cracka-Lackin’ (that spelling is a little iffy). I need a new word to get excited about–this could be it.

Then tonight, I watched Nim’s Island with the boys while my husband worked late–I loved the whole author dynamic–how Jody Foster was the author (Alex Rover) of the little girl’s favorite adventure novels, but she’d never had a single adventure of her own….very clever. And after the boys went to bed, I watched Ballet Shoes, based on the books by Noal Streatfeild, which I only ever heard of via You’ve Got Mail. The movie, while charming, seemed rushed–I think I need to read the book(s).

Right about now I’m feeling very ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ for some reason. But Kevin Bacon wasn’t in any of these movies…I don’t think.

Today I had a very interesting chat with a new friend. I met her last year through my son’s (and her daughter’s) kindergarten class, and despite hardly ever having more than a moment or two to chat, we seem to have become fast friends. I’ve not seen her for a while, but today we both stayed after school to let our kids play on the playground, and we had a very pleasant, if odd, conversation.

She was unaware that I had written a novel, and so when she was chatting with a mutual friend this morning, she was kinda caught off guard. Mutual friend said, “Do you know Alyssa Goodnight?” She answered, “Sure.” Mutual friend then says, “Have you read her book?” Her response (and I wish I’d been there to hear this) was, “Oh, I assumed you were talking about Alyssa Goodnight the person.” ???? That just strikes me as absolutely hilarious.

So then later on in our conversation she discovered that I have an electrical engineering degree and actually worked for a while as an engineer (before I was lured into the glamourous lifestyle of stay-at-home mom). She turns to me and says, quite seriously, “You know, for an engineer, you’re really quite personable.” Yikes! Engineers really do get a bad rap. My mother-in-law has kinda sorta said this same thing to me before. Her husband is an engineer and her son (my husband) is an engineer, and I guess I don’t really have the engineering mind-set or give off the engineering vibe. Let’s just say I didn’t let it define me and leave it at that.

But wow. Suddenly I’m an open book and no one ‘gets’ me.