Excerpted, dated 03-27-06 2:48 p.m.

I'm going to languish on the couch, convalescing. There will be ginger ale and saltines and pretzels. There will be tea and reading about Romantic Writers and their Passionate Lives. There will be good tunes and Sex in the City endlessly. I shall be sick with style.

When I proclaimed my plans to be sick in style to Emil after lunch, he said that I was a character from Oscar Wilde's 'A Picture of Dorian Grey'. I was rather flattered, because who *doesn't* want to be a dandy?