Haze

This is a picture of writer Marguérite Duras by photographer Richard Avedon. I just happen to love this photo.

The day passes, from literal fog outside first thing, to the fevered fog of daytime TV, Ibuprofen and liquids.

I think the last time I took a day off work sick was in September 2003, but then since coming here I did have a year and a third without paid employment, so that doesn't really count for much. In any case, the reason I would go into work however ill I was, was that I couldn't trust one member of my department.
I'd have gone in like this.
And I would have gone in today were in not that I knew we didn't have any programmes.
But I do feel like shit.

On TV, Ellen Degeneres rang the White House to wish the President Happy Presidents' Day. Ellen seemed to be suffering from a similar lurgy to me, except she looked much better. Yes, I know she has her own make-up department.

An amusing TV ad for First Response pregnancy kits claims that 'this is the most sophisticated piece of technology you'll ever pee on.'

I précised a potted history of the Nature Park for the new website, and Alex has posted it. I'll re-read it tomorrow when I WILL be better.

Through the haze from my sickbed, I can see a Stars and Stripes flying in between the houses. It seems a bit provocative, but then maybe it should. Four chimneys reach for the sky beside it, like the dead-dog legs of Battersea Power Station, just in metal.

Robbe-Grillet has died. I think I'm over him now, I don't even bother to make the lame old joke about his name and call him pain-grillé.
But his work was extraordinary, to write only from the eyes of one character, only what he or she could possibly see, to allow no authorial omniscience.
The nouveau-roman, which R-G pioneered was my special subject for my degree.
But there was another writer, Marguérite Duras who was also of this school, and her work I loved even more than his. She used language as music, her novels were evocative, atmospheric, she kept you there as though by reading her pages, she had her eyes locked on you, your eyes gazing deeply into hers and seeing as she would see, reflected in yourself.

Don't mind me, I can't keep my temperature down.