When I have a fever, my sense of touch is hieghtened. I feel the creases of cloth on my calves from my dockers, and the scratch on my thigh where my cat dug in and jumped seems to sing to me. My fingernails itch from their polish. I feel how greasy and limp my hair is, but I'm too tired to shower. I just crawl from my aero-bed underneath the air conditioner to my computer, and back again. Then my cats forced me to crawl to the deli for cat food. I don't know if I should indulge this eating addiction. Lots of cats go for weeks without eating, I keep telling them. But they demand to be fed DAILY. What's that about?

When I was obeying my cats, I picked up a coffee hagen daz for myself. The summer after I graduated from college, before I got accepted to grad school, I lived in a nasty Portland apartment with the man I hopelessly loved and hated and his two snotty, artistic and pathetic room mates. I was, of course, the most snotty, artistic and pathetic of the four of us. There was a 7-11 next to the apartment building, and that summer I lived on foodstuffs from there, mostly coffee hagen daz, raspberry poptarts, and cheetos. The man and I fought most of the time, and I spent half my days curled up on the futon on the floor, sobbing, while he sat up and looked at the ceiling in disgust. Then every weekend I would go stay with my other boyfriend down the block. He wasn't an artist, so there was a lot less drama, a lot less competitiveness, a lot less "your writing sucks" and badly concealed giggling. So of course he was less attractive to me. I believe he's an ambassador in Russia right now, or something.