On to Week Two

After a stellar start to the new year last week, this week may be a bit more of a struggle. I seem to have come down with either a bad allergy attack or a mild head cold. It fits the timing pattern for a cold picked up from the kids -- hitting Sunday afternoon -- but I was also outdoors for a while in some pretty gusty winds Sunday after church when we had a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building, and that could have set off allergies. I have that church music workshop on Friday and Saturday, so I need to be well by then. Basically, the treatment is the same, with antihistamines and lots of liquids. I still need to get work done, so that will be my challenge, going over the editor's suggestions while sneezing and sniffling. I was hoping to do a little extra work every day so I don't have to use one of my "vacation" days (I really am hoping to set and stick to a policy this year) for the workshop on Friday. One of my policies is that doing something work-related (like a convention) counts as work, but non-work things would be treated the way non-work things would be in any other job. We'll see how long this lasts, but I have good intentions at the moment.

Fortunately, other than the sniffling and sneezing, I don't feel that bad. I have energy and am in a moderately good mood. So maybe it is just allergies.

Over the weekend I did some OnDemand TV catching up. I think I'm finally up-to-date with Almost Human, the series about a cop teamed up with an android partner, and I'm enjoying it. It's not really to the point where I'd feel a loss if I missed an episode, but I enjoy it when it's on. The key thing about the show is the relationship between the two partners. I'm a sucker for buddy cops when it's done well, and this is done well with some nice twists. I'm not so thrilled with the world building, as it doesn't always make sense to me (and I'm not a huge fan of "the future is going to suck!" science fiction), and the plots can be so-so, but the two main characters are golden.

I was very ho-hum on the pilot for Intelligence, which is basically a serious version of Chuck, without the Buy More. There's the guy with the computer in his brain and the sexy, bad-ass woman assigned to protect him. The pilot struck me as very paint-by-numbers, where I felt like I could see the screenplay right there on the screen -- there's the exposition speech in which one character lays out the premise to another character, there's the point of manufactured conflict between the two main characters, there's the moment of bonding between the unlikely partners that will form them into a team. It looks like they got past the conflict pretty quickly, so that bit in particular seemed to come from some checklist of things they thought they should be doing (though I bet there's still a bit of pointless bickering). I'll watch the next episode, but if I'm still seeing the screenplay superimposed over the actual action, I'll give it a pass.

Meanwhile, I don't know what the heck is going on over at Downton Abbey. There doesn't seem to be a storyline I care much for this season. I guess the main appeal to that series for me, aside from the clothes and setting, was the relationship between Mary and Matthew. Now that we're in the 20s and I don't like the clothes, and with Matthew out of the picture, there's little to keep my interest other than the Dowager Countess's quips.

I may ease off on the organizing this week, since I have to take Friday off and since I'm not feeling great and need to get well before the weekend. It's probably best not to be stirring up more dust.