in reverse chronological order:

• e-mail from my dad included the following item ( from the local news: )
  
  
  
• on the bulletin board in the recording 'studio', where today my counterpart and i finished recording sample sentences for Teh Dictionary:

  ( NEWTON'S THREE LAWS OF GRADUATION )

  
  
• an e-mail ( exchange (in paraphrase): )

you know, it's months since i've had a cigarette ...

... you'd think, wouldn't you, that having quit smoking my lungs would be healthier now than they were before?

the doctor suspects that tuesday morning's scary gasping cough was a bit of an asthma attack.  never had asthma, of course, but apparently here in the absence of injections, my allergy problems are getting worse.  so she listened to me breathe and said she heard a bit of a wheezy sound; she had me blow into a peak flow meter and pronounced the result 'not great, but not actually worrying'; and i've got a fucking inhaler now.

rar.