ways in which today is better

Not that yesterday was bad. It was, as I said to my office-neighbor, a kind of lingering-on-the-precipice day, but not going over. I was a step or two away from migraine-ness. That sort of thing.

Today, though, I woke up breathing more clearly (thanks, Sudafed!). I opened a new pair of contacts and switched to the new eyedrops, since the prescription ones stung my eyes when I put them in last night and left them redder than they'd been before, and I'd finally had it. The result of this is that the whites of my eyes are once again progressing toward -- shockingly -- white, rather than red (or even pink). For a while they'd be more like white when I had my glasses on than when I had my contacts in, which is okay but not ideal, as (a) I look better with my contacts, (b) I see better with my contacts, leading to (b') the possibility that the recent migraine activity has been due to eyestrain, (c) the nosepieces of my glasses press right on my sinuses, aggravating sinus headaches into the bargain, and (d) with my glasses on I can't wear my sunglasses, so driving is gradually becoming a real problem; overcast is worse for this than a clear sky, because the blue isn't too bad but the white is really painful and makes me squint. I'd e-mailed the eye doc about whether I should be thinking about prescription sunglasses, and he said at the very least I should get an exam and see if the Rx needs to be updated in the first place, and plus I don't need to avoid my contacts as much as I've been doing. All of this together made today a better eye day than yesterday.

And then I got princess parking. Hooray! Plus it's Friday, and I will go home and Take It Easy. Oh, it'll be nice. :-)

okay, holy living crap?

Okay, so, 1776.  (It turns out that the flickering is, thank god, not due to the tape wearing out -- how could it be -- but to the video input cable being loose.  Much easier to fix! ... not that I don't have the DVD on the ol' wishlist.)  Of course John Adams is played by William Daniels, who is, you know, William Daniels; and Martha Jefferson is played by Blythe Danner, whose daughter Gwyneth looks a lot like her but not as pretty; and she gets higher billing than the unfortunately-named Virginia Vestoff as Abigail Adams, which is a much  more important role, because being married to Bruce Paltrow brings a girl some clout.

And now more than half the cast is dead, which, granted, it's been thirty-five years, but still, a lot of them died young.  Damn shame.

But the reason I bring it up at all is the following:

John Cullum, who was brilliant as Edward Rutledge, was also Mark Greene's recurring father on "ER".  (Which, now of course I can see that it's the same face.)  Ken Howard, everybody's favorite Thomas Jefferson, was Judge Peyton Cabot Harrison III (Jewish fella?) on "The West Wing".  (And now, naturally, I can hear it in "I like cream as well.")

Am I the only one [likely to give a damn] who still didn't know that?