If anyone’s compiling a list of things that sound like good ideas but aren’t actually good ideas when you wind up doing them, I would add the one where you take an adult dose of NyQuil, put a Stephen Hawking audiobook on the stereo, and then try to do anything other than stare at the ceiling and think about how small you are.

I’m sick with the plague this week, having just got back from a legitimately insane five days in Oregon with Jacky Maff and the P-Town Handsaw Massacre. There were hitched rides on private jets, days on end without sleep, the tying up and unraveling of a thousand loose ends and Gordian knots, and at least two counts of breaking and entering with the intent to steal back a disco kitchen, all of which succeeded, somewhat, and pretty effectively sucked the next week’s worth of life out of my body.

And yet, I somehow managed to find my wallet and get on a train in time to catch Kathleen Edwards at the Knitting Factory last night. I know, hold your applause. I was fully intending to challenge Colin Cripps to a duel, but my God, he’s so fucking cool:

He’s just so fucking cool. I hope he and Kathleen are still touring when my hearing starts to go, so I can just stand in the middle of the front row with my earplugs out and have that be the last thing I ever hear in my life. Further proof that Canada shoots cannonballs so big, the rest of us think they’re moons and laugh at them (Canadians) for not getting it. I apologize with wrung hands and wandering eyes to every Canadian I’ve ever wronged. I even forgive the one who stole the prescription sunglasses out of my car while completely ignoring the envelope full of twenties they were resting on, hog-stupid as his Canadian ass was.

I’m going to go curl up by the heater now and pretend that I don’t have to work for an insurance company in ten hours.