please join me in the realm of too much info overshare: all this nose blowing has left me dehydrated, with an additional side effect of causing me to become slightly constipated. i pride myself on the punctuality of my bowel movements - everyone morning immediately after i wake up - but this illness has upset my morning normalcy. there's an easy remedy though: drink more water. i drink plenty at the office, but when i go home i don't drink as much, partly because i don't like having to wake up in the middle of the night (hello middle age!) in my cold apartment to go use the bathroom.

this morning was a 2 snooze sort of morning (woke up finally at 6:50). i went to bed relatively late, around midnight. the night sweats have stopped, but i was still waking up intermittently, sometimes a little confused as to where i was. i was dreaming about traveling. not glamorous first class fancy cabin traveling, but ground level shoulder to shoulder with the locals sort of traveling, and getting lost, and finding my way. my throat hurt from being so dry, but not enough for me to do anything about it. for some strange reason my gluteus muscles still ache: either i'm sleeping on them wrong, or maybe all that walking i'm doing in my sleep has psychosomatically transferred to my muscles in real life. my butt and my feet are sore. perhaps it's lingering damage from 9 days of spring festival madness. i've discovered the best way to lose weight is not necessarily going to the gym but traveling on a shoestring budget.

i wish this week could end faster. i don't know if i would be able to survive this week if i didn't take monday off and mercifully reduced the work week to just 5 days instead of 6 days. i don't know what i'm going to do this sunday. go to chongqing again? i have shirts to buy. romeo has expressed an interest in me taking him into the city, but when i'm in chongqing i'd also like to see if i can meet up with baihong. we could split up and ask him to return home on his own, but it's pretty daunting for anyone who can't speak the language and he's guaranteed to get lost. or maybe i should just rest at home. but resting on a sunday? i don't care how sick i am, i'm still going out!

my smell capability is back to maybe 40%. nowhere near normal, good enough to probably eat.