Matthew Cheney made me laugh today.

If you write about the weather, use as many adjectives as you can, or else your nouns will wilt and become adverbs.

Some coaches insist adverbs are stronger than nouns, but an independent panel of statisticians has proved otherwise. Despite appearances, though, statisticians don’t like nouns so much as they adore conjunctions.

The whole list of deliberately obtuse writing rules can be found here. And I found them via Justine.

Liam had a terrifying asthma attack late Wednesday night, triggered by a coughing fit in bed. The coughs compounded, and his bronchial tubes constricted, and then he started crying because he was upset and scared, and the whole thing just snowballed and got worse and worse. We finally got a shot of his inhaler contents into him after a struggle, which was surprising on its own because he usually loves his little mask, but he was having so much trouble breathing because he was coughing and crying that he wouldn’t let us put the mask up to his face. It took a while to get him to calm down enough to even give him a single breath of the medication, and then he still sounded awful all night. I lay awake all night listening to him over the monitor, and dealt with anxiety attacks the likes of which I haven’t had in about eight years, sourced only partially by the worry about the decision to not take him to the hospital. I hate this time of year. It’s wet, and damp, and there isn’t enough sunlight, and this year seems worse than others, somehow. I got quite ill the next morning, which didn’t help. HRH stayed home because neither Liam nor I were going to be able to handle the day otherwise, neither of us being very user-friendly or even available at times. I felt much better by the end of the afternoon. And I even made cookies, lovely excellent cookies from a newly tweaked recipe, which very closely resemble cookies from a long-gone bakery I used to visit now and again. (Basic shortbread ingredients and proprotions, being sure to use icing sugar instead of granulated, add one egg, plus loads of chocolate chips; chill for two hours; roll and bake. Once the fuses in the oven have been replaced, that is. You mightn’t need to do that last bit.)

But I had a wonderful, wonderful night of sleep last night, and a lovely outing this morning. I was dropped off at daycare with Liam and spent some time playing with him, his caregiver, and one of the other kids. I’ve missed this, since HRH has taken over the boy-chauffeuring job. I got to see Liam open the rabbit’s cage and lean in gently to kiss him, and Boo reach his fuzzy little nose up to kiss him gently back, several times. It was exquisitely cute, and did wonders to soothe the soul of Novemberity/sick/bad sleep ravages. Then I took the metro back and walked to the mall, picked up some sweaters for me and new PJs for the boy, and bussed home. The weather may be overcast but it’s so lovely and warm. It was a good day for an outing.

Since I’ve had the whole day to myself on Liam’s daycare days I’ve been trying to work as soon as he leaves, and this week has proven to me that I shouldn’t even sit down at the computer until after lunch. If I do, then the morning gets wasted anyhow, and I feel upset because I haven’t accomplished any work and half the day is gone. Well, at least I gave it a chance. From now on, the morning is for music and reading and walks. The afternoon is for work. If that’s how my brain has to separate things, then that’s how it’s going to happen. I get exactly the same amount of work done if I sit here for eight hours or three, so why force myself to be here for those first five if I can put them to other practical use?

Now I have web work to do.