I am in the eighth hour of a headache I have had since I woke up at 5:30 this morning. For the last three hours I have also been feeling nauseated. Work is going slowly. Lunch is going to be ginger tea, a cup of soup, and a digestive biscuit.

Later: Closing in on the tenth hour. Mood not bad until a few hours ago, but now I am rapidly sinking through the Six Stages of Unkillable Headaches: Doggedly Determined to Irritable to Quietly Grim to Petulant and Whiny to I Gets Weary an’ Sick o’ Tryin’ to Maybe It Would Have Been Better After All If I’d Just Died on the Operating Table.

Still later: Whew. About half an hour after two more Excedrin and yet another big cup of coffee, the headache is clearing. I can concentrate again, I can focus again, life is starting to look not so crappy again.