When my niece Greta was a preschooler, she used to ask her mom "how many sleeps until . . . ?" when she was anticipating an event.

I want to know how many sleeps until I feel well again. Surgery was not so hard on me, and recovery would have been easy had it not been for the panic attacks after my dad fell. I was just coming out of that quagmire (and no giggeddy, I assure you), when I got a cold. It ran the course of a normal cold, and now after about two weeks, I find I just can't shake the last of it. When I go to work, or I work around my apartment, I spike a low-grade fever after exerting myself. It doesn't seem like swine flu, if that's what you're thinking. I think my body just needs longer to heal than it usually would. Makes sense.

I'm enjoying the day we're having; the building across the street has a khaki-colored facade that contrasts so beautifully against the blue sky. I watch clouds roll into the frame of my sash windows, cresting the roofline of the Metron Building, and I absorb all the color I can.

It's a great distraction from the rumpled, too-many-days-old apartment milieu.