Under the weather.

I seem to have been visited - and possibly possessed - by spirits of my former cats.

I've had a cold for the past week. Usually, colds live in my sinuses for about four days and then move to my chest for two weeks. Not this one: this cold started out in my sinuses for about a day and moved directly into my chest, pausing only to give a heck of a sore throat in the process.

But the real difference has been the feline symptoms. I'll sleep for 10 hours at a time, get up and read my email, and go back to bed for a nap. I'll turn up my nose at perfectly good food. I'll cough up really rude stuff - not hairballs, as one might expect, but (trust me!) other matter that's at least as bad.

But the best symptom is what it's done to my voice, which is now somewhat gravelly and lower in pitch, and I feel like I'm doing a Barry White imitation. Well, not a good one. But the cat connection is that if I sigh and it goes through my vocal cords, I can produce that cat noise that is halfway between a growl and a purr. The noise that a cat makes if she's unhappy with you but wants you to keep petting her anyway. Which is about how I feel, waiting for this cold to run its course.

Well, I see I've been out of bed for about an hour. Time to go back to sleep.