Well, today was web site maintenance day, and as it's the middle of the month, I was looking forward to a morning of peace and light work. I really should have known better; I hadn't been working for ten minutes when Boss-Lady entered my office and informed me that my command decision of last week was being countermanded. I was to have all the wreaths pictured on our web page, and I was to have it done yesterday. Marvelous, I tell you! That meant that there were twenty-two wreaths that needed photographed (mind you, they'd already been hung about the library, many in quite awkward places for photography), cropped and backgrounds extricated, and otherwise made pretty for the web. Goodbye, peaceful morning.

Of course, I couldn't be left alone to do my work in peace, either. My office has been Grand Central Station for most of the day. I've been soothing myself with the fact that soon, very (relatively) soon, this will all be just a distant memory, and I won't even have to think about Social Committees and staff meetings for a long, long time, if ever again.

But now the wreaths are finally up, and I finally have my chance to breathe. I'm not setting foot outside of this office for at least half an hour - quite justified, since I haven't taken a break all day. Now, if only I could find a way to keep people from stopping by to visit, I might be able to work on overcoming this black mood that's had me muttering viciously all morning.

A quick survey of the books seemed to indicate two feasible possibilities: Hepatitis A (bad restaurant food, perhaps?) or that his Glucophage is attacking his liver. The former is much preferable to the latter; as Eric says, "I need those pills to live!" Still, when Eric got home, his eyes looked fine to me, so I'm secretly hoping that the doctor will tell Eric that he's just being a hypochondriac and send him home.

He is a hypochondriac, after all; he doesn't deny that a bit. The ironic twist, though, is that on the few occasions on which he hasn't suspected a thing, he's ended up diagnosed with serious, chronic illnesses - sleep apnea ("I thought everybody felt that awful!"), diabetes ("No, doctor, I was checked a couple of years ago, and I'm just fine!"), leukoplakia ("Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"). He's coped extremely well with the first two, and the last disappeared once he quite smoking, but the combined experiences have put him on edge about his health, and justifiably so.

I've had a few moments of hypochondria, myself; who hasn't? My most memorable incidence was during my senior year of college, when I came down with a nasty fever that had me almost delirious, and Amy so kindly informed me that a wave of meningitis was sweeping through areas near West Virginia. I sat there on the sofa, using what few coherent brain cells I had left to paw through medical books, trying to find out the symptoms of meningitis, wondering how the doctors would tell my mother that her baby was dying. Naturally, I recovered, and was quite relieved that I hadn't shared my fears with my parents.

For the most part, though, hypochondria has been my husband's bailiwick, and one that I gladly leave to him. I do wish that he'd stop poring over self-diagnosis charts, though; last night, he was almost ready to diagnosis himself as encephalitic.

We sat down to order today, and I found myself staring into the face of the very same waitress who had helped me on my previous visit. I fervently prayed that she wouldn't ask about the baby, especially as I found myself ordering orange juice again. All throughout the meal, whenever she passed the table and caught my eye, I had to restrain myself from shaking my head and mouthing, "No!"

She probably didn't even remember me. Still, my imagination was running wild. I imagined her blithe comment, the wide-eyed stares and grins from my enlightened coworkers, my stammered excuses, and my final, blushing confession of the truth. I imagined the word spreading like wildfire once we returned to the library, and Boss-Lady's cold smile and raised eyebrows when we both arrived at work this Saturday (ugh, another weekend shift together!).

I think I still need to come to terms with telling her the truth. What I really need is a prewritten script for the event, complete with responses to potential questions. Anybody feel like writing one for me?