journal features

the disappointing emergency

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2009.03.26

Last night was an unusual night for us. Mari and I both seemed to have a stomach bug that was mild enough not to entirely disable us, but more than bad enough to prevent us from being very mobile or energetic.

In fact it was down to me to take care of Kenny last night, as Mari just wasn't well enough to get up and take care of the boy. As it turned out, it was a bit of a rough night, with Kenny waking up repeatedly. In the end I have up and stayed in Kenny's room, using the small futon in the corner.

Naturally, no one's very alert this morning. Least of all yours truly. And Mari and I are still struggling with the bug. It's a good thing we had Mari's mum on standby.

Mari called her mother before bed last night, and warned her mum that we might need her to help with Kenny if we both got worse tomorrow. Mari called at night because her mum would have to fly here from Miyazaki, a more-than four hour trip one way including ground transportation.

By morning, we were both in good enough shape to deal with the boy so Mari called her mum to say that we'd be fine. Mari's mum was disappointed that she wouldn't be making the trip to Tokyo!

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton