I can't tell you much about today because I slept through most of it. That's what I needed to do, I guess. As usual, the best-laid plans turned out not to be so well-laid after all. It's a pretty poorly-laid plan that says I'm going to get much done the day after all that partying and staying up late. (Neither of which had anything to do with the other, by the way.)

This was a sort of amorphous type of day anyway, neither fish nor fowl (which is another reason I turned into a vegetable). I mean, what is it? It's the Independence Day Holiday. It's the Fifth of July. It's nothing but a day not to get any work done.

So naturally, I got some work done today. Not much, but enough that I could say yes when anyone asked if I was working today. My standards on that score are kind of low, though, so the pile of completed work is a modest one.

I did the one thing I felt most strongly about. I got the books cleared so that I can start third quarter payroll with a clean slate. Now I have to hope I can start writing payroll checks (including, most importantly, my own) tomorrow. I'm so broke I won't even go to the grocery store until I have a check in hand to cash. That'll be at least Wednesday.

I'm not saying this shouldn't be a holiday. I treated it more like a Sunday than a Monday, but I tend to get a little work done on a good Sunday. And I got a little work done today, in between naps and other periods of productive inactivity. I'll be ready when the bell rings tomorrow, even though it'll be a double Monday.

And tonight I sat mesmerized for two and a half hours by Cold Mountain, a movie that portrays the brutality of war both on the battlefield and on the home front. It shows how a strength of spirit can help people survive devastating hardship. It's also supposed to be a romantic tale, and you know I'm usually a sucker for a good romance, but this one didn't work for me. It's not believable from the beginning, and that's why the ending, where the lovers are reunited, left me cold.

But the movie is worth watching for all the supporting characters, many of them small roles played by familiar actors. Renee Zellweger steals the show, and every scene she's in has an energy that's lacking in most of the film. In the end Cold Mountain turns out to be a mansion without a foundation, a well-made movie that has no center. (But I'm still giving it four stars when I send it back to Netflix.)