It's a good thing there was so much to watch on TV last night (Malcolm in the Middle and The Sopranos and Further Tales of the City and The Chris Isaak Show). Otherwise, I might have lain on the couch all evening listening to show tunes on channel 805, or watching championship log rolling on the Lumberjack Channel. I was in no condition to do anything more strenuous than fondle the remote control.

I seem to be better today. Not great, but able to perform routine tasks. I deteriorated a bit when I ran into a wall at 2:00 in the afternoon, but I think it was the heat more than another round of indigestion. I'm not complaining about the heat, mind you, just not used to it yet.

This house is going to be a great place to be this summer, I think. Even when the porch thermometer hit 90°F for the first time, it was still bearable indoors. Before 2:00, I managed to get six of the seven items crossed off my to-do list. This is a huge accomplishment, compared to the meager amount of work I've been claiming to do lately.

On the time management mailing list I subscribe to, I often run out of time and delete the messages unread. Most of the advice is for high-powered professionals anyway — how to run a productive meeting, efficient ways to schedule appointments, that sort of thing.

One message I took to heart was the suggestion to have more tasks on your to-do list than you can possibly complete in a day, because you'll be motivated to get as much done as you possibly can, and you'll find ways to manage your time better. And it works! But only when I actually remember to write a to-do list.

It helps to have the Boss out of town and the phone quiet. It also helps if my stomach isn't growling angrily at me.

I was sitting on the porch this afternoon watching the hummingbirds come and go, and I began to wonder what it must be like to live at that speed. They can be hovering in one spot, and suddenly they've been teleported all the way across the yard. From my angle they seem as manic as Sally Field's ER character on one of her "good" days.

But from the bird's point of view, I imagine that all the rest of the world seems to be moving in slow motion. It's like living in a music video, where you're the only one going at normal speed. What a view they must get from the perspective! Nothing can surprise you if everything takes place so slowly that you can see it almost before it happens.

On the other hand, hummingbirds are so tiny that the view they get of their surroundings is limited. It's not so much an awesome panorama as a virtual reality game set inside a phone booth. Whatever you see, you have to remember that there's infinitely more you can't see.

It's doubtful birds realize that. They're content to see what they see, because they see it so clearly. I'm aware enough of the confining nature of my own environment that I often look for ways to expand it, and see more. Thus, 200 TV channels. Likewise, an absurdly long list of online journals that I read with varying degrees of regularity — and one of my own that I write with absurd regularity.