I woke up this morning—too early, I might add—to find all the things I planned on doing yesterday still waiting for me. Dirty dishes all over the kitchen. Dirty laundry all over the bedroom. A big stack of papers that need to be sorted. Sketches that needs to be turned into proper graphics for The Great Machine.

I filled up the dishwasher, but apart from that all these things will have to wait one more day. Possibly more. I’m tired, no, exhausted mentally if not physically after spending the majority of yesterday at the hospital and/or being worried out of my skull.

What happened is this: The boyfriend, a recently imported englishman who is naturally not yet used to the norwegian winter, took an assdive on the thick layer of solid ice. If you wonder why anyone would venture out onto the ice like that, even a silly englishman, then I can tell you about the lovely trap weather Norway has in winters. It consists of a few days of heavy snow, then a few days that are just mild enough to melt the snow, and then another few days of heavy snow. The result is ground covered by solid ice, which in turn is covered by several centimeters of loose snow, and looking perfectly innocuous—just like this. If you’re not familiar with norwegian winters, you too would walk straight into this area, and you too would fall on your ass.

But when you do, try not to land with your foot all twisted below you. I managed to sprain my ankle this way some years back—the boyfriend broke his. The keywords here are “double fracture,” “surgery,” and “plates and screws.” Yes, you may wince.

So the boyfriend is in the hospital, and I’m home alone feeling like so much crap. As I’m writing this, I’m getting ready to go back to the hospital and keep the boyfriend company for a few hours while I can. Cross your fingers for me getting some good news while I’m there.

And yet, not everything was bad about yesterday. As I returned home from the hospital, I found a book waiting for me in the mailbox. A book I had not ordered. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a gift from “Morgan,” a person who has found great use of the graphics offered on this site. Thank you, Morgan. Your gift could not have arrived with better timing. It made my day.