ho ho ho

Maybe I've lost my mind (always possible) but I swear this was the fastest Thanksgiving-Christmas slide ever in my lifetime. This Yuletide I was struck with an enormous amount of appreciation for all I have and all my memories. I've had some amazing people and things in my life. I also got to thank someone whose thank you has been 18 years owing. Friends and family gave me beautiful and meaningful tokens of love and I cried a lot And today is Christmas Day, all is calm, all is bright.

Sleep, Santa, Sleep.


I'm so completely exhausted that I can't care much about anything. It's been 4 days of get-togethers. I'm thinking it's much more tiring to have 2 or 3 peep in a day for several days than to have a dozen at once, and I think that's coming. Also, this was the last year I cook for any holiday. It's go out or takeaway from now on. I'd like to enjoy the holidays. Being too tired and too much in pain to do that is just stupid.

And it's not over. I'm the appointed caretaker of everyone in our crew's gifts for each other. So there's a new pile of presents under the tree that I must make sure get to their rightful boys and girls. A "This is the day we'll all see each other- be there or not, no leaving gifts behind" party may be called for going forward. Don't know if that'll be in my house, either. I'm getting too broken down for all this happy horseshit.
Methinks it's time to pass the orb and sceptre.

The magic of the season to me is expressing that we care for each other. I don't get on here nearly enough to tell you all that I do care. It may be weeks between posts, but you all cross my mind through the days. I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday time and that your hearts' desires become your realities in 2014. Love to you. xo

And p.s. Blogger won't let me post a comment anywhere, even on my own blog. It's always something.

Avec La Bete

Life is dense these days. Lotsa stuff, mostly good and happy to my eyes, but dense. And tiring. Whatever is actually going on physically is, in the end, really friggin tiring. I can go and go for so many hours and then there's nothing left to push. Maybe I should be hibernating. More sleep is called for, methinks. And this morning I realized that maybe I'm just sick. It's weird living alone. You don't realize things like not eating for a day or getting sick. There aren't other eyes on you. I have the Beest's eyes on me, of course. But you know how she is.

The cheesecake-like meeting of Strider and my brother Billy in the extremely dense Thanksgiving week he was here. Amazing. Family and strangers all at once, and our new addition, Strider's Beau. I think I'll call him Beau, cuz it means beautifulnicewonderfulgood, and he is. The Dog Formerly Known as Maisy, Olive, is a big puppy, longlegged and goofy. She looks more Dobie than Shepherd now, and maybe even some Rottie or BullTerrier. She's still joy.

Beest bit Billy. No blood, but it really upset him, hahahahah! Otherwise she spent every day hanging off him and the first morning he was gone she came out of the bedroom and walked right to the sofa, looking around for him. A little sad, that.

Family is good.

And so are friends. Stevil hosted Billy on his radio show. Paul stopped in, and Wendy and Glenn came by. We had a nice Thanksgiving with Special and Stevil, but everyone was too exhausted to do Pie Night. Billy was surprised at all the people in my life, which strikes me as silly because I feel like I'm a recluse, but it brought to my mind how very alone he really is. Or at least feels. I'd like him to move here but I don't think he will, at least for a while. A few years. I know how this place operates. You come up here to see someone you know. Then you come up for weeks at a time. Then you move here. It sucks you in, and you never get over it. The only ones to leave for good are those who were born here. I've seen it happen many times, including to me. He's fated now. He likes it here, he told me he's happy here. I get a kick out of him being among my friends, and he socialized with everyone and they were all so nice to him. Lotsa chattering for several days around here.

Writing? Well that dried up when my computer caught a virus and for over a week I did whatever I could to just keep it operating until I called Steve West to come rescue me. He ran scans and came by twice to clean it up. At one point everything came up in Swedish. I could at least function in my emails because the content wasn't translated and the basics were easy to figure out. Thanks Rita Larsen for that trimester of Norwegian in 1974. So I gave up on NaNoWriMo. It hadn't been going well anyway. I lost steam, interest, energy. Apathy set in. I've generally felt like I have nothing to say lately, so unlike me. Then I realized it was apathy and smacked my own damn face. You have to guard against these things or you end up miserable and unaware.

And with the computer scary-bizarreness, I haven't hooked up the camera. I think the computer is okay now, and I finally gave up IE for a better browser. Why am I so stubborn about such stupid things? Shit doesn't matter anymore. Everyone is spying and selling your info! It's like I live life in shock.

As for Beest... ass on desk, front paws on windowsill, she's focused. Tail tip tapping she watches it intently, barely breathing. It moves and her eyes follow it across the front garden, sun shining off her own yellow orbs. I follow her line of sight. There is nothing there.

And now here come The Big Holidays. With hope and a slight taste of sickness in my mouth, we move forward. I want to get the tree started this weekend. We had a landslide in the pantry (thanks Obama) and I'm afraid to look in the ornaments box.

So. I'm sneezing and coughing, things hurt (different things than usual) and foods all taste strange and give me indigestion. Yes, sick I'd say if someone described that to me. And now I'm talking to myself in print. Going to bed.