Xmas Memories (2005)

Xmas 2005 was awful. I managed to make it to my Xmas gig at my mom's place -- though I felt tired and a little ill. I think I napped for a few hours. Andrea's Dad and his wife, Julie, were down for a few days. I wasn't much company. After Andrea's big Xmas Eve meal -- which I only managed to eat a few bites of -- I proceeded to get rid of it and all else that I ate that day. I was in a bad way. It hurt to eat. It made me ill to even laze around. I wasn't having much to do with the world. I tried to spend as much time as I could in bed.

Andrea recommended that I go to some kind of Urgent Care facility but I didn't want anything to do with that. After living with a hypochondriac for years (my ex-wife), I hated to admit to myself when I was sick and actually in need of more than hot tea with honey. I had tried self-medicating to the extreme but as of 3 a.m., I had had enough.

Bleary eyed and throat screaming in pain, I hopped in the car and made my way to what I thought would be open before the crack of dawn on Chrismas. Darn it all, but I was completely wrong. I kept driving, hoping that I could remember another Emergency Room that would take our insurance. Miles later, I found it. I checked in around 4 a.m. and checked out around 7 a.m. after I had been diagnosed with strep throat and given some hard-core antibiotics.

I made my way home and slept for a few hours before getting up. By that time, Gary and Julie had gone. What great company I was, eh? I got up, opened up my laptop, and signed in to work, popping my prescribed pills with some hot tea. Yes, I was sick in a completely different way. I was a workaholic as well. I knew that I had stuff I needed to do and worked through the afternoon and into the night on it. I decided to call in the next day -- one of my few sick days -- but still kept getting calls and emails. I took them all and responded to every one. I took my job so seriously!

That's the ironic part, I suppose. For when I dragged my sorry ass into work two days after Xmas, barely able to talk, I worked through the day as best I could until 3 p.m. when I was called into my boss's office and fired. Merry fucking Christmas.

I'm still tying up loose ends from that whole mess of my five plus years at ePrize. Still need to transfer over my 401K to my new account and I still need to get some hassles worked out over some stock options. That's my goal for this week -- to get that shit sorted out so I can't say that it's taken me a year to do so.

But, yeah, even though we're having company -- which means cleaning and entertaining -- I know that this year will definitely be better than the last.