Absence

What do you say readers? Has your heart grown fonder of my stupid blog?

The holidays seem like an appropriate theme for the moment. What to say? We’ll start off hopeful and drift toward cynicism. Here goes.

What am I thankful for? Today I am thankful for my return to health. I am just getting over a cold. Being sick is the worst, and is really easy to take being healthy for granted as a young man. When I was in college and law school I never got sick… ever. I lived in complete filth, ate terribly, wasn’t particularly prone to hand washing, and generally existed in a petri dish with a pseudo agar created out of leftover fast food and stale beer. Yeah, it was disgusting. Despite/Because of this I never got sick. I bragged about my “Wolverine-like immune system.” One time a group of us got all got in a questionable hot tub at a friend’s place on the way back from spring break. Everyone got a staph infection but your’s truly. (Me > Staphylococcus) Gross right? But I beat it. I was practically invincible.

Cut to present day. I can’t endure a five degree temperature change without coming down with the sniffles. I am a pale and sickly shadow of my former self. In the year and a half that I’ve been working I’ve been sick three or four times. (Naturally, this does not include hangovers. Qualifications always tell a story don’t they?) That’s more times than I was ill for the 7 years prior put together. It turns out that sitting in front of a computer all day and not exercising makes you fat and disposed to minor physical afflictions. So anyway, after a week of horrifying Nyquil induced night terrors and a couple of boxes of Kleenex, I am thankful for being able to breathe through my nose. (Nyquil should be a Schedule 1 substance as far as I’m concerned. That stuff is basically over the counter mescaline)

Well, now that we’ve dealt out some thankfulness, cynicism time.

Shopping. I don’t like shopping for the holidays. Shopping is only fun when you know exactly what someone wants and you know for sure that they don’t have it. I got to have that rare shopping moment today. I know that my dad wanted one of those new cordless drills with the lithium-ion batteries. I also know that he doesn’t have one. I have no problem dropping a few bills on that, because I know I will get to see a fifty-five year old fat bald guy jump up and down and squeal like an eight year old with a new Hot Wheels truck. It’s going to be great.

The rest of the time shopping is an exercise in wastefulness. I have no idea what you want for Christmas. I probably haven’t been paying attention if you were dropping hints, and I don’t like spending time at any store that sells candles. So here’s your picture frame/collection of bath salts/sweater. Enjoy.