Well, look what the cat dragged in!

Happy New Year!

I've been sick since last Friday (the same cold I thought I got rid of 2 weeks ago). I got so run down at the beginning of the Christmas/New Year's break that it caught up to me for the 2nd half.

I spent 3 days around Christmas in Delaware with my sister and her family. We had a great time. This is the non-toxic family that life (or God) held in reserve for me until I was an adult.

I also spent a fair amount of time driving vast distances in order to have lousy meals at Chinese Buffets with old friends who were worth the trouble.

I got lots of DVD's, the board game "Clue", and a seating guide to all the legit theaters in New York City called "Stubs" (as much a "must-have" for New Yorkers as the Thomas Guide is for Angelenos). It helps take a lot of the hassle out of buying theater tickets on-line, by seeing in advance exactly where you'll be sitting. My grown-up theater queen nieces were all very impressed with it and got one for themselves.

By last Friday, though, I was feeling my age. I was also feeling the growing scratchiness in my throat, throughout the afternoon.

So I've been coughing my fool head off ever since. The cough is "non-productive" in medical parlance. I'll be thrilled when I finally hack up the fur ball that's been living in my throat for nearly a week now. (Is there anything sadder or more pathetic than a sick old queen, home alone on New Year's Eve? -- well don't cry for me Argentina! I watched 9 episodes of Season 3 of "Lost" New Year's Eve and Day. And washed that down with intermittent doses of the Twilight Zone Marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel (Wasn't Billy Mumy delicious as the evil kid who controlled the whole town?)

Today is my first day back at work. I have to work tomorrow, too, but I'm off Friday in order to see my cardiologist who should have the results of the nuclear stress test I had the week before Christmas (he'd better fucking say I'm in the pink or I'll have to hurt him because I'm in no mood for bad news).

Perhaps the single most important thing I did this past week was to hang up my 2008 Calendar in the bedroom. It's full of quotes by the brilliant philosopher Joseph Campbell. January's is this, "Life is Perfect. It's chaos and it's always been chaos and it always will be chaos and there is nothing you can do to change that. It's your job to straighten out your own life. That is the meaning of life."

Amen, brother.

I hope everyone had a happy, joyous, sane, healthy ChrisHannuKwaanYear, and that you spent a lot of time with people you love.

Now go straighten up the mess you call "life."

-JZB

p.s. I spotted the following little item on Wonkette the other day. Be sure to drop by over there and read the whole thing. Wonkette may be snarky and too "inside-the-beltway" for a lot of folks, but I love it.

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Ok, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these Christian conservative types? Does anyone else, anywhere, spend this much time thinking about other people having sex that isn’t doing so in order to masturbate, plan their next porno, or write for Fleshbot? Let alone, does anyone spend this much time equating the guy-on-guy anal action with fucking dead people, little kids or animals? Like, how does that even occur to you? Candidates are being assassinated in Pakistan and people are dying in Kenya over rigged elections and thousands of Americans and Iraqis are dead in Iraq because of a war we started for (apparently) no good reason and their feeble little minds are totally filled with thoughts of how God doesn’t want people to to engage in ass fucking because you can’t have babies? Jeebus Motherfucking Christ, I’m ready to start drinking now. Bring on the New Motherfucking Year.

1:35 PM ON MON DEC 31 2007
BY MEGAN CARPENTIER