I was born 50 years ago, this very day.
I wanted to give a party to celebrate my half-century mark. But I wanted a party last year too, and the only person who answered my invitation affirmatively was Leah, who wound up not being able to come because she was in hospital. She was in hospital again about a month or so later, and never left.
I wish my Mom and Dad could be with me. But Mom's in Vegas for the winter, as she's been for at least a dozen years, and Dad's somewhere I can't yet go, taken from me and all of us last spring.
I won't even be getting a lousy pizza lunch at work, like we used to do for every employee's birthday, because there's practically nobody left in that office now. Not even me. I'm obligated to go in tomorrow and Tuesday to teach my coworker how to do billing, so he can in turn teach my eventual successor. I was never able to take the first couple days of any month as vacation or personal time because the billing needed to be done. This month will be the last time that ever occurs, now that the job and I have parted ways.
I miss my local blog friends. I haven't seen most of them all year, I no longer get invited to NY blogger gatherings for reasons I've yet to fathom, and because I've been away from Manhattan my social life has dwindled to a trickle.
And my body doesn't feel quite right, like it's still trying to settle in at some plateau. I had a year without a cycle, from October '06 to October '07, then two cycles in a row, and if I were still regular I'd be starting another one about now, so maybe that's why I'm in such achy discomfort. But it could be The Dreaded Lurgy, or it could be the multiple bug bites I seem to have all over from some unknown source (what bugs could possibly be biting in December?). The hip bursitis is more or less under control but I haven't done my exercises in at least a week, and I feel I'm spiralling downward.
So that's the bad news, and you get to listen to it because I'm officially Old now, and old people get to be Grumpy. Times like this I wish I had a lawn so I could tell you kids to get off it.
The good news, of course, is that I have lots of blessings in my life, many of which I enumerate here in my blogiversary post. I don't take for granted one minute that I have a loving husband and partner, two adorable pets whose lives have reached double digits, relative health, a roof over my head and enough money in the bank to tide me over this period of unemployment, family and comic-industry friends and a way to express myself and a connection with all of you. And I have a second interview on Thursday, Robin's 46th birthday, that we both hope will result in cause to celebrate more than just milestones.
So today I'll be updating my checkbook and putting away laundry and talking to Mom and others on the phone and playing with the new digital camera Robin bought me (a Canon PowerShot SD800 IS, for those of you keeping score at home) and reading whilst he works, and maybe after his work day is done we can go out for sushi, if the weather cooperates. Not how I envisaged spending my 50th, but after all it's just another day, we humans are the ones who invest such things with silly subjective significance.
I wanted to give a party to celebrate my half-century mark. But I wanted a party last year too, and the only person who answered my invitation affirmatively was Leah, who wound up not being able to come because she was in hospital. She was in hospital again about a month or so later, and never left.
I wish my Mom and Dad could be with me. But Mom's in Vegas for the winter, as she's been for at least a dozen years, and Dad's somewhere I can't yet go, taken from me and all of us last spring.
I won't even be getting a lousy pizza lunch at work, like we used to do for every employee's birthday, because there's practically nobody left in that office now. Not even me. I'm obligated to go in tomorrow and Tuesday to teach my coworker how to do billing, so he can in turn teach my eventual successor. I was never able to take the first couple days of any month as vacation or personal time because the billing needed to be done. This month will be the last time that ever occurs, now that the job and I have parted ways.
I miss my local blog friends. I haven't seen most of them all year, I no longer get invited to NY blogger gatherings for reasons I've yet to fathom, and because I've been away from Manhattan my social life has dwindled to a trickle.
And my body doesn't feel quite right, like it's still trying to settle in at some plateau. I had a year without a cycle, from October '06 to October '07, then two cycles in a row, and if I were still regular I'd be starting another one about now, so maybe that's why I'm in such achy discomfort. But it could be The Dreaded Lurgy, or it could be the multiple bug bites I seem to have all over from some unknown source (what bugs could possibly be biting in December?). The hip bursitis is more or less under control but I haven't done my exercises in at least a week, and I feel I'm spiralling downward.
So that's the bad news, and you get to listen to it because I'm officially Old now, and old people get to be Grumpy. Times like this I wish I had a lawn so I could tell you kids to get off it.
The good news, of course, is that I have lots of blessings in my life, many of which I enumerate here in my blogiversary post. I don't take for granted one minute that I have a loving husband and partner, two adorable pets whose lives have reached double digits, relative health, a roof over my head and enough money in the bank to tide me over this period of unemployment, family and comic-industry friends and a way to express myself and a connection with all of you. And I have a second interview on Thursday, Robin's 46th birthday, that we both hope will result in cause to celebrate more than just milestones.
So today I'll be updating my checkbook and putting away laundry and talking to Mom and others on the phone and playing with the new digital camera Robin bought me (a Canon PowerShot SD800 IS, for those of you keeping score at home) and reading whilst he works, and maybe after his work day is done we can go out for sushi, if the weather cooperates. Not how I envisaged spending my 50th, but after all it's just another day, we humans are the ones who invest such things with silly subjective significance.
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