A Series of Shitty Adventures, Part I

Hi all, it's been a while, so let's catch up.

After three full years of avoiding it and weaving around some close exposures, our luck finally caught up with us...and during the first week of February, we got Covid.

Daisy was exposed to a coworker who had it and began developing symptoms a few days later. After close to a week of feeling weird/bad, after three tests, she finally tested positive. I remained pretty normal until the evening/overnight hours that same night, when I started to feel a little strange and began running a very light (99.0) fever. I didn't feel sick per se, but I wasn't feeling good, either.

I let my bosses know that Daisy had tested positive, which likely meant that I would too and I'd also get it. Daisy was a mess. At that juncture I told work I still planned to work normally but I'd keep them in the loop if that changed. I took a test. I tested negative. 

By around 2am on one of the weekend nights before I'd return to work -- by which time I'd developed a cough that was hard, dry, and painful -- I went to sleep. I slept for ten hours straight, only getting up to use the bathroom and move to the bedroom from my overstuffed lounge chair around the middle of that time. By the time I'd awakened for the day, Daisy had gone to and returned from Walgreens (fully masked and basically in a hazmat suit) to pick up the Paxlovid she'd called our doctor to send over for her. I took a test. I was negative at that time.

She'd also made sure to update my own insurance information with the pharmacists at Walgreens so that inevitably, when said Paxlovid would be called in for me, everything would be good and ready to roll. 

Most of the following Sunday, while Daisy was still dying, I was mostly okay. I had the cough. It was getting worse and more frequent. But I didn't have a fever, and physically I actually felt sort of light and energetic. I didn't want to take another test yet, as we only had three left and I didn't want to burn through them -- especially as I don't think they're incredibly accurate. So I decided I was fine enough to attempt to work all night, as per the usual.

I was. Mostly.

By the middle of the night, the 3am, 4am hours, I was coughing so hard and so frequently I saw spots and was getting very dizzy. I made sure the crew knew, again, that if I could power through it for Monday night I'd do the same, this thing wasn't gonna take me alive, etc. -- but it really, really was not looking good.

It was around this time that I for sure knew I had Covid. There was no denying it, no way in hell that's not what it was. I was loopy, I had major brain fog. It took me twenty minutes to remember my password to login to my work computer, and even then it was mostly muscle memory. 

I was coughing so hard by 6am (I get off work at 7) that I'd awakened the wife upstairs multiple times. She offered to come downstairs and help me take another test, because I was, well...almost unable to move, and I was keeping her awake. She tested me with a different kind of test this time (apparently there are a lot of different ones) and we waited the prerequisite amount of time before it told Daisy what we both already knew -- yeah, positive. I couldn't see the line on it (my eyes are bad) but Daisy could. I did see the line eventually; it got darker a bit later.

I took my temperature. 101. Daisy called in the Paxlovid for me. It would be a while before it was available. I took a double-dose of liquid NyQuil and went upstairs, where a short while later I passed out in my chair for four hours and then moved to the bedroom for another three.

When I awakened...it was bad. I knew I was really sick. I haven't felt a sick like this in decades. I had Flu B in 2015 and Flu C in 2018. Flu B sucked to be sure, and Flu C slightly less, but it was nothing like this. The closest thing I could describe it as was when I had mono for like two weeks in the 3rd grade. I remember being low-grade miserable, sleeping a lot (a lot), and not having an appetite. Well, this was like that, except it was high-grade miserable, not low-grade. It's the closest thing I can describe it as, honestly.

Daisy had gone out while I was asleep (again) to pick up my Paxlovid. She also picked up eight more tests -- did you know that your insurance, well maybe not all insurances, but ours -- will pay for eight more tests per person, per month? For free. Because I sure as hell didn't. 

Our doctor had called in these little gelcaps for me too; I can't remember the name of the actual drug, but they refer to them as "pearls" and they're supposed to stop you from coughing so much. They're basically prescription Robitussin in a pill, from what I read about them online. I'm supposed to take 2-3 of them a day as needed, and they interact with some of my other meds (they make them less effective, but not much else). I took one, and I did notice a vast difference in my coughs within 2-3 hours.

[EDIT: the drug is called Benzonotate.]

The Paxlovid, if you are not aware or don't have experience with it, is basically Tamiflu for Covid-19. It's an antiviral that stops the virus from being able to reproduce in your body and attempts to flush it out. Okay, sure, whatever. It is free and covered by insurance so yeah, might as well give it a go.

Look, I have diabetes. I'm overweight. I smoked for over fifteen years. I don't feel like I'm taking the drug away from someone who could give it better use. Those are the three biggest risk factors for severe Covid as well as long-haul Covid. 

It comes in a box with five blister packs, six pills per pack. Take the three "morning" pills in the morning, and take the other three "evening" pills at night before bed. For five days. Oh, and if it doesn't kick the virus out of you completely, you could have a resurgence and get sick again the day after it ends, testing positive again and becoming sick again until it all works its way out of your system.

But, I mean, I guess that doesn't happen to everyone. It did happen to my mother, who had a bout of Covid around the turn of the year and still hasn't completely recovered, so I was willing to take the chance.

I was miserable, and my fever began creeping up again. The early part of that week was likely my own "worst days" of the sick. I told Daisy I wasn't going to work, there was no way I could sit upright for many hours and end and think critically and be stressed out when I was this sick -- or talk on the phone with clients for that matter. 

My company has a policy where, even though all of us work at home and have done so since March 2020, we still need to report positive Covid cases (for ourselves, or for our agents). It's more important with the groups who still work onsite in the last remaining physical office we have in Omaha, as they have to follow distancing protocol and the like. But, we don't work onsite and the Covid reporting is also ammo they use every time our parent company gets some sort of idea about "Covid's over now, let's move everyone back to an office" -- so that our leadership can point to the numbers and be like "no, look at X cases reported this week by people who are working at home and would be bringing that back to the office" etc. It's ammunition that has seemed to work really well overall, even after most infection numbers began to die down in most cities. Secretly, I also think it's because when the symptoms aren't killing you, most people can work through them when they're working from home instead of just quarantining themselves and hurting production by not being onsite to work even if they're mostly okay, because they'd still be spreading the virus.

Anyway, I let the team know, including my executive director and head of HR, that yeah, I had it, was on Paxlovid and self-isolating, wouldn't need to go onsite for anything, etc etc, and that I would definitely be out of office for a bit, time unknown, but 1-2 days at the very least.

Mind you, I'm salaried; the correct thing to do is to put in the PTO for that, and I did so, but even if I hadn't...I'd still get paid regardless. 

At that juncture, I left it open that I did not know when I'd be able to return to work. Given how I felt at the time, I wasn't going to commit to anything yet. I also left my out of office messages both on my phone and on my email intentionally vague, just saying that I was out of office due to illness and would respond to inquiries upon my return. This would serve me pretty well as a saved message for future use as well (keep reading, I'll get to it). 

I asked Daisy, who was feeling a bit better by this point on her second full day of Paxlovid, but still sick, if she'd make her famous vegan chicken noodle soup for me for dinner. Meanwhile, I had on my fur/sherpa lined hooded bathrobe and I was still freezing, yet sweating. She made the soup and I ate it, because she is an amazing wife, but I also felt my fever creeping upward with little I could do about it -- there are a lot of things you can't take with Paxlovid because of potentially serious drug interactions, and one of them per the research I found was acetaminophen -- which is in the NyQuil I was planning to do another double-shot of before going upstairs.

[EDIT: while there are some potentially serious drug interactions with Paxlovid, apparently the reason you can't take some of the aforementioned OTC medications with it -- including decongestants, allergy pills, acetaminophen, etc -- is because it somehow interacts with the Paxlovid to either neutralize it or make it FAR less effective. So there's that.]

My fever hit 102, then 102.2, then 102.5, then capped out at 102.7. I couldn't take anything to reduce the fever.

My blood oxygen was anywhere between 91 when I first checked it (which is bad-ish news) to generally, consistently hanging around 97, 98, which is much more ideal. 

Daisy was very worried about how my fever had kept creeping up. Aside from knowing I had a fever, I felt mostly okay by the time she showered and went to bed. Good enough to where I should've been at work? Hell no, but good enough to where I felt I wasn't going to die. I took the "night" dose of the Paxlovid, and she did another search and found that ibuprofen, another fever reducer, did not have any known drug interactions with Paxlovid, and I took two of them to ease her mind. 

Over the span of about forty minutes, my fever began to slowly drop -- first to 102.4, then to 102.0, and then it moved back up to 102.2. It was clearly fighting the ibuprofen. By the time I was tired enough to go to sleep, it was back down to 101.8 and my blood oxygen was well-stabilized at 97. I wrapped myself in a queen-sized fleece blanket like a burrito and went to sleep in my chair -- if I burst into coughing fits in the night, I didn't want to wake Daisy up. And if I were in the bed with her, I absolutely would. 

I did not sleep well. It's like my body didn't want me to sleep. I was full of aches/pains and felt extremely stiff. I was cold and hot at the same time. My blanket was at times too hot and other times not hot enough, and I was constantly, constantly sweating -- I would soak the back and chest of any shirt I was wearing, repeatedly.

Eventually I got up when Daisy was beginning to start her work day -- still sick, but working from home in any capacity she could -- and was up for an hour or two checking my email and trying to figure out how I felt. The major fever had broken, and I felt relatively lucid (or so I thought at the time). The biggest problem was a debilitating, almost blinding at times, stiff and painful neck, to the point where I couldn't even turn my head or really, easily lift by body out of chairs, out of bed, etc. 

By mid-morning, after taking my next dose of Paxlovid and taking more ibuprofen for not only fever control, but for my screaming neck, I laid down in the bed with the cats and slept for another six hours. 

I returned to work the following night. My boss was surprised I was back so fast. I started the night by apologizing for being this sick, and told my crew that I was feeling at about 60-70% and was trying to fight it off, but hey all, no sudden moves or anything. 

Translation: I'm here because I have to be, not because I want to be, so don't pile a bunch of bullshit on me and expect me to be as quick or as talented in handling it as I normally am, because I am very much not that person this week.

The next overnight was mostly fine. I was still running a low fever around 100, and I still had the cough, but the biggest pain of it all was the incessant sneezing and the need to blow my nose probably fifty times in the course of the night. Oh, and my neck was still killing me, and I was still sweating through my clothing, but again, I thought I was mostly lucid -- lucid enough to do the job, anyway. By the time I went to bed the next morning, aside from the congestion and other symptoms I could do nothing about (because, again, couldn't take DayQuil/NyQuil), I was beginning to feel like I was on the mend.

Oh, I was wrong. I was so wrong.

By the next afternoon -- with Daisy now having been sick for a full week and with me entering my fourth full day of sickness myself -- it's like we had a rebound. I was really sick again, coughing and really out of it, feverish, aches/pains and my screaming neck (which had not gotten better and was worrying me that maybe I'd contracted meningitis or something). Daisy, who had begun feeling better, also crashed again and began feeling horrific once more. My sickness slowly began to subside once I took my evening dose of Paxlovid, but make no mistake about it, we were both still quite ill.

When I went downstairs at like, 7:30 PM, I found my work computer to be on -- screens on and everything -- and showing me an error message. This is odd because it had been working just fine that morning when I'd rebooted it after I'd logged off for the day, and I turn my monitors off.

Daisy said there had been a brief 30-second power outage in the day while I was asleep, but that would not have caused the error that my computer was giving me -- which said my hard drive had been encrypted for security reasons by a program called BitLocker and that I would need a 47-character security key to get back into it. 

I...don't have that key. I don't know anyone who does have that key. Even if I were able to get into my computer, that key is locked away from me at the admin level, because even though I'm an Operations Manager™ and have been one for almost seven years now, I don't have admin access to my machine. Nobody does for any of their machines -- that's the job of the IT folks. 

So, frustrated and sick, I call up our IT guy, who tells me...he's never seen this message before on a PC. He does some research on the back end to find where we can get that info, and he logs into my account from his side (I gave him my password and full authorization to do so) to see if he can get this key with the security clearances he has. He cannot. He involves the Identity and Access Management team to see if they can, involves our Executive Director, and they begin escalating up the chain to see if there was anyone available in the overnight who could get it.

I made a little something to eat, and went back upstairs to my normal, actual computer (this one) and actual office.

I am lucky -- or maybe I'm just talented and skilled enough to know how things work -- that I can access and do about 90% of my job on any given night, if necessary, from my normal computer. The only things I cannot access on my normal machine are our client tools, which our teams must access via VPN. Everything else, however, I can get into on my normal machine with no special tools or skills necessary. I can pull up both my personal email as well as our shared box, I can pull up our admin system via MyApps, I can pull up our spreadsheets (all of them are online shared sheets), I can pull up our organization's CRM system, and I can sign into and use our company Teams as normal. I'm sure if I wanted to, I could even access my desk phone and have it route to my cell, but that's wholly unnecessary anyway as my email signature lists my cell as well as my desk phone. It is remarkable that I can do 90% of my job at any/all times without needing to touch my work PC. My normal home PC is faster, it's much more reliable, and it doesn't run off the company network -- so in my other browser tabs I can play a game, or watch YouTube, or do anything else I wanted to do. 

Plus, my normal PC has a working CD player. 

I am tempted to just be like "oh, my client tools aren't working correctly tonight" once in a while and just do all my work from up here just to get a break and some more calming headspace.

"Look at it this way," I told Daisy, "if my computer's fucked and they can't get this code or can't fix it, I can't take it to the office to have them look at it because, well, Covid. If they ship me another machine to replace it, that'll take a week and it's basically a free vacation for me, because, Covid -- can't work in the office even if there was a machine there to use. So, they either fix it and everything goes back to business as usual or I get a few extra days to rest and recover -- I don't give a shit either way."

So, about...ehhhh, 90 minutes early, give or take, because I was already working with our IT guy, I just logged into everything from upstairs and dove in. I let the team know what was going on, let them know that unfortunately it would likely not get fixed in the overnight, but I was here and going to do everything I could to help out as per the usual, but I was a bit hobbled and for stuff requiring client tools, I'd need to utilize my coworkers' hands and eyes and sometimes screenshots when necessary.

I do want to state here for the record that I could have very easily told the crew "oh well, guess I get a free night off, catch y'all later." My computer was busted, I was feeling like shit still, and I knew with absolute certainty that nobody in corporate IT would be able to get the code to "fix" my machine until the morning/daytime hours. I could've peaced out and just gone back to bed for the night. But, honestly, that's not who I am. If I have the ability to do something and help out, I will. So I logged in upstairs and pulled everything up, and didn't give it a second thought, really. When my Executive Director asked me what I could do without the work PC, I told him 90% of the job (as mentioned above), and would get assistance as necessary for the last 10%. He seemed impressed, if not outright surprised. 

What followed was a night of calm, zen-like work, where I felt freed from the constraints of the work PC downstairs. I sat in my comfortably lit office, listening to classic metal records and taking care of business. On my lunch hour, I took a long, hot shower to soothe my neck (since the bathroom is about fifteen feet behind me). I took and made calls. I handled all of the email and spreadsheet updates I normally would. I did two loads of laundry. I compiled and filed the nightly reports as I normally would. I closely monitored my temperature and blood oxygen levels (both remained normal and good). I watched an entire episode of American Gladiators on YouTube. I told one of my underlings on the side how I didn't care if they ever fixed my work PC, because I was having a blast working this way. It really was a good work experience, is what I'm saying, for the first time in a while -- all while still fighting Covid.

By around 7:30 Thursday morning I was still working -- 12 hours at that point, even though I'm supposed to get off at 7 -- when an email came in that said they'd found my computer's passcode thing. It was sent to me and, yes, it did let me back into my machine. However, two more hours of troubleshooting followed that to make sure everything was going to work correctly. I made sure our IT guy knew and made sure my Executive Director was aware that yes, I was in, and that I had basically reached my limit and was going to bed after working 14 hours straight when my shift is 8. I told him I now knew how the director-and-above folks felt when they had to pull long hours.

"I appreciate you sticking with it," he said. Said Executive Director is fully aware I have Covid and was fighting through that anyway to continue to work and help out, and was also fully and very aware I could've just said fuck it for the night when I couldn't get into my computer -- it would've been understandable and justified, and moreover, nobody would've been able to give me shit over it.

"That's what I'm here for," I said. "Just remember this if I ever get a shot at a Director gig in the future, lol."

Yes, I included the "lol," because I have a good relationship with my big boss and don't want him to think I was put out by the whole scenario. I was, but I mean, I didn't care. I'd rather help than not when I have the ability -- I have a sense of duty and a strong work ethic. There's also no better person to show that off to in any corporate scenario than the man at the top of the power structure over your entire program.

"I will," he said. 

Over the course of the next few days, I finished up my Paxlovid. I felt mostly okay. Each day I felt a little better than the last. I still had a cough, I still had head congestion and the incessant neck pain, but I wasn't feeling as horrible anymore. Daisy, who finished her Paxlovid a day before me, was feeling somewhat better, but wasn't completely 100% either. I'll also note that most of this time, she spent working from home so that she wouldn't infect anyone in the office -- and while she was at home with Covid, no less than three other people in her office had been stricken down with it as well.

The following weekend was the Super Bowl, and...I felt fine. I'd taken Super Bowl Sunday off work anyway (I always do, regardless of who's playing). I felt almost normal and was thankful that I was finally shaking off the sickness.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The week that followed -- and I'm being brief because I don't remember most of it -- was hell. Once the Paxlovid was out of my system, I found that I was in that (apparently small) percentage of people who got a second wave of Covid after the fact. And, unfortunately, Daisy was too. I got incredibly sick again for close to another week, so sick that I honestly do not remember much at all. I struggled hard through that week of work. I couldn't stop sneezing. I went through an entire box of tissues in two days, and filled multiple handkerchiefs with snot because of the incessant nose-blowing. I had multiple nosebleeds. My lungs felt like they'd been replaced with gummy bears. I had a fever that would go between about 100.5 to 102 at almost all times, with no real reprieve. I completely lost my senses of taste and smell, when I hadn't on the first go-around with the virus. When it did slowly begin to return, everything tasted off, or tasted rotten, and things I had previously loved I no longer had any desire to eat or drink. I lost any desire whatsoever to drink coffee, for example. I didn't really have any built up time I could take off work, and my goal during that week was to get through it and to just fucking sleep through most of the following weekend. Luckily, as I was done with the Paxlovid, I could drink DayQuil and NyQuil with impunity, and they helped. I think. I say I think because one of the symptoms that took the longest to go away was intense "brain fog."

Daisy, meanwhile, had a delayed onset of the second wave -- she was mostly okay for a few days, and then slowly went back down, like a balloon with a pinhole in it. There was a lot of ebb and flow to it for both of us, but more so for Daisy, who would go from feeling relatively normal to feeling sick again in the evenings, to getting up the next morning and feeling like she was going to die -- and then would feel better in the afternoon for a while only for it to take her down again a few hours later. She also lost her sense of taste and smell, and for her that particular symptom lasted a good while. It took me another full week to start feeling better for good, but it took Daisy close to ten days -- and even after she felt fine, she was still testing positive every time she checked (I didn't bother to continue testing; I work from home and I knew I still had it -- I don't have to leave the house for anything, so fuck it). If she had a bad day but was lucid enough to actually work, she would work from home, and as she didn't have a fever any longer, she transitioned back to her normal in-office schedule by the end of the following week.

Eventually, we both got better. Little by little, more every day, until it was all completely gone. 

Having lived through the Covid experience, I need to tell those of you who have been lucky enough to not get it over the past three years some pointers:

• It is not the flu and it is real. This isn't some bullshit that the media is blowing out of proportion. It is real and it sucks. If you have not had it, you do not want it. I will stress again that I have never felt a sickness quite like Covid. It doesn't feel like a cold or a flu. 
  
  
• I mentioned briefly above that I have diabetes and I smoked for fifteen years (I still vape, but we'll cover that later, and I'm quitting that too). I am overweight and have been for most of my life. The above story is how bad I got it after four vaccines (two normal shots and two boosters) and with Paxlovid. I am alive; I survived, but Covid kicked my ass badly. I'm not sure, without the vaccines and Paxlovid, that I would be alive today. So, get vaccinated. Get the boosters.
  
  
• Daisy does not have diabetes, is not a smoker or a vaper, is six years younger than me, and also had the same four shots and Paxlovid that I did. She's vegan, eats pretty cleanly and organically, and despite her weight, is very healthy and exercises/is far more active than me in general...and it still kicked her ass too.
  
  
• If someone says they've been exposed to Covid, or is already sick with it, stay the fuck away from that person.
  
  
• If you do get it, get on the Paxlovid immediately. Call your doctor, have them call it in for you, do whatever you can to get it in your system as soon as you can. I can't imagine how much worse off I/we would've been without it. 
  
  
• Paxlovid's major side effect is that while you're on it, and even for a few days after you get off it, you will develop a sour, bitter, metallic taste in your mouth. The taste? Very similar to grapefruit. And it's incessant, especially for the first two hours or so after you take your dose of it. Plus side, it does fade and disappear once you finish your run of Paxlovid. Almost everyone gets this, and yes, you will still taste it even when/if you lose your sense of taste and smell. It powers through.
  
  
• Bonus tip: if you get the grapefruit mouth, drink a Fresca. It counteracts it. Fight fire with fire.

Finally, after some of the worst two and a half weeks of my life, I was feeling much better and finally tested negative again -- on the same day Daisy tested negative as well. This was good, because the morning after testing negative, I would have my scheduled A1C and other bloodwork follow-up appointment with my doctor.

What do you think happened there? Well, there's a reason this is a "part I" and a reason this post is called "A Series of Shitty Adventures" ...

The Aftermath, and 2023

In the days after Christmas, and after the New Year, I've been living life much in a blur. 

Christmas came and went. It was mostly very uneventful. On Christmas Eve we had finger foods with the parents, and then drove around a bit to look at lights. We were instructed to be at the family home again by 8:30 the next morning for breakfast, which we were (well, we got there at 8:39). 

Daisy's parents, as is customary, gave us a giant quilt.

Daisy generally handles most gifts for her parents and I get them a few little things just from me; this year, for example, I got Dad some socks. This was my gift to him last year too (different socks, though, because I'm not weird). I used to get Dad knives or some other sort of weapon every year until Daisy told me to stop that. We actually got each other knives for a few years running; Daisy and I have been together a decade, so there have been a lot of Christmases. 

It was all quiet, very subdued, and very peaceful. When we returned home that evening we opened our own gifts for one another; Daisy got me several books I'd been wanting to read, some CDs, a pack of socks I'd wanted, and a robe (that needed to be returned because it was too small, but I replaced it with one in the correct size). Her big gift for me was the Sega Genesis 2 Mini, which was delayed in shipping from Japan until well after the new year. 

I got Daisy an assortment of the usual items -- treats like Cocomels and Clif Bars, and Jolly Ranchers -- as well as some useful things for around the house, like scarf hangers for her side of the closet and her big gift, a bright purple crock pot. 

I sent my parents some big canvases with photos of us and their pets on them, and (as that's more of a mom thing), I sent my dad a few comics subscriptions too. I later used the same canvas print site to print a 24"x36" wall canvas of me as Space Jesus for about $30 that is now hanging in our living room. No regrets.

The new year came and went just fine, too, with the exception of one little thing: FSA expiration.

Let me explain.

I don't know how many of you reading this have the option of FSA/HSA for the insurance for your jobs; I know I do, but I've never utilized it because all of my health coverage is through Daisy's job because it's much better, more comprehensive insurance and overall easier/cheaper for her to just cover me than vice versa, or to get separate coverage. 

Short aside: I do get accidental death/dismemberment/disability insurance through my job, and I also have an amazing life insurance policy through my workplace that will pay Daisy very well were I to drop dead tomorrow, but that's it. 

Anyway, part of Daisy's optional coverage is a FSA plan. We've always done it and dropped a fair amount of money into it because, I mean, why not? We use it to pay for prescriptions, doctor's visits, glasses, etc. 

Well, this year we didn't use most of it. And we were reminded a few weeks prior that it expired 12/31, and we wouldn't get that money back afterwards if we didn't use it beforehand.

How much did we actually have left? Just shy of $900.

Do you know how many pairs of glasses, bottles of both pills and liquid cold and allergy medicine, thermometers, heating pads, nasal rinses, glasses wipes, face washes, pain relievers, bandages, TENS machines, balms and creams, antacids, cough drops, vitamins, and various other little odds and ends $900 will buy?

The answer is a lot. Like, likely enough to be put on some sort of watchlist somewhere.

So, in the evening of New Year's Eve, Daisy and I went on a mini shopping spree. It was like a second, more medical Christmas. Today is January 8. There are still things arriving. I'm pretty sure the delivery drivers in our area have us on their shitlist right now. My new glasses, for example, don't arrive until Monday. There are a handful of things that have been delayed, too, so it is what it is.

We used all but $8 of the FSA, by the way.

The one thing the FSA couldn't cover before the end of the year? Ironically, my actual medication.

I wish I were making that up.

On December 27, I called the pharmacy and requested a refill of my Metformin. At the time I had maybe three or four days left, at most. I never heard back from them, nor did the wife (who gets texts saying when our prescriptions have been filled. I called them on New Year's Eve, and spoke to a pharmacist who was like "yeah, we haven't heard back from your doctor yet, but you can try back after the holiday."

This did not fill me with a lot of hope. I ran out of my Metformin -- completely -- and started taking some of Daisy's old ones (which are very likely expired, but will at least keep it in my system). 

On Friday, after still nothing, I reached out to my doctor's office directly, asking what the hold up was, because I was out of my pills and yes, they do need to refill them. 

We'd be happy to send over new refills for you as soon as you schedule your next follow up appointment with us, they told me.

What the fuck?

These doctors have been super overreactive with me ever since I was diagnosed with diabetes a few years back. My A1Cs are not high -- in fact, I'm very much on the very low end of the diabetic scale, especially now that I'm on Metformin and have continually kept losing weight every year now for five years running. I'm not sitting here eating a loaf of bread and drinking two gallons of full sugar Mountain Dew every day, and despite how much I might like it to be, my blood is not maple syrup or gravy. I'm actually eating far less than ever before and I've been a bit more active than I used to be (more on this later, maybe). 

"They can't withhold my medication just because they want me to come in so they can get money," I told Daisy. "It's not like I'm taking these pills recreationally -- they are medically necessary."

I called them and said fine, whatever, let's set up an appointment. I should get my A1C checked again anyhow, and maybe this time it'll tell me I'm nearing the range to where I can reduce my Metformin dose in the hopes of eventually eliminating it completely. So, yeah, whatever.

"What's the soonest first AM -- like 7AM -- appointment?"

"Let me check," the nurse told me as she thumbed through whatever schedules she had in front of her, before finally answering "February 24th."

"That's the soonest one?" I asked. 

"Yes," she said. "There are only two appointments available before then, and they're 1pm and 1:30pm on [some random, middle-of-the-week day at the end of the month]."

"Okay, lock me in for the 7AM appointment on February 24, then," I said.

"Will you have enough medication to get you through to that time?" 

....no, I won't, that's the entire fucking reason I'm doing this, because you're holding my pills hostage.

"No," I said, "I absolutely won't. I'm completely out of Metformin now and I have maybe two or three weeks left of Allopurinol, nowhere near enough to get me through a month and a half before I'm in there. So I need those refilled, sent over to [pharmacy] please. Like, ASAP."

She finally agreed with me that yes, this was important, and sent the refills. And I thanked her and hung up. 

Two days later, still no notification from the pharmacy that the refills have been received or filled. I'm still taking the wife's old Metformin to keep it in my system, and if we haven't heard anything from the pharmacy by Monday I'll absolutely be calling either them or the doctor's office again and raising hell. The entire ordeal is ridiculous. 

Adding to this, aside from the A1C check, the primary reason I'm going in for this appointment is to get the doctor's office to send my prescriptions over to Amazon Pharmacy, which they told me they'd be able to do more smoothly once they were all updated and done. Okay, whatever.

So I guess I have a doctor's appointment a month and a half from now and I'll take whatever meds I can get until then.

The first week of the new year has been productive in a few ways. We've both returned to work though, much to our chagrin. I won't have another non-PTO day off now until...I think Memorial Day? Christ, that sounds so depressing. I did take off Super Bowl Sunday, because no matter who plays, that extra day off is always a much-needed break. Daisy at least has MLK Jr. Day off. I do not, because the action never stops in telecommunications, apparently.

What I have done in the first week of the new year is a lot of laundry, some mild cleaning, and...well, I guess you can call it prepping for the rest of the year. For example, I already have the photos for next year's Christmas card design already plotted out. Stuff like that. 

The wife and I have been reorganizing the house, with more (much, much more) work on that to be done in the coming weeks and months. We're plotting vacation time on a very loose basis. We've been spending a lot of quality time together, something I see continuing a lot more this year than in a long time.

None of these things are really "resolutions" of any sort, they're just things we've fallen into naturally. 

I don't really want to make any real resolutions this year -- but I do have things I've been working on, and things I would like to continue to work on. I've gone through my (apparently, continually growing) record collection -- stuff I bought in 2022, either physically or digitally -- and have been listening to all of it, thoroughly enjoying the process. Oftentimes I'll buy an album and it'll just sit on a shelf for months before I stick it into the CD player. Well, from around...September onward, I purchased probably thirty albums total, almost all of them by bands I saw live last year. 

Yeah, I do occasionally leave the house. Shocking, I know, right?

I'm having a great deal of enjoyment listening through all of this stuff, especially while I write or do light chores around the house. It's a trend I'd like to continue in 2023 throughout the rest of the year.

Speaking of writing, I have been doing a little of that here and there. I've revised the treatment for the screenplay I've been wanting to write for some time. I've mentioned it here before in the sense that it's a "love letter to the '90s," and it remains such. It's going to take some time to put together (and a refresher read on how to format a screenplay, since I haven't written one in twenty years), but I do think I have a decent shot at finishing it before the end of the year.

Of course, I also said that about my short story collection, and that is...well, it's not really progressed past two stories (out of six total that I'd like to include). I plan to work on that more this year too, if not finish it. It's just going to take time. Everything takes time, and as I'm not independently wealthy, I do still have to work, eat, and sleep. 

Let's see, what else is going on?

I have not yet gotten my 40th birthday tattoo. I probably won't end up getting one for some time. There's just not really any good day/time for it unless it's a day both Daisy and I would have off work together at the same time. We only get a handful of days like that together every year, and they're mostly major holidays. I suppose it would be possible to try to do it during Memorial Day week, which I'll likely take off of work because our wedding anniversary falls in the middle of it, but at this point I don't even know. 

Our scarfaced cat (as I call her now) is fine; she had the stitches removed the day after Christmas, and while she still has a little scar across her lip, her fur is slowly growing back to re-cover it. She's the same old girl she always was again.

I have not watched any new movies or any of the new, hot TV/streaming series that everyone's talking about. Daisy watched Wednesday and loved it, but I watched roughly two episodes and was in the room with her when she watched most of the rest and I could not really get into it, no matter how I tried. It just wasn't really my thing at all. I appreciate the work that went into it, but yeah...it's just not made for me or my demographic. 

We still need to set up the new T-Mobile internet. We got the router in the mail last week, and it's going to take some work and be enough of an undertaking that I need to be able to devote a few hours to setting it up, connecting some devices to it (most important -- my work computer, this computer, and our phones) to see how well it works and/or if it will actually end up working better for us than our current ISP. It's probably going to be much easier to use than I think, but I'm also one of those people who used to be really technologically saavy but isn't anymore, so new electronic things end up being frustrations more often than not. We'll see how it goes.

I will say one thing that's more of a resolution than it isn't -- I'm likely not going to be writing here a lot this year. Surprise there, right? It's not you, it's me. There's a lot I have to do during any given week and there is only so much time for this stuff. If something major happens I'll update everyone here of course, but otherwise...I got burnt out on chronicling every little detail of my life during the pandemic, and I really can't do that anymore.

So that's really about it, all. I'll check in periodically, but happy 2023. I hope you're all as blessed as I am. 

Christmastimes, Part IV: The Lead Up

 The internet came back up around 10am this morning. It bounced a few times for a couple of hours before remaining stable afterwards.

Too little, too late -- Daisy and I ordered the T-Mobile 5G internet hub three hours before that this morning. It's almost half the price of my current ISP and is supposed to be much better service. It arrives sometime next week, at which point I'll plug it in and see how we like it. We have a 30-day trial period for it. If it turns out it's not our thing, or it doesn't work with our electronics or my work computer, we just cancel and return it. But the goal is to get off the teat of the ISP I'm on now, who couldn't even provide me any reason for outage for thirty hours of downtime. Their statement was "the internet failed because it was cold."

Are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah, that was their official answer. I was one of many people affected, enough to where it made the news here in Omaha -- and that was what they told the press. 

Well, no more. I've been a loyal customer of this ISP for thirteen years, but "it was cold" is where I draw the line. It was -17 to -19 for a three or four day stretch earlier this year and my internet didn't die on me then. Sometimes having multiple choices in a free market is a wonderful thing.

The outage still isn't "officially resolved" as of my writing this -- there's still another two hours before they estimate it will be restored for everyone affected.

Anyway.

As the sun sets on December 23rd we hit zero hour for Christmas. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Sunday is, of course, Christmas Day. Daisy had about six different packages arrive in the mail today. I'm guessing they're mostly presents for me (I've been ordered not to touch anything that is delivered with her name on it, not that I would anyway). 

The snow came -- not much of it, but enough to suck -- and behind it came the cold (as, ahem, mentioned above). Today is the first day in three days that the temperature made it above zero:

And let me tell you, that feels positively balmy compared to the -13 it was yesterday morning. 

We're not supposed to get back to "respectable" temperatures that accurately reflect what they should be for this time of year until the middle of next week -- when, get this, there's the possibility it will get warm enough to rain and thunderstorm on at least one day of that. 

With Christmas approaching and my internet restored (well, for now anyway) I can finally relax a bit and can enjoy the last four days of my holiday vacation in the ways I expected to -- by doing as little as possible and trying to get some real rest, interspersed with holiday activities. Daisy picked up a pack of rechargeable batteries on the way home tonight so that we can play her Wii (we need the batteries for the remotes) and get some quality time together. The next two days will be sort of hectic, but apparently this year we're foregoing the traditional Christmas Eve church service -- I asked Daisy's mother tonight to confirm that -- so while that particular tradition won't be observed, it also means I don't have to get dressed up and can wear sweats all day and all night.

I've yet to confirm the schedules for everything, but I would assume we'll venture over to the parents' sometime tomorrow afternoon and do dinner with them, then return home -- where I will be confined to my upstairs office while Daisy will be awake half the night wrapping Christmas gifts because she always waits until the last minute. On Christmas morning we'll have the customary group voice/video calls with the family, I'll call my own parents, and then we'll have breakfast and open our own gifts for one another before we head back over to the parents' for Christmas lunch/dinner/whatever works. Generally on Christmas night, Daisy and I also drive around the neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights, but as it's been so cold I don't know if she'll want to, or still want to, do that this year. I'm fine either way, honestly. 

We're both off on Monday -- which will likely be much-needed decompression time for both of us -- I took the day off in advance and Daisy gets it off from her job as the "holiday observed" day of the calendar. We both return to work on Tuesday, her in the morning and me at night. Her morning will be truncated a bit as it's also the day that our cat gets some stitches removed from a minor mass removal she had done on her face earlier this month. 

So, I mean, the next few days will be full of activities but not necessarily anything soul-draining or otherwise unexpected or unpleasant. 

Today I did multiple loads of laundry, including stripping the "cat blankets" off the couch and washing them. I also cooked and ate a full meal for the first time in a long time, and ran the dishwasher twice in order to clean up after myself. I brought in every delivered package even though the cold was nut-numbing (even moreso now that I have a shaven crotch) and made sure the cats were fed and happy. I also backed up my hard drive, balanced the checkbook, and worked on some story notes for some of my professional writing. 

As we're in a bit of a lull before the real festivities of the season begin, what else has been going on?

Well, I ordered a few new pairs of glasses. I guess that's "news" to an extent. Our FSA dollars run out at the end of the year and don't roll over (Daisy got a completely different provider at work, so whatever isn't used by 12/31 is just gone and we don't get it back). So, taking advantage of the rather large amount of money we have left in there, I got three pairs of glasses (it was buy two, get one free) with the best possible lens upgrades and frames that I won't feel like it's a waste of money to replace the lenses in upon getting a new prescription next summer.

Did you know that Amazon has an entire storefront dedicated to nothing but FSA-approved items? I didn't until last week. You'd be surprised what's covered under FSA -- heating pads, massage guns, those fancy Star Trek-head scanner thermometers, the works. Believe me, we're going to have some fun doing some healthy shopping after Christmas. I want to buy so much cold and allergy medicine that I get put on some sort of watchlist. 

But, I mean, vitamins, probiotics, etc. Personal care products. Face wash. Antimicrobial sanitizers. There are many, many possibilities. 

Anyway.

As mentioned briefly above, our cat had to go in for surgery for the second time this year to remove a non-cancerous cyst/mass from her head. The first time was on the top of her head and it was huge; this time it was a beauty-mark like cyst from her face, between her lip and nose. The doctors did a hell of a job of stitching it up, and it looked angry and swollen/painful for our little old girl for a few days before she was back to normal again:

She very much did NOT like the inflatable collar Daisy put her in so that she couldn't tear out the stitches.

I am, however, happy to report that she's been back to her normal self now for about a week, and the stitches do not seem to bother her in the least. If they do, she at least doesn't try to tear at them or pick at them. And they're getting removed Tuesday morning anyhow, so eh. This is the same cat who is in stage 2 of kidney failure, occasionally pees on herself or on the floor because of it, and has to eat special diet food that costs something like $60 a bag. For the small bag. She's old. She's not that mobile or active anymore. We just want to make sure she feels good and is comfortable, because frankly she's likely on borrowed time as it is. Watching my little old girl deteriorate is deeply sad.

But she's a very loving cat, a very sweet cat, and she's definitely a very vocal cat with a "give me all the love" personality. The girls at the vet adore her, and she is my companion every night as I work because her spot on the couch is right next to me at my work desk/computer. She even made the back of the Christmas card this year (a prestigious honor in this household). 

Speaking of those cards, I have a group of people who didn't receive one (because, well, I only made 60 of them) who are clamoring for their unveiling on Facebook. I usually do that on Christmas Eve (or thereabouts), so tomorrow is this year's unveiling of the front and back designs. Next year I'll likely need to order 70 or 75, as I've gotten a lot more people added to the list this year.

My goal for the next few days, especially tonight and tomorrow night, is to actually go to bed and sleep with the wife at the same time. 

Most people wouldn't think this is a "goal" per se, but the norm. Well, it may be the norm for them, but when you work opposite schedules, sleeping time together, in the same bed, at the same time comes at a premium -- as in, it almost never happens. I will sleep either during the day, or I will fall asleep in my chair before Daisy comes upstairs for the night, or I won't be tired when she goes to bed and won't sleep for many hours after she does so -- etc. Well, I've been waking up at 5, 6, 7 or so every morning this week no matter when I've gone to sleep, and actually did go join her in bed a few nights ago for several hours. I'll be awake during the day for the next few days -- there's no reason or excuse not to go to bed with her when she goes to bed at night. 

It's actually been a few days since I slept in the bed -- I do tend to crash out in my chair pretty frequently and pretty hard. As I usually only sleep for about 5-6 hours at a time, if I wake up early I wake up early and can get up -- but I crave the safety and intimacy that sleeping with my wife provides. 

I'm sure some of you are reading this as if this is a completely alien concept -- not sleeping with your spouse in the same bed all the time, every night, no matter what -- but it is what it is when I work overnights and she works days. She goes to bed at night when I'm working, and usually has at least one of the three cats sleep with her. In the mornings when I go to bed, if she's working from home that day she can come into the bedroom an hour after I've gone to sleep to find me with two of the three cats, who look at her as if to say "this is our dad sleeping time, go away." There are pictures.

The third cat is our little stitched-up girl above, who never really leaves the couch unless she's drinking water or going to/from the litter pan. 

If I take a nap on the couch during the week, on my lunch hour in the middle of the night, my little old lady cat will always walk up and down my body and stick her nose in my face to make sure I'm all right. When I tell her I am, she is satisfied and sleeps on my legs or lays down on my outstretched arm, just so I know that she's there and she's watching over me. Occasionally, Pete -- the wife's cat, and I've now resigned myself to that fact as he loves Daisy more than the world -- will join me as well and try to sleep in my arms or on my chest, but that's rare of him to do on the couch. Every morning he joins me in bed though, without fail. 

Thus is my life, I suppose.

Pete does frequently want in my office with me, and most of the time I let him in -- he sleeps on my chair or on my ottoman and doesn't really want anything else other than to be with me. When he wants out, he gets antsy and tries to get into things, and that's when I show him the door. 

So yeah, that's really about it for the moment. I'll make sure to give everyone the Christmas rundown once we resurface from the holiday. 

Christmastimes, Part III: The Dark Ages

 

Hello all. I am currently writing this shortly before 4am on December 23. I am also writing it in a text document to post later, because, well, my internet has been hard down for about 26 hours and counting now, and there is no estimated time to repair.

Well, I should say...it’s not been hard down that entire time—it did come up twice, once for about five minutes yesterday morning and a second time for about twenty minutes yesterday afternoon. Other than that, it’s been dead in the water. There is an outage affecting our neighborhood, per my ISP (so, it’s not just me). I don’t know anything other than that.

The temperature outside is -9. Yesterday morning it got down to -13. The wind chill outside is consistently between -30 and -40. There’s an inch or so of snow and packed ice on the driveway and sidewalks that, because of the cold, can’t really be de-iced, shoveled, or snow-blown to clear it until the temperature gets well above zero, which at this point doesn’t look like is going to happen until...after Christmas.

Yes, we have power and heat, and no our pipes haven’t frozen (yet—because I know my luck if I don’t include the “yet”). Yes, I would much rather have power and heat than internet.

I am still...very frustrated. I am not really hungry. I can’t really sleep more than a few hours at a time. I am filled with constant anger and rage and stress during a time where that’s not supposed to be part of my life. I took this time off work specifically to get some downtime and to decompress, to de-stress, to get some rest. 95% of the things I do to get downtime and decompress/de-stress involve the internet in one fashion or another. It’s 2022, there’s no longer a way around that. I can’t shake the anger and frustration. I’ve tried.

Daisy, forever the optimist, said “Play a video game. Read. Take a nap.”

I’ve done all of those things. They don’t help. I am so sick of video games. If I try to read anything more than about 30 pages or so, it puts me to sleep—and then I wake up and the cycle begins all over again because there is still no internet.

I guess I can take solace in the fact that even if I’d not taken PTO and had actually wanted to work during this time, I wouldn’t be able to anyway, and that would’ve felt like a reprieve.

My executive director actually reached out to me last night and asked me if I could help out. I screenshotted him the 16 hours’ (at that juncture) worth of attempts to get any sort of estimated restoral time out of my ISP and called in two of my employees for overtime at his request (I do have a working 5G phone, just nothing else—and I hate using my phone for things I’d use my computer for otherwise). Yesterday would have been the best day possible for Daisy to work from home, with the cold/windchills and snow—she couldn’t do so because of no fucking internet, and was forced to go out and risk her life to get to and from work.

When I call my ISP about the outage—knowing full well that the customer service reps can’t make it resolve faster (it’s literally what my team does at work for a different telecommunications provider), but to get any information on what’s down and why—my ISP won’t even let me get to a representative. The automated voice tells me there’s an outage in my neighborhood (no shit?) that’s being worked on and says “speaking with a customer service representative will not help to restore service faster. Thank you for your call, goodbye.”

….That’s great, but I want a billing credit—and I also want to know what’s actually down, what’s actually broken, and why it’s taking so long to fix. And if the answer to the last question is “because our technicians are union and they don’t want to work/fix things when it’s cold, so we can’t force them” my answer would be “Great, then you can cancel my service with you, and I’ll go get a T-Mobile wireless internet hub and will have service today, in 15 minutes from opening the box.”

Which they probably know their customers would say, and is also very likely the actual reason it’s been down this long.

I’m not particularly anti-union, but I am also of the mindset that having home internet down for well over 24 hours for an entire neighborhood during the holidays is completely inexcusable. Not being able to talk to a living person to get a billing credit or information is inexcusable. Not having a known time to repair for over 24 hours is inexcusable. This is not business-level internet where outages have large enterprise-wide causes and solutions (for one, those outages actually tell the customers what’s going on and usually have a known estimated time to repair—I know this because keeping customers informed about those things is quite literally my job) – this is residential, which is handled by different teams and is usually fixed much more quickly. Not knowing the wheres and the whys, and just being left in the proverbial dark ages about all of it is inexcusable.

Yes, I realize the irony here. It’s still patently ridiculous.

In my downtime, and I do refer to it loosely as that, I was able to wrap all of the Christmas presents, do all of the household laundry, strip and wash the bedding, disassemble the cats’ water fountain to clean it and replace the pump, and run two loads of dishes through the dishwasher.

I also shaved my crotch, took a shower, and had three good shits, but I’m sure you didn’t need to know all of that.

When Daisy got home I tried to be sweet and loving as much as possible, but I was still a white-hot ball of anger. I made sure to make it clear to her that I was not angry with her but the situation, and that I didn’t want to take it out on her. She tried to help, tried to mitigate the issue with some creative solutions (including finding a way to stream Netflix from her phone to the TV) and I appreciated that, but she couldn’t and can’t solve the overall problem of no internet. She does not have an Internet Wand.

“You get so fixated on things and just become miserable because of them,” she told me. “I don’t stress about things outside of my control that I can’t fix.”

“That’s the difference between you and me,” I said. “It is that lack of control that makes me stressed out about these things. If they were in my control, I would have no reason to be stressed about them.”

I then explained to her that this is supposed to be my relaxation time, the time where I’m not supposed to be angry or stressed since it’s the holidays and since I’m off work, and basically how it always seems that one thing or another happens to completely ruin that for me—as if I’m never allowed to really enjoy anything in life if I’m not somehow also suffering in some small (or large) way. As it stands I’ve lost a full day (and am going into a second) of my vacation time feeling like I’m trapped in a jail cell, completely disconnected from the outside world and waiting to die.

Metaphorically, of course.

It honestly just feels like this entire holiday season has been hollow and superficial. I’ve tried to make the best of it and have tried to reminisce on the good feeling of holidays past, that sense of “Christmas magic” I suppose—but while there’s a little of it still there, it feels like most of it is completely gone. I haven’t spent a Christmas with my parents in a full decade, and the last time I did, I got stranded in West Virginia two extra days because of a snowstorm. I buy and send gifts to people and I receive some in return, but it all feels like I’m going through the motions without feeling moved by any of it. The crushing cold weather has made it worse and has added on a new layer of stress, because if the internet can stop working for a few days, so can the power, so can our water.

Birthday Number Forty

 Well then. I'm 40.

Do I look 40? Well, I look more like it than I don't.

Do I feel 40? Very yes.

I'm sitting here at my desk wearing a decade-old ugly Christmas sweater and the nerdiest pair of glasses I own. I have been trying to grow by beard back out since Halloween and it is...growing slowly. Every day I see more gray in my beard and in my hair than ever before. I'm guessing I have less than five years before I'm more gray than any other color. 

My eyes hurt. My joints ache. Did my eyes always hurt and did my joints always ache? I don't know. I don't remember a time where they didn't, to be honest with all of you. 

My 40th birthday is bittersweet because of multiple reasons. I always said as a teenager (and even well into college) something along the lines of "psh, like I'll make it to 40" as if that was a far off future time, far off future year. Well, I guess back then it really was, but 2022 came fast and the future is now, old man. 

My 40th birthday also starts this year's Christmas vacation for me, which is bittersweet because yes, while I do get some of that fabled, precious time off, the weather is going to be atrocious starting tomorrow -- up to 7 inches of snow predicted and temperatures expected to be below zero for highs pretty much now through Christmas, with windchills of up to -50. No, I'm not making that up. I don't know when I decided to live north of The Wall, but I am no longer here for it. 

This weather has thrown a wrench into almost all of our plans leading up to actual Christmas. As you folks know, I only want one thing for my birthday every year -- a tattoo. I got my first in 2019, had to skip 2020 because of the pandemic, and last year got my second. This year (well, as you can see), my birthday is on a Tuesday. Having a Tuesday birthday and a Sunday Christmas is like the worst possible pairing for any sort of holiday celebrations ever. Tuesday is right in the middle of my work week, and with Christmas being Sunday it's like nobody's schedules really change for businesses and/or industries. Holiday is on the weekend? Cool, work normally right up to it and then go right back to work after it. It doesn't feel like a holiday. It just feels like a normal day off before going right back to the grind.

I took off my birthday and the two following days -- days I had to submit PTO for because holiday time off in the United States is a fucking joke -- and took off the day after Christmas too. I wholeheartedly recommend this for anyone who can do it -- never work the first business day after a major holiday if you can take it off. If you work that day, especially if you work in a service industry, you will deal with vast multitudes of bullshit that you'd normally not see otherwise. We call it "holiday fallout" in my job. And I've already reached the point of the holidays where I'm very glad I work from home, because I'm pretty sure the clients and my bosses would not appreciate how loudly I say Oh go fuck yourself, it's Christmas to any bitchy email that hits my inbox this time of year. 

Anyway, I digress.

My birthday itself was fine. I worked the overnight before, got up in the afternoon and got ready, and Daisy and I went to her parents' for dinner -- a poutine dinner, as is tradition:

This was then followed up by the birthday gift I'd asked Daisy for -- her famous pecan pie. 

Mama had quilted a long banner for me with a moose on it; she must have spent hours making it, if not days. It's beautiful, and will soon hang above my desk on the wall here in my office. I'll likely take a picture and share here once I get it put up.

Afterwards, on the way home we stopped at the local vape shop because I had a huge birthday coupon that I wanted to use in order to get a few more disposables (which I did) and, for the first time since summer, a bit more juice to try to use up the last of my tanks.

We then returned home in the single-digit cold and I passed out in my chair.

So, the full list of 40th birthday things are, in no particular order:

• 96 people wishing me happy birthday via Facebook
• Zero people wishing me happy birthday via Twitter
• Six birthday texts
• Four messenger IMs from friends/family who had not posted on my actual Facebook
• Three "happy belated birthday" messages
• Three birthday cards (one from my parents, one from Daisy's, and one from my aunt)
• Zero tattoos

The tattoo thing was expected. Because of the extreme cold/winter storm coming in, plus knowing that we wouldn't even be able to get to a tattoo studio before dinner with the parents -- much less get one done, that was put on hold. We're now expecting to get my yearly birthday tattoo on Monday, the 26th...weather permitting there as well, of course, and also if the studio I like is resuming normal business hours on that Monday (since Christmas is Sunday). I've already told Daisy that if it doesn't happen, eh, it's not a big deal.

So that was my 40th. It was a good day. I enjoyed it. The end. 

Christmastimes, Part II

 There's a lot of stuff we do in the last two weeks of December to wrap up the year. Not all of it is holiday-centric, though a lot of it is. The last two weeks of the year are usually interspersed with some PTO and events surrounding my birthday (I don't really count my birthday as a "holiday," per se).

This time of year also usually involves some shitty weather, travel headaches, or something else thrown into the mix, too.

All Christmas cards I sent out should have already arrived at their intended destinations, even the international ones and one that I had to re-send because I got the wrong address the first time around. If they're not there at this point, it's in the hands of Space Jesus now:

Yes, this is me, I did that AI thing through the Lensa app. Or, rather, Daisy put me through it. The art is shockingly accurate.

All gifts I've mailed out to people, with the exception of a stack of comics I sent my dad yesterday, have already arrived safely and with confirmation. 

I have two nights of work left (tonight and tomorrow) and then I'm off for a full week.

I turn 40 in two days. Christmas Day is a week from today.

People around me and in my life are moving slowly this year when it comes to holiday things, like nobody is really in the spirit for it or is just sick of the thought of it. I sent 60 holiday cards, and have thus far (on December 18) have received only ten or so in return, which is an extremely low amount -- yes, I track this every year. 

I've gotten two birthday cards, one from my parents and one from my aunt. Usually I get far more. I don't know if people just stopped caring over the pandemic years or what. 

I've had several friends announce on Facebook that they're not doing cards this year or that they've stopped doing them completely. 

I normally receive Christmas or birthday gifts in the mail from a few friends. This year I have gotten nothing so far. I know at least two friends are sending us baked goods (they'll likely arrive in the coming days). My parents always send us a box of stuff for Christmas too, and that did arrive as planned -- with a nice watch for me and a beautiful bracelet and socks for Daisy. 

Mind you, I've told basically, well, everyone that I don't want anything for my birthday or Christmas. And I really don't. There's not anything that I really need that anyone can give me as a gift. It's sort of like that John Lennon quote where he said his teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and his response was "Happy," and she said he didn't understand he question, so he responded that she didn't understand life.

I am happy. I've actually been happier in my life this year, and especially over the past several months, than I've been in a very long time. I don't need physical gifts. I don't need things. I have too many things as it is. I just want to continue the trend of happiness and relatively decent health. The things I want can't be put in a bag or a box. They're things like peace and downtime and not having (and not needing) a job. Nobody can give me those things. 

December this year just feels strange, like it's not going fast enough and it's moving too fast all at the same time. When I take time off work, it's always a blur because it goes too quickly. I usually fall into a slight depression after the holidays are over because there's nothing else to look forward to, just three months of cold, dark winter. And already, it is bitterly cold and nasty here in Omaha. Temperatures this coming week -- before Christmas, mind you -- are already supposed to be in the negatives. We're also supposed to get about five or so inches of snow between now and Christmas, too. 

Christmastimes, Part I

 Good day, all.

As I write this, it is the beginning of December. 

Thanksgiving is behind us. 

We've already had Daisy's work Christmas party (last weekend). 

All of the custom, fancy photo Christmas cards I make every year (60 in total, at the cost of $135 this year -- plus stamps) have been ordered, addressed, stamped, sealed, and mailed. People have already started getting them.

All of the Christmas presents for each other, the family, and the numerous friends/work colleagues I or we get gifts for have been purchased and are ready to go. In some/most cases, they've already been shipped via whatever companies we've gotten them from, whether that be Amazon or other places. The ones that have already shipped have in some cases already arrived, and the remainder will arrive between now and December 23. 

I turn 40 years old in ten days. Christmas is two weeks away. 

Daisy and I generally do a lot around the holidays. Not so much present-wise anymore; we've gotten to the point where we're older now and we don't feel the need to give each other crazy, lavish gifts or piles of presents. I spent a little over $100 this year on Daisy on small, useful things and food (the food part isn't a secret, it's what she always asks for -- treats, foods, etc). I told Daisy she doesn't have to get me anything, because there's nothing I really want or need. I mean this more this year than perhaps any other year, but because that sentiment seemed to frustrate her a bit (especially because I told her -- many times -- how much I myself hate getting food/treats for gifts and forbade her from getting me anything like that this year and all years moving forward), I showed her a hat that I like that I'd never get for myself, and told her a specific type of glow-in-the-dark rock I wanted a set of and the size I wanted them in (also something I'd never get for myself).

No, when I say we generally do a lot around the holidays, I mean acts of service to friends and family. Mostly family. We show up for the holidays. Daisy usually does a lot of cooking and baking. I create and send all of the cards, some of them to people I really don't even know, because we want them to know we're thinking of them. If any of Daisy's family (her sisters and their husbands/kids) are in town over any of the holidays, we spend a lot of time with them and try to take them on adventures or plan activities with them -- weather and time permitting, of course. This sometimes works out better than others, to be sure. For example, this Thanksgiving, the Canadians were in town as they were halfway through a move from Alberta back to the states, to Pennsylvania. We got to spend the day before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day with them, and then they were gone again. It's the first time we've all been together in a year and a half, and at least five or six years since we were all in the parents' home in Omaha together -- and it was for a very short window of time.

This Christmas, they will be in Pennsylvania (they're there now) and the Denverites are spending their Christmas with the in-laws' family, so it will be just the four of us here in town -- me, Daisy, and her parents. Since it's just the four of us, Daisy expressed the desire to finally have tacos for Christmas dinner, so I guess that's what we'll likely be doing. It's a lot less work and cleanup than any other type of "big dinner" and this is good, because Dad and I have been tasked with it. Which, for the record, I'm 100% fine with.

I'm out of office for a week over the Christmas holiday anyway. My PTO starts on the morning of my birthday, the 20th, and ends when I return to work the night of the 27th.

"What do you want to do for your birthday this year?" Daisy asked me.

It's a question that I sort of dread being asked every year, but this year it's worse because it's my 40th. The 40th birthday is supposed to be a milestone birthday, I guess. I don't feel like it is. I just feel older and creakier and more tired. 

Now, my real answer to Daisy's question is sleep and be left alone, but I can't give that answer. There are social expectations that must be fulfilled on one's birthday, and she took the afternoon off so she could come home and spend the day/night with me. I work the night beforehand until 7am of the morning of my birthday (I didn't have a choice; I do not have the extra PTO to put in to take the night beforehand off, and I have to wait another week and a half to submit the last of my PTO for the 26th too). The greatest "birthday gift" I could be given would be some downtime leading into the holidays, which is good because that's what I'm going to get between my birthday Christmas, until the 27th. 

"I just want a quiet birthday," I told Daisy. "You don't have to get me anything. I just want to get my next tattoo and I want to see the parents and/or have dinner with them."

This conversation came up last weekend too, once all the family had left town, and it was settled that we'd have a birthday dinner of poutine (my choice) with the parents on my actual birthday. Because of the timeframes I don't know when I'll be able to get my tattoo, but it likely won't be on my actual birthday this year -- no time, really, especially not when I have to work the night beforehand. Daisy took the 21st off too, so that'll likely be the day. 

It would also help if I knew for certain what I wanted to get. Because this time around, I really don't. 

I am not an indecisive person. I am just...tired. I am so tired. I haven't had the time and mental breathing space to just sit down and look through options to see what I'm interested in. 

But, with everything taken care of regarding the holidays' gifts and plans, all of the month's bills already paid, and no real stresses to worry about on the docket coming up anytime soon (that I know of, anyhow), I have been feeling really nostalgic and have been wanting to actually have a real Christmas season, like the Christmas seasons I had while I was growing up. This want has grown even stronger now that we're coming out of an almost three-year pandemic (well, depending on who you ask, anyway). 

When I was a kid, and even into my early 20s, every year for my birthday my parents would take me to Pittsburgh. We'd have dinner at the Olive Garden (which was fancy, for us) and then would spend the evening shopping at the Century III Mall -- where I would get my Christmas gifts for everyone. This was a strong tradition that we really only missed once or twice for well over a decade (the times we missed it were very likely due to bad weather, though I really can't recall now that I'm much older). The tradition sort of stopped once I entered college, due to mutual lack of interest as well as the mall basically becoming a shell of itself with nothing in it as the years went on -- it would eventually lose 60-70% of its stores even before I left town, and would close in the late teens, though I was long gone from the area before then; its decline was apparent well before I moved to the midwest.

In the early to mid 90s though, that mall was the place to be at Christmastime. And I loved it. I loved every bit of it, I loved everything about the Christmas shopping season, loved spending my birthdays eating "fancy" meals and shopping in a mall, where I was always able to find something for myself and for the family. I have vivid memories of purchasing NOFX and Ghost in the Shell t-shirts from Hot Topic in the 90s -- when it was still the real Hot Topic, and shadowing my brother as he searched for the newest PlayStation games. 

I obviously don't have those traditions anymore, but part of the mall trip was hitting up Burlington Coat Factory and Best Buy too -- back before Burlington dropped the "Coat Factory" from its name and back when physical media was still king and Best Buy actually had a reason to exist. Daisy and I did go to Burlington last weekend and we found a large amount of things, and while we do have a few Best Buy stores here in Omaha, I will only enter them if absolutely necessary -- there's nothing there I can't get off Amazon for far cheaper most of the time, sad to say. It's time for Best Buy to go away, honestly.

The other holiday shopping tradition I had was a trip to Big Lots. I don't know if Big Lots stores exist in all areas, but they're like a discount department store chain. Think of Dollar General or Family Dollar, but way upscaled and packed to the brim with overstock stuff from around the country, including furniture, bedding, cookware, food, movies/CDs, etc. That's Big Lots in a nutshell. And the one here in Omaha (I'm sure there's a few, but there's one right down the street from my house) is great. Daisy and I were last there right before the pandemic and I don't think we've visited since. I asked her mid-week if she wanted to hit up Big Lots this weekend, and her answer was a pretty stern no.

I just want the holidays to feel like the holidays again. The pandemic wrecked that for me and got me out of my normal patterns, and I don't know if I can enjoy them the same way again. The fact that I'm turning 40 makes me want to try to get what little enjoyment I can out of the season while I still have the heart for it. I'm already bitter and jaded enough; as I grow older I'm likely going to resent the holidays more and more. I just want to recapture a bit of that happiness again, that sense of wonder and excitement I used to have for my birthday and Christmas before I had bills, a mortgage, and a soul-sucking job. It feels like I'm seeing that magic blow away like dust in the wind just a little bit more every year.