Conversation

Well, love, it is just about that time. I am taking the week off, as is the custom at this company. I will be baking cookies, wrapping presents and trying not to wait for a call I know won't come.
Merry Christmas

I want so badly to send you a card for the holidays. I know it isn't the right thing to do, and I am not going to do it, but God, I want to. Why is that? What is it about you that makes me so damned obsessive?

There aren't enough hours in the day to make it easy to throw a holiday party like the ones my parents used to throw. I don't know how they did it. Maybe some of my nostalgia is related to the season. I hope so, because if that is the case, I may get a little better before I go on the cruise. I wish you were coming with me. Or happening to be on the same ship. Running into you somewhere unexpected... what a great fantasy.
Never gonna happen, I know, but by gosh, if it did!
Back to reality now.

The company Christmas party was this afternoon. I skipped it, this year. Bowling is not in the picture three weeks after hernia surgery. Especially since I went back to work two weeks early. I don't think the surgeon was really thrilled with that, but it was either that or not get it done at all, so what could he say?
He did warn me that it could still come undone, though. I heard that bit of news yesterday. How fun. Just what I always wanted... a hernia next to the mesh they put in to fix the last hernia.
Great. I guess I won't be carrying everything for the holidays, after all.
But it is over, and so is the holiday partying at the office. On to bigger and better things. You had so better call me on Christmas Eve!

Happy Birthday to my sister.

I just keep remembering that phone call. You know the one. Christmas Eve, you called me from Viet Nam. I scolded you and told you that I thought you should have called your mother. It may be one of my favorite memories. That and when you came to the basketball game and took me home. I didn't even know you were in town. I never even considered calling home and asking if you were supposed to pick me up. And I knew better. I can't remember all the times I was told never, ever to get into a car unless one of my parents had told me to do so. Never. And I wouldn't have, with anyone but you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for calling. (But you still should have called your mother.) (And she should never have had to ask me (at 14) if you were okay because you wrote to me and not to her.)
Funny, the things we remember. You probably don't even think of these things, and they are remarkably important to me. Heh.

My former boss thinks I should remember the people who have gone before... most of them women about the same age as me. I will keep it in mind, as I follow his other suggestion and get my information together.
Thanks, M!

I had lunch with my former boss on Friday. I had purchased two of his books, and needed to get them autographed. He is a great writer, and suggested that I try writing romance novels, as I am frustrated as hell with what I am doing. As if. As I said to him, I can't write dialog to save my soul. It always sounds so good in my head, and so stiff and lifeless on the page. Why is that? Is it that I can imagine the voices in my head, and on the page it is just letters and words, or what? Or is it that I know the people I write about, and hear the conversations in their voices, and they just don't translate?
Either way, I am not getting published any time soon.
I hope his newest book finds a home soon, though. He's a nice guy.

Made me think about a bunch of things going on (and not going on) in my life right now. I need to get some things taken care of, and then I need to get myself on a budget, and then... off to see the wizard. I need to see some old friends, and I need to do it soon. I also need to get rid of these extra pounds, before I go back to visit. Gotta have a bathing suit body by summer. Well, at least not a beached whale body.

My friend Matthew, the one who is expecting the new baby, is now an accountant. How bizarre. But on the other hand, what a novel way to keep him on in an office that has run out of funding for his last project. Wow. People who will work with you to keep you just because you are someone they don't want to lose. What a concept.
Can you tell I am getting a bit burnt here?
ugh.

Well, the end of the job is nearing. I can smell it. They have moved me off the J2EE stuff, and are having me fix old change requests. I am out of here.
It has been a good run, and I am hoping that I have the time to get some resumes out and that we will be through the hell that is tax season before I have to try to find some cash to keep the house going for a while.
I still have a little bit of the stock Daddy gave me, so we have a very small cushion, and I will (with any luck) get some kind of a package when I leave, as I am not going to let them force me out, and they keep doing things I think may be illegal, like discussing how much my health is an issue and talking about it with other employees without my permission.
So, we may have to bring that up when the time comes.