Nevermind that it rained this morning.  Nevermind that it’s overcast and looks like it might snow at any second (not likely).  I’m in the land of sunshine, damnit!  (Oh, wait, there’s the sun, I see it!)  I’m still sick and still hacking like I smoke three packs a day, but I’m here! I was worried about flying because I’m all stuffy and didn’t want to be in enormous amounts of sinus pain or not be able to hear.  Fortunately, the … →

I’ve been in bed with the plague (a bad cold and fever) for the last two days and didn’t have anything to write about.  So, this will be a short entry for a good cause. Although I sometimes still feel like a teenager, more often lately I don’t (as evidenced by my previous entry).  Looking back, I sometimes long for my teenage years.  Things seemed much simpler back then, though as a teenager I thought everything was so complicated and … →

It’s on days like today when I long for the ability to function on practically no sleep with little negative effect.  I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I used to be just fine if I missed a night’s sleep.  Right now I am so tired I can barely see straight and I’ve had a headache all day that previously would have only accompanied a hangover. Obviously as I’ve gotten older, my ability to bounce back has disappeared.  Normally this … →

  One of my favorite things to do at this time each year is to visit the various holiday markets that pop up around the city.  It’s where I usually get most of my gift shopping done.   Last year because I was so sick, I never made it to a single one, and I really missed it.  Yet, somehow, I hadn’t yet gotten around to visiting any of them yet this year.  So, tonight after work, I went over … →

Growing up in South Florida, as much as I loved the holiday season, I sometimes felt a little deprived that our experience wasn’t out of a storybook.  There was no snow, no snowmen, no sledding.  Much of the time we wore shorts, went to the beach and could see the lights strung on the palm trees on our neighbors’ lawns.  And though the feeling of deprivation was partially geographic, it was also partially religious.  Being Jewish, the proliferation of Christmas … →

Part of the issue is that I’m fighting a cold, but the other part of the issue is that I’m overwhelmed by all that I have to do before I go to Florida on the 23rd.  Also, overwhelmed by the millions of ideas floating around in my head that when I sit down to execute them, they either don’t materialize as I wish or they disappear altogether. I’m a huge crafts geek.  There’s nothing that I find more inspiring than … →

The addition of the Investigation Discovery channel to my cable lineup and the repackaging of 48 Hours, 20/20, and Dateline on ID and on We, plus the documentaries and Lockup series on MSNBC, have all fed my interest in true crime.  I’ve spent innumerable hours watching stories about sociopaths, scam artists, murderers, rapists and life behind bars.  Even as I sit here writing this entry, I am watching a Dateline NBC story about Casey and Caylee Anthony. When I tell … →

I dragged myself into work this morning for a 9am meeting that never happened.  If I actually had any kind of commute, I might be annoyed.  I had intended to go to the meeting and then come home shortly thereafter and get back into bed.  That didn’t happen.  I even warned my boss that I felt lousy and wouldn’t be sticking around.  However, he kept walking past my office saying, “you’re still here?”  I got sucked into what I was … →

  So, everyone around here has been getting sick.  The weather has been bizarre — freezing cold one minute and practically balmy the next.  The mad rush towards year end has put everyone in high gear, high stress mode and I guess it’s sort of inevitable that the germs would be having a heyday.  And yet, I thought I’d manage to remain unscathed.  I guess I figured that the illness that ate my life a year ago this time was … →

I’m not entirely sure that it helps me at all.  However, you know how Congress is notorious for adding on a bunch of other stuff that’s not necessarily directly related when they are passing bills?  Well, the economic stabilization bill also included the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity Act of 2008.  And yes, I was up at 5:30am today reading online info about the inclusion of this provision in the passage of the bailout.  Not that I have any anxiety around … →