Happy freaking New Year

Catching up...

Well, happy new year. A bit late, but I've been busy. After we got over the flu, my husband had what he describes as a "meltdown"... kind of like a mental breakdown. Stress and anxiety, but multiplied to the point where he was nearly incapacitated. He's on a low dosage of Zoloft, now, and is stabilized, with the help of weekly therapy sessions. It was rough for a while, though. It was difficult to leave for work every day because I was afraid he'd just sit on the sofa all day, rocking back & forth. Sometimes he did. He went through periods of such extreme and illogical self-doubt that I'd have to talk him into some semblance of functionality every morning before I felt that he could handle me being gone all day at work.

He started improving and we went to see my family and some friends in Denver for the holidays. It was still a bit touch & go -- he had no interest in food or eating, but we'd all been looking forward to his amazing cooking for Christmas dinner. In the end he outdid himself, but I spent a lot of time in the kitchen at Mom's house with him, helping out and cheering him on.

Getting to Denver, however, was another story. First of all, I must say right now that neither my husband nor I have any intention of flying on America West (America Worst) Airlines ever, ever again. I have, in fact, transferred whatever frequent flier miles I had accrued to another airlines and closed my AW Flight Fund account. So suffice to say that it was an awful travel experience.

Sum of all Years - 2 & 3

Monday, still flu-ey in bed. No fun. I'm thinking that if the fever doesn't break soon, I may have to go to a medical professional just to make sure this isn't pneumonia. My face has been so hot over the last two days that my lips are cracked. Yesterday was really interesting -- I spent a good portion of the day quietly watching strange little green creatures that don't exist run across my blanket. Could be the fever -- could be the OTC flu medication... there wasn't anything on the label regarding hallucinations, though. Perhaps I will Google "diphenhydramine" to see if there's anything about little green greeblies in the fine print.

I think one of the worst things about being sick is the boredom (or the typos.. this is the seventeenth time I've had to go back into this entry and fix something). I mean, hallucinations can only take up so much of the day... it gets old watching DVD's on my computer. I can't focus long enough to read anything substantial, and since I'm sick in bed, there's really not a whole lot going on that warrants writing down. By brain seems to be relatively acti -- hey, there goes another green thing --

Okay. Maybe too active. No more Thera-Flu for me for awhile.

Back to my 'Sum"... the more think about this project, the more daunting it gets. I mean, the early years should be pretty easy. I don't think I was a very interesting toddler and so two or three words should be perfectly ample to describe the sum of each of those years... or are they? Not having any real strong memories of that portion of my life, I can only rely on the snippets of anecdotes recalled from past holiday dinners... and many of the people that were present back then are no longer in this plane of existence, so it's not like I can call them up and ask questions.


TWO
Absorbed. Everything.


THREE
Discovered piano, reading.

Sum of all Years

I've got the flu. My husband has had it for a few days and I've been sleeping on the sofa or in the guest room to try and avoid getting it myself, but despite these efforts and all the hand-washing I've been doing, I got it and it's bad. Painful cough, fever & dizzy (really dizzy), awful headache kind of bad. I was supposed to go into the recording studio today and do a VO project. Got in my car (trying to convince myself all the while that I could exercise mind over matter and keep it at bay "just until I'm done and can get home."

So much for mind over matter. I got about 3 blocks, and the car was spinning. I couldn't expose my engineer to this - that would be just wrong. I called and cancelled and now I'm in bed, surfing the 'net.

I've been reading my friend Bonnie's blog for quite a while, and she's been posting something called a "Sum of all Years." It was originally thought up by Cliff Jones, and the whole idea is that it's an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the number of the corresponding age for that entry; five words for year five, six words for year six and so on.

I find the idea quite profound.

Bonnie even has photographs of her life from each year posted on her entries -- I wish I could do that, but being the last kid out of four, there aren't a whole lot of photos of me from childhood. It's like the novelty of parenthood had worn off a bit by the time I showed up, and any new thing I learned was only new to me. No big deal for Mom & Dad, who had watched and photographed three other kids do exactly the same thing. I guess if you've seen one baby discover their toes, you've pretty much seem 'em all.

So I think I might take BrYan's approach and just do one or two years at a time.

So. Starting with


ONE

Slept