The Most Miserable Break EVER.

You want to know why Wingal disappeared? Well, she usually does over Christmas, what with the family and all the stress the season brings. But the last three and a half weeks of my life SUCKED. Warning: this will in NO way be "entertaining" in the enjoyable sense of that word.

I arrived home to Cincinnati to discover that, however much I hadn't wanted it to be true, my best little friend of nearly 18 years had been released from the world. Abby was put to sleep on November 27th, two days after I left her; her dementia worsened considerably after I left and it was more than my parents could bear to watch. They didn't tell me by my own request, as I wanted the love of family around me when I learned the news. So, three or four quite miserable days. But I have her ashes and a lock of her hair, and a small but slowly healing hole in my heart.

Then Christmas, which was as nice as it could be, considering the circumstances.

The day after Christmas I came down with a violent stomach flu, so awful and miserable that I was forced to cancel my plane to Chicago and my job interview. Yep. Oh, and I could barely eat for five days. Wonder of wonders, the interviewer called me several days later and I had a phone interview on the 1st, but her questions were odd and unexpected, and the day by which they would set up on-campus interviews came and went with silence.

Then my mom and I went and picked out a cherry-wood box and plaque for Abby's ashes.

Then I had a 24 hour fever/virus thing. And two days later I came down with sinusitis, which viciously turned into a week-long struggle, which then even more viciously turned into a severe inner ear infection, for which I had to go to Urgent Care yesterday and yes, oh yes, cancel my first class of History of the English Language today because I'm STILL IN CINCINNATI recovering from all this diseased misery and taking more medication than anyone should, and totally unfit to operate a motor vehicle or any other large mechanized equipment because of my cough medicine, which contains VICODINE. Tomorrow, I finally drive back to the hell-hole from which I came, where I have to prepare to teach class Wednesday. And where I have merely 1.5 months to write 4 chapters of a dissertation.

You all may want to start calling to check on me periodically, as it's only a matter of time before some other catastrophe occurs.

Hope you all are well. I'm at the "Wish I Were Dead" point, personally.