kaffy_r | Dept. of Getting Back on the Horse (Reply)

Winter Freeze, Brain Thaw (I Hope)

It's been far too long since I posted anything, and, as a sort of resolution for 2015, I'm going to try to post something every day. Yes, yes, you in the back, chuckling into your beard, you heard right. What's more, I'm going to try to post something worth reading. And I'm going to try to interact with people on their journals — so what do you think about that?

Ah, still chortling.

Well, I don't blame you.

It's true. My ability to maintain a healthy posting habit has not been stellar in the past. But I swear I'm going to try. Just as I'm going to try to find something positive to say about my life. It probably won't be daily, but I am going to try to do it regularly. I think I read something, possibly on one of my friends' journals, which speculated that forcing one's self to actively think about positives can make one eventually feel more positive. Using externals to force a change in the internals, as it were.

So: what have I been up to?

Let's see ... we had a very lovely New Year's Eve dinner, courtesy of our good friends, then went over to their house to see in the New Year. I got well and truly potted; the dinner was also a wine tasting - four courses, four different wines, plus champagne, and a martini before dinner ... dear lord, how did they handle it, those drunken lords of yore? (Mind you, I had little hangover problem the next day, but really, when BB is kind of snickering at me, it does give one pause.) Still, we saw in the New Year with friends we loved, and that was very important.

We haven't gotten rid of our tree yet; BB came down with a godawful chest cold and that has pretty much wiped him out, while I'm dealing with trying to get back into full-bore work mode after the holidays (and dealing with the jaw clenchingly byzantine fun of the actual Jan. 1 changeover from one employer to another, of which we will not speak.) So it sits, shedding needles like a boss while still being ever so pretty. I stopped watering it three or so days ago, thinking we were taking it out at that point; needless to say, it only goes on for an hour or so each night. It will be gone by this weekend, consigned to the Chicago Park District's mulching pile.

Much of my radio silence was because I actually managed to get stories written for

fandom_stocking . After folks told me that I had until Jan. 5, I managed to crank out about seven (and of course the one I finished up at 1 a.m. Jan. 6 turned out to be the longest one.) I am pleased, not only because I think I've been able to write stories the recipients might like, but because I could write at all. (I also made a greeting card that some folks will get, I think. Maybe.) All in all, though, I am a happier camper about stuffing stockings than I was the last couple of times I posted.

And with that, I suppose I will call it a night. Tonight I get to go out to supper with my union local prez and our executive director (the ones who had, for lack of a better term, a falling out and/or constant lack of communication skills) and act as a facilitator to try to get them to work together. Yes, that's precisely what the dinner is for. I told them they had to pay for my dinner, and pick me up so that I didn't lose my neighborhood parking space. I have also told one of them — and will tell the other when I see him — that if either of them talks over me (or each other), or raises their voice during this exercise, I am taillights. I will get up and walk out and catch the el home.

So wish me luck, especially given that it's dropping into the single digits as we speak, and going out represents a labor of love all by itself. It is cold in the MIdwest, and I do not like the cold.