11:28 PM: You hand me the knife

Surrounded all around and ground down.

Another long stretch where I have been meaning somewhat to post, but I can barely catch my breath. It's been a busy month and when I have not been busy I have been pointedly inactive, trying to rest and spend quality time. There have been fine days, bad days, hard days and even weird days.

I've been to the office a few times. One was on the night of Mel's Christmas party at Spin, where I just happened to volunteer to hand out books for a Geddy Lee event at Massey Hall. That was a fun if busy night. Between unboxing a thousand or so copies of Lee's book and doors opening, I went with Don, Kate and Rachel to the Eaton Center for a quick bite, which for me ended up being an A&W Burger. Then once the event started I worked those calories off -- which is not to say I count calories, but only that I used energy and was hungry again when I got home at the end of the night.

The next time was because we were doing a Christmas thing for the Print Team, but I didn't really read the fine print to know that it was all just a call, not any kind of gathering. Mel had wanted to go to her office that day so I thought it worked out, but the weather report said bad driving conditions so she stayed home (and convinced others to as well, neat to be such an influencer) but I already felt committed so I went in the afternoon -- only to find I needn't have bothered. But it was not at all a total loss: I ended up seeing Brandon F, and after all these years (literally since pre-COVID) gave him back his DVD of The Americans, which Mel and I have finally started watching and become engaged by (it also happens to be on Disney+, which came into existence in the time after I first borrowed the disc.) That ends a funny long-running story between us. We caught up, he expressed interest in my doings with the X-Men blog, etc. 

By the time I got home I was exhausted and drained. That's sort of been the theme of the holidays this year. I'm tired and I can't seem to get any time to do any Christmas shopping. Eventually I threw in the towel and ordered some stuff from Amazon, which I don't love doing. I took yesterday to break off from Mel and mission around to try to get some stuff done. It was... tough, but I got most of what I wanted. Well, I always want to do and get more but I got enough. There will be a Christmas this year.

We hosted dad and Deb one night the other week, for Chili, which was nice. We went and saw my mom last weekend; I put together a cabinet for her and we had dinner. We had put her off the week before because Mel was feeling drained from all the running around we did the day before. I felt a little bad about that but in that case I know where I stand.

It's been a lot of back and forth, people needing to see us, fixing glasses, etc. Too much and never enough, to borrow a phrase. Last weekend before going to mom's, we did the rounds of the glasses place, Value Village to finally drop off that stuff, then Mapleview for a few needed errands. I finally cleaned the garage so we could put the car in it, in time for a light dusting of  snow. If you can read between the lines you can see how drained and down I am/have been, but being able to get that blitz done yesterday buoyed my spirits. That's kind of the thing I guess these days, I don't write in here at my lowest, only when it's starting to pick back up.

I have a feeling this winter I am going to be nostalgic for last year when I literally couldn't do any work during the day. What a blessing that was.

I gave up on certain objectives that I had hoped to be done with by the New Year. Best to focus my energy elsewhere and pick it up later. We can only do so much.

Fertility is the main thing. Well, Christmas, then that. Last night we curled up and watched Die Hard.

I've poured myself out for now, even though some remains in the container.

I've got to tidy the basement, and we want to replace the toilets.

C'est la vie. Keep on rockin'

-Scotto