Christmas night, back from the parents. Sitting around in a quiet house, the night's soundtrack provided by Amel Larrieux, the Verve, Beth Orton, Bjork and Kruder & Dorfmeister. The dog, nearby, happy with a big pork bone sent home by my mother.

Another insane retail season is over and, once more, I survived. And enjoyed it, mostly.

Things are in flux a bit. I've entered dating mode, somewhere along the way. Probably shortly after getting hit in the head. It's a two way thing. I seem to have a couple people pursuing me, one quite hard. And there's a person or two I think I may wanna pursue. Person equals male person, natch.

One of them invited me to his Christmas party last nite. We've been on two dates and he invites me to his family's Christmas Eve party at his house. And I went, quite bravely. And, I had fun.

The trip to the parents today was nice also. Got the usual Gap gift certificates. And a bag of my favorite sundried tomatoes which are sold only in Baton Rouge. Grrrr, can't anyone in New Orleans sell a decent sundried tomato??? Anyone? At least arugula is cheaper in NO...

Anyways, a Merry Christmas to all... and to all Good Nite!

Gee. I was just browsing a few other pages and I ran across this picture which I took using Jonno's digital camera. Jonno made a diary entry on Dec 15th explaining the significance of the picture.

I remember that being a really great day. One of those perfect summer days you spend doing absolutely nothing in the company of good people. And doing it well.

And it was the last good day for a long time.

So, it's been almost a month since I've blogged. *sigh* Life has been complicated. And busy.

First things first. I'll get the drama out of the way. About three weeks ago, I went out with my friend Jonathan on a Saturday nite. The night started well. We had drinks at a couple bars in the Quarter, starting upstairs at Lafittes. We went out late, because I worked till midnite. So, I think we got out around 1 am. After Lafittes, we stopped in at 735 to say hi to my friends that work there. Got comped another drink. Ran into someone who mentioned that he had a bottle of absinthe. I've never had absinthe, always wondered about it.

So I tried it.

I had to go outside to drink it at his car. Came back to the bar. Didn't feel much of anything. Jonathan goes to dance.

And that's all I remember. Until...

I wake up on a bed in the emergency room of Charity Hospital a couple of hours later. The back of my head is split wide open, I'm lying on a blood soaked bed and I have no idea what happened.

They scan my head to make sure it's okay. Staple, that's right STAPLE as in metal staples from some sort of staple gun, my wound shut. And send me on my way.

Trauma. In more ways than one.

My friends all seem amazed that I didn't make up a lie about what happened. "I got mugged." "I fell off a ladder." The whole unvarnished truth is that I got blitzed on a 140 proof liquor.

All I can do is learn from stupid mistakes.

I'm not drinking for a while. If ever again.

Feh.

So, then I start recovering from this ordeal. And, I get bronchitis.

As in 36 hours of 105 degree fever feeling like I want to die bronchitis. But, good medicine and the care of good friends got me through that pretty quickly.

And now I'm working every day through Christmas. Long hard days. Such is retail.

I'm looking forward to January. Big time.