Obligatory Christmas Posting

Let's face it, if you are not that X marks the mas centered, today is just a little odd. I feel a bit confined. I don't really know what's open or closed, and I just assume almost everything is closed. Except the dreaded Walmart perhaps, though maybe even they close for Jesus' birthday, at least for a while. So I feel like a prisoner of the holiday, as I don't really care that much for it this year, and elected to stay in Austin for the day rather than fly or drive home, which wouldn't have worked out so well anyhow, as my sister and the kiddos went to Tennessee to visit Jr's grandmother for good reason, but that's too complicated to explain here.

Here I am, then, having a lazy day. I opened a few presents my family had sent, but otherwise there's not a lot of Christmasness going on. I have fired up the music, my rather large collection of iTunes and other Christmas/Winter gems. That started a couple of years ago when I forced through an unhappy October/November combo with my Hard Candy Christmas self, and it worked. Seems like it was another lifetime, and since it also seems like I've had about five or so different lifetimes so far, I guess I can reflect.

Last year...yikes. Last Christmas...click that link and have a look see! I had just gotten over strep throat, which had been inflicted on me in Los Angeles, where I knew of not a single doctor and very few people, so I had to face that one mostly alone, isolated in the damn garage where the cold wind would blow and the heater worked only if I faced the interior wall. Sometimes I feel like such an idiot for trying to stay there in that room, afraid of offending someone by leaving (like it didn't happen anyhow) and afraid of leaving for a different room because that would have forced me to commit to a longer time frame. Things worked out for the best, though. I was alone last year as this year, but, then, I felt alone.

This year I don't feel alone, and overall there's a base of happiness I'm using as a foundation, as opposed to a sense of desolation. I'll admit the past week hasn't had me doing cartwheels, with the cold and worse cloudy weather, without much rain, and no sun. At least here it's more expected, though apparently it's not that usual in Austin for the bitter cold to hang about so much. But I'm working on thawing my inner bitter cold, and it's a lot easier to do here. So that makes me happy.

Even if I do feel like a prisoner of the holiday today, well, it's just one day, and a better excuse to be lazy than I've had lately. I'm just going to go with it, watch a few movies, unwrap myself from the last strains of Christmas music, and look forward to the New Year. After all, unlike last year, when the one I wanted to spend New Year's with was not available and indeed that lack of availability was a small but not insignificant part of the reason I left LA, well, this year I've already made plans.