This is going to be a long post, one way or another. Why, you ask? Because I went to such great lengths to get comfortable.

I need a new computer chair. The one I bought when I moved in is pretty much shot, due to my propensity to lean back and prop my feet up on my desk. This wouldn't be a problem, if only I hadn't bought the cheapest chair at OfficeMax. So, anyway, when the old one gave up, I didn't have the loose fundage to go out and buy a nice new chair, so I bought a padded folding chair for $14 at Costco. Not bad, really, except that (1) I can't lean back and prop my feet up, and (2) over long periods of time, it makes my coccyx act up. (Of course, that's a whole 'nuther story, about how two years ago I dislocated my tailbone... now if I sit a certain way for too long, it'll slide out of place and hurt like a sum'bitch until I can pop it back in. What? You didn't know what a "coccyx" was? Lay THAT over a Triple Word Score!)

Anyhow, I've been thinking about blogging all day, what with this being Christmas and all. (Sidebar: insert sound of sleigh bells here... Merry Christmas, all! [in my best Cockney accent] "an' God bless us, ev'ry one!") *cough* okay... So, where was I? Oh, so I've been running this post through my head all day, and I figured it was going to be lengthy, but sitting in my little chair for that long didn't appeal to me, so I dragged the big chair that matches my sofa in from the living room into my bedroom here, just for the purpose of doing this blog entry. I can't leave it in here, because it takes up too much space, but for right now, I'm pretty danged comfortable. I'm leaned back, with my feet way up on the desk, and the keyboard is braced between my left leg and right knee as I type. Oh yes. I am the KING of lazy.

And that was just the intro!

I was brutally attacked outside Fry's yesterday. Yeah, a tree hit me over the head. I was walking in from the parking lot at the Fry's on 61st Street and Thomas (those of you from my neighborhood will correctly remember that as a Smitty's), and I stepped up onto the sidewalk and... CRACK! I saw flashbulbs go off, and I heard a sound like a baseball being sent skyward by Barry Bonds. I took a few more steps, stumbled, then realized that, hey, that sound came from my head! I kind of stumbled into a sitting position against the soda machines, and took stock of the pain beginning to filter in from my skull. I'd stepped up from the pavement onto the curb, and apparently right into a low-hanging tree branch, guessing from the little piece of bark in my hair. Amazingly, the branch didn't give AT ALL. I'd caught it right on a knot where they'd cut another branch off, and I absorbed all of the force from the impact. I didn't see any blood on my fingers, but there was already a jagged-shaped welt forming on my scalp, so I called my mom and asked if she could come down right quick and take a look at my head (they're on winter break, so she was home, and I'd just come from there after doing bookwork, so I knew she wasn't busy, thankfully). It hurt so bad at first, and I'd hit the branch so hard, I figured for sure I'd fractured my skull. However, my mom poked around on it for a minute (to my muted screams of "MUST YOU PROD THAT HARD?!") and reassured me that she didn't think it was broken. She said it would take a lot of force for me to fracture it just walking, to which I told her I think that the tree was actually one of those trees from Lord of the Rings and that it swung a branch down and cracked me over the head. Maybe. Anyway, that was yesterday around 2:00 pm, and now 32 hours later, it's still tender but the headache has subsided somewhat.

So, the moral of the story... I'm a clumsy ass. Still.

So, it being Christmas and all (cue sleigh bells again), I've been mulling over a lot of things. I figured I could fit these themes in to go along with a verse from The Christmas Song.

Here we are, as in olden days
I was thinking earlier today that Christmas seems a lot less thrilling than it did when I was younger. I had the Santa thing figured out at a much younger age than I let my parents believe; I was maybe six or seven, but they had so much fun trying to keep it all secretive, I didn't want to spoil it for them, nor my sister. (We had to break the news to her this year that, now that she was out living on her own, Santa wasn't actually real. It was tragic. ... I kid, I kid.) Anyway, I've always had fun shopping for people, but this year it didn't have that usual holiday zing. I found myself getting tired of 99.9 KEZ's all-holiday all-the-time music that my sister insisted on leaving on in the kennel. But things started to pick up a little bit when I started the actual gift-giving. In conjunction with another friend, we were able to successfully surprise someone else with a new bookcase, which was apparently just what they'd been wanting. And then, earlier this evening, I was over at my parents' house, with my mom, Zachary, Olivia, and her boyfriend. (My dad's up in West Virginia, and he figured it would be too much hassle to fly in and out just to be home for a night or so, so we sent him his gifts up there. Kind of a downer, having the family apart this year, but we'll get by.) Sitting there, unwrapping gifts, with a stocking-full of goodies, I finally regained the spirit I'd been missing all season. Even after my brother successfully pranked me by topping off my stocking with two half-used rolls of Scotch Tape, a tube of shower gel he's had for I don't know how long, one (singular) McDollar, and a CD I lent him two weeks ago. The little shitbag. I've taught him well in the ways of the well-executed joke. Anyhow, I got plenty of neat stuff this year. I got the Roaring Fork cookbook, autographed by head chef Robert McGrath himself, as well as a gig bag for my tuba. (Gig bag = soft case, for those unknowing. I hadn't had a case for The Beast all year, and this one comes with backpack-like carrying straps, even. Too nifty.) I had thought to myself as I was opening up one of my last gifts that I hadn't gotten anything where it was going to be something relegated to the shelf in my closet, if you get my drift. Then, blammo! I unwrap a fire-engine-red Wheeling Island Casino pullover fleece made of the same non-insulating, non-water-resistant, non-comfortable 100% polyester material as the other pullover I recently got rid of. Bleh. Oh well... you can't win 'em all.

Happy golden days of lore
I don't know. Nothing for this one. I would like to point out that, since I've started writing this post, I've gotten two phone calls, and it's quite a hassle to climb out of this chair and over my bed to get to it. Comfortable, yes, but the chair's not staying.

Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
In the past two weeks I've talked with several people I'd been out of touch with for a while. Jeff and Romo, a couple of the guys from the track in Tucson, popped up this past week. Romo was in town last Friday and dropped by the track for a few minutes the night of the puppy derby stake, and Jeff called me last Monday and asked me if I'll be working New Year's Eve, because he'd like me to go to the Fiesta Bowl Block Party with him and his friends. (I'm thinking about that one. It sounds bad to say this, but I'm going to wait and see if anything else comes up first. The Block Party has never interested me that much.) And then, out of the clear blue sky, Kassi called me last Sunday while I was out at Apache. Talk about unexpected. I hadn't talked to her in months, basically since, well, the last time I'd talked about it on here. I bumped into her one time on AIM in August, and she'd had a rough time. She'd moved to Quartzsite to live with her grandmother. My Thanksgiving phone call to her cell phone went unanswered, and the subsequent voicemail I left garnered no return call, either. Anyway, like I said, she called me last weekend, said she'd gotten my message after all but had forgotten to call back, and that she was back in town and things were going a lot better for her. She'd met a guy, been on a couple dates, and things were going well, there, too. We chatted for a little while but I was fairly busy, so I didn't have long to talk, but I told her I was happy for her, which I am. I never wished her any ill will after all that happened way-back-when (early May, I guess), and I'm glad fate smiled upon her a little bit.

Through the years, we all will be together
If the fates allow
This one's a little deeper, a little less about current events. For some reason, I found myself thinking about the future ("Through the years", anyway... I don't know if the rest of that line fits) today while I was trying to take a nap after working this morning. I'm 22 now, and better than 2/3 of the way to 23. And yet, in a sense I don't feel any older than I did when I was 17 or 18. My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary a month ago tomorrow, and were 21 when they were married, 23 when I was born.

I have a hard time picturing myself as a father anytime in the near future. Now, I didn't say I don't want to have children, but... first things first, you know? I haven't even had a serious, in-depth, past-high-school-stage relationship yet. Come to think of it, I guess that's one place where I feel different than I did when I was in 12th grade... I finally feel like I'm ready to... date? Is that the right word? Date still sounds kinda high-schooly. But I've got the right concept in my head, even if I can't explain it totally correctly.

I guess in the end, it's all about gaining experience as you go along. Eight years ago today, Christmas when I was 14, I couldn't have ever imagined driving myself around everywhere; I was deathly afraid of driving. Six years ago today, when I was 16, I was working full-time at the kennel and a drivin' fool, but I couldn't have ever imagined myself moving away from home; I'd lived a fairly sheltered childhood, with not a lot of friends and even less going out with friends. Three years ago today, when I was 19, I was up from Tucson for the holiday and figured that Tucson was where I was going to be for a long time. A year ago today, I already knew I was coming back to Phoenix (we'd figured that out in September). A year and four months ago today, in August of last year, I was at my lowest point. I weighed 350 pounds and was... well, let's just leave it at "depressed". (You can see the photo evidence on my bio page.) Anyhow, not long thereafter, we figured out we were closing down Tucson, and the thought of coming back to Phoenix got my fire rekindled. By Christmas I'd started to lose some weight, and by the end of January this year I was down to 280, which is when the other picture on my bio page was taken. I haven't lost much more weight -- I've been down to 275 but never over 282 -- I seem to be losing fat and gaining muscle a little bit. The casual observer of me (um... that sounds kind of weird) probably wouldn't notice any changes, but I have, like, arm muscles now. Biceps, right? What an alien concept to me, having biceps I can actually flex. And when I lay flat on my bed, I can see my ribcage. Dude! It may not seem like a lot to most people, but after living with flab for as long as I have, these are big developments for me.

I might still have my down moments -- see the last post -- but I don't think everything's guaranteed to be milk 'n cookies in any walk of life. So I guess the point of this segment is, I can sit here and worry about the future all I want to, but I ought to have learned by now that whatever's going to happen is going to happen. I just have to play the game as it comes along.

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
I think I'm all "deeped" out. This segment just deals with the fact that I didn't decorate for Christmas at all this year. *shrug* I haven't in any of the past 3 years I was in Tucson, either, but under the guise that I was going to be in Phoenix for Christmas, anyway. Danny, Pete, and I decorated the kennel in Tucson last year, though. A couple of people asked me if I was going to get a tree, and I said no. Why not?, they asked. Well, I wasn't going to have any guests over at any point, so why bother? I know it's Christmas. Why put up decorations only I'm going to see, then eventually I'll have to take down? I dunno. Maybe next year.

And have yourself
A merry little Christmas now
That's about it. Kudos if you stuck around 'til the very end. I can get pretty verbose, you know. But I hope you had a merry Christmas.