Some good things have happened since I last wrote here. First, we had a great Christmas; I'll get the photos posted very soon (I keep writing that, thinking that if I write it enough it'll come true). Then, I found out it was my medicine that was making me depressed. It was such a relief, I'm not even going to be mad that nobody told me it might happen. I seldom ever take medicine, but the doctor convinced me my bronchitis was going to turn into pneumonia if I didn't take the medicine to make me cough that stuff out of my bronchial tubes. Anyway, I took the medicine, and dropped into a deep, deep funk. I don't even really know how to describe it. I wanted to sleep all the time; I didn't care if I lived or died. In fact, if given a choice, I would've chosen to die. Not to mention I was completely exhausted from coughing. Then one day we had somewhere to go and I couldn't sit there and cough all the way through it, so I didn't take the medicine that morning. I'd also skipped the last dose the day before, just because I was too tired to cough. By the end of the day, I'd missed several doses and, lo and behold, I was beginning to feel alive again for the first time in a week. Hmm. Needless to say, I quit taking the medicine completely. Then, on Christmas, I was telling my family my theory that the medicine had made me depressed and suicidal (really, I didn't want to live anymore), and Angela said, well wait a minute, what was it? I told her and guess what? The same thing had happened to her with the same medicine; she called the pharmacist and the pharmacist said sure enough, there's an ingredient in that medicine that makes a small percentage of people have depression symptoms. Why in the cat hair don't they tell people that? I would've stopped taking it sooner.

Another good thing is that I talked to Charles at the Atwood family gathering about my job situation and he totally understands it. He just went through the very same thing at a job he'd worked at for 40 years. He quit. I had been feeling like the caveman on the Geico commercials, like no one understood, but now that someone does (he's not the only one, okay?, but it helped so much to know that he seemed to fully understand that you just can't work under some circumstances) I feel so much better.

We had a great time at Gwen's last Saturday night. After the food and gifts and fireworks, the family tradition is that everybody sits around and sings and those with guitars play guitar. If there's a piano, then someone plays that, too. This year, the men all sang love songs they'd written. It got to be kind of funny, because they tried to outdo one another. Some of them were pretty darn good. Recordable, in my opinion.

I thought we were going to have the SMWP book swap here, because Kim said she hadn't heard from Patricia. I was sitting on standby, just in case. When I heard, I went straight into high gear: polished the silver, hired a sitter, made hors d'oeuvres (I looked up how to spell that, so I know it's right), hired Service Master to come and clean the carpets and upholstery, pruned the shrubbery and trees around the front of the house, reupholstered the dining room chairs, and bought a new outfit. Then come to find out, Patricia's having it after all. (Okay, none of this ever actually happened. I just wrote all that in case Patricia reads this. Really, I had not lifted a finger to prepare for it.)

The other night, Tim and I argued over whether or not water will boil faster if it's hot when you put it in the boiler. He says no; I know yes. He says he did some kind of experiment when he was in high school or something. Listen, I don't care if Jonas Salk, Madame Curie, and Bill Nye the Science Guy all say otherwise: I've been cooking for thirty years, and I know what I know.

I was going to write more, but I'm in the middle of cleaning out my sock drawer. I am so restless these days, I can't sit still. Nervous energy, I think.