Well, this has been kind of a bummer of a Thanksgiving week. I flew home to Georgia Sunday night, had a plate of fried chicken and potatoes waiting for me when I got home, finished Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while I waited to get tired and fall asleep, and then started having dull pains in my back and stomach.

At first I thought it was just indigestion, and then I thought I’d just gotten too upset from the movie (I was crying like a mafia widow, as Rain would put it), and then around 6 AM I started to realize that something was seriously wrong. The pain kept getting worse and worse, until it was like the sharpest part of a cramp, but non-stop. And then I started throwing up, and instead of making everything better, it just made the pain worse each time. I’ve had attacks like this twice before, around five years ago and then five years before that, but they weren’t nearly as intense and always got better once I either threw up or just forced myself to go to sleep. There was no sleeping through this one.

I got Skip and Daddy to drive me to the doctor’s office, where they made me fill out a lot of forms, took a blood sample, wait what seemed like an eternity (but I was able to keep going to the bathroom and throwing up to pass the time), took some X-rays, gave me a shot of some anti-nausea drug (after which I threw up again), and told me that it was probably a gall bladder infection. The doctor prescribed some antibiotic and said that if it weren’t better in four or five hours I’d have to go to the Emergency Room, have some more tests run, and might have to have surgery.

Through the whole doctor’s visit I wasn’t able to even think straight because of the pain and lack of sleep, but whatever they shot me with and prescribed must’ve worked. I was almost asleep by the time I got home, my stomach settled down, and the pain pills they gave me are just awesome. They don’t make me high or anything, just completely pain free. I don’t think I’m ever completely pain free. It’s going to be tough to give those up. At any rate, apprently the doctor knows his medicines, because I haven’t had any more flare-ups, the pain has died down, and I made it through Thanksgiving dinner (but smaller portions) without incident. I’m just going to avoid the chili peppers for a good while, I think.

Other interesting things I learned from the whole incident: according to the scale at the office, I now weigh 171 pounds. Which means that over the last 8 months or so, I’ve lost about 35-40 pounds. I didn’t mean to do this; I’ve just had my mind on work and other things besides eating. The other bit is that gall bladder conditions are brought on by overdrinking (okay, I’m guilty of that) and stress (which if you ask me, leads to the former). So from that I conclude that my job is now literally killing me. I’m taking the whole thing as a sign that some changes are in order.

Another night of web-browsing trying to get to sleep led me once again to Grandpa and Drella’s family pictures. And I’m struck once again with, although I don’t see them that often, how beautiful a person Ruby’s turning out to be.

Frequently I find myself dispensing advice (although I clearly don’t have all the answers), and it always come down to the same thing — you have to put up with the bad to be able to recognize not just the good, but the wonderful. And I wonder if it’s easier for me, as an outsider who doesn’t have to put up with tantrums and the day-to-day existence of getting a new person ready for the world, to recognize how wonderful it is to be able to see the world through a new person’s eyes and re-discover everything along with them.

And I think that maybe that’s what it’s all about. Maybe your reward for just being two awesome people, is that you get to bring somebody new along for the ride and show her how the world works. And that gives me the reassurance that maybe there’s hope for someone like me in this post-11/2 world.

Maybe the watering-down of Jack Daniels’ wasn’t such a bad thing, because I’ve drunk just enough to be pleasantly maudlin, but not enough to feel sick.

It’s just really hit me over the past couple of weeks that this has been a pretty rough year for me. I hadn’t really noticed before, because I was always too busy just trying to keep on top of things and stay in control of it all. I think on the whole it’s been a net gain, but it definitely hasn’t been easy.

And once again, when I needed it, my friends started popping up and helping me out of it. Either by knocking some sense into me, or giving me some practical advice, or giving me the chance to give some advice and feel useful, or just listening to me. Usually I’m neurotic enough to wonder, “What did I do to deserve this friendship, and what bad is going to happen next to make up for this?” Now, I’m just thinking, “I don’t know what it is I’m doing, but whatever it is, I must be doing something right to be able to have friends like these.” And that’s a pretty damn good feeling, whiskey or no.