As you may have noticed, I vanished for a bit. Many reasons/excuses abound as to why I was gone from my Internet soapbox. I'll give you a few:
1. The video game Halo for the Macintosh.
2. The video game Max Payne for Macintosh.
3. The holidays just seem like a good time to not have any responsibility to do anything.
4. I got partially sick. One Monday at work I contracted a pseudo-fever due to a non-heated office, but managed to keep it at bay long enough for it to subside. During that time I acquired a highly annoying sore throat that took me 2 1/2 weeks to kick. I had first determined that it was the onset of strep throat or some god-awful sci-fi disease that only I had. But alas, it was only post-nasal-drip, or so my doctor said. It sure didn't feel that mild. It felt like a dull rusty razor was in the back of my throat and every time I would swallow, it would make another incision. It's mostly gone now, but I can still feel where it was. It's not gone just yet.
5. I hate to add this one, but most of my favorite authors stopped updating their sites, too. It made me feel as though there was a stop in the Internet. I followed suit. That was due to the fact that nothing creative was being churned out by anyone else, so I felt uncreative.
6. The corporate feeding frenzy that is the holidays. As the holidays approached, my vivid memories of hot cocoa, roasting fires, and snow outside was quickly brought to a screeching halt when I was fall but forced to go to the mall to buy Christmas gifts for my family. On at least three occasions I was brought to a deep passionate loathing for malls and even more for the parking lots. I know that I have an anger problem, at least a slight one, and nothing shoots adrenaline into my brain faster than being in a crowded area. It's not so much that I'm not a patient parker. It's more the thought that DON'T THESE PEOPLE HAVE ANYTHING ELSE BETTER TO DO? I hate the holidays. I know, I know. I said I liked them. As they approached, the IDEA of the holidays seemed, well, like a good idea. As it got closer to Christmas, the worse it got. Christmas is a lot of things, but it's never what it's supposed to be. It's everything it's NOT supposed to be. Numero uno, it's a chance for major corporations to take advantage of the traditional idea of buying gifts for one another. Good idea in theory, bad idea in reality. Then you have the whole thing about getting together with family. Then you have the gift opening, that social disaster of an experience. I hate having to act like I like something that I really don't. I could never be an actor. But not this year. I got all good gifts, but my family didn't send me any to moan over. But I remember one year my Grandma Catherine bought me a checkerboard and the first thing I said when I opened it was, "I already have one of these, Grandma." My Mom scolded me later.
8. I actually tried to update my site twice, but I ended up screwing up renaming the files both times in trying to convert the January entries from December. Luckily I retrieved the December updates, otherwise I probably would have given up this whole thing. I was going to move a few things around on the site, but when I almost lost December, I stepped away from the computer. Then I didn't come back until now.
9. My overall feeling of despair due to the synergy of the things above.
I'm sure there are more reasons, but you get the idea. The holidays are just a real downer. On approach it's great. Then it turns into full tilt bedlam up to and during the culminating point. I'm sure that if you got enough scientists together, they could figure out the exact point during the holidays where things go terribly awry and the reality is much more depressing than the imaginary holiday in our head.
