Well it’s been a pretty crazy 2 weeks for me.  Even as the year comes to an end, the world of business begins it’s own Casual Friday, and insurance companies stare back from the Abyss, my life has sped up a bit.  In good ways, mostly.  I can’t complain… WAIT, I take that back.  I can, and will, because otherwise I’ll start crying and yelling at the same time and then i won’t be able to go back to that Starbucks.

Let’s work backward from today about crap I want to leave behind.

1. Negative Self-Talk: Before 9am today I had counted about 12 put-downs of myself, for everything from the shape of my body to “not being retarded and forgetting Gift XYZ I need to return!”  Well I forgot it anyway because I didn’t take my ADD pill, and had no coffee because I was going in for a doctor’s appointment and wanted a clean blood stream.
2. 30min late!  I was 30min late for the doc because, well, I don’t know why. I had apparently transposed the times of appointments and was 30min early yesterday for a different one.  So I had less time to talk with this doc.  But soon after arriving, I was told they no longer accept my insurance (as of last week), albeit for a noble cause.  Doctors sometimes do NOT get paid by insurance companies for any number of reasons, and the cost falls back to the patient, so in this case the doc decided to cut my carrier out as of MONDAY.  So… a short, intense appointment nearly followed by $500 worth of blood tests, so already my day’s just going greatly…
3. No Blood Test; A $500 hit in the next month isn’t totally undoable, but certainly it is NOT a budgeted expense at the moment.  I know I have ranted against the insurance system in America before, although it does have its place and can be helpful… But I’m the child in the divorce of Doc and Carrier, so I have to deal with the overflow there.
4. NO COFFEE OR ADD PILL: By the time I got to work there was already a lot of mental traffic to sift through, from paying for the doctor’s appointment that barely happened, to rescheduling with a recommended doc for Monday, and 2 other phone calls I need to make.  All of this without the quieting effect of a low-grade stimulant for which my career and many relationships should be thankful.
5. Light and Sweet, AH SHIT: I get to work and get a machine-made cuppa, and when I reach into the shared fridge for my cream (real cream, not fat-free Hazelnut Cinnamon Elf Creamer) some dickbag had knocked it over with his bagged lunch, spilling a good 50% of it onto the shelf.  So let’s add another 10min blankspot to my day while I clean that up.  Pill still hadn’t kicked in, and my coffee was getting cold, so the emotional weight of the moment was pretty palpable.
6. Ante-up: The Fed is tapering off their dollarly funneling of stimulus into the American economy, which means anything subsidized, backed, hugged, or accepted by the Fed as “good for business” will get less financial backing.  Fannie and Freddie’s demands and rates will go up if you wanna buy a house, unless you have great credit and/or a phaaat down-payment.  Not great news for this family here trying to save for a new house in the next 12 months.
7. Figuring The Finances:  Soon, businesses with big ticket items, including “Tom’s House of Oversized Novelty Tickets and Certificates,” will have to decide if they will stand firm on their pricing in an effort to not lose a profit percentage on every sale, or if they can drop their prices in an effort to drive volume.  This is where the real “Trickle Down” economics lesson could apply:  If suppliers charge less and retailers charge less, everybody’s money aligns a little better.  Idiots trying to outbid each other for homes that aren’t worth $450K just piss all over those of us waiting in line for a good $350K house.
8. Check, Please?:  I have a couple hundred in outstanding invoices for comedy shows I performed recently.  One of the checks is overdue, the other was mis-dated and easily fixed with a group I love working with.  So I have calls to make. (Or I could write a blog entry)
9. Duck Dynasty Dismissal: One of the hill-billies from a TV show called “Duck Dynasty” had some comments that amounted to his not being even a little bit accepting of sexual encounters between men.  WHY that concerns him, I don’t know.  If he’s thinking about it a lot, well he has some of his own blinds to quack from.  He got ousted because his employment with the show depends on the show being watched by people who advertisers will target and pay for commercial time during said show. Ultimately, too many Americans would rather support dummies via viewership than ignore them, drive viewership to the bottom of the holler, and move on down the road.
10. Holiday Spirits: I got accidentally drunker than a Kennedy on Saturday night, not factoring in the few tugs of Fireball I had in between my 3 cocktails over 5 hours.  Took me all day to recover on Sunday, so I am pretty sure, yeah, I need to pace my Fireball consumption.  I just cannot recover the was I used to.  It wasn’t until I had a bottle of low-cal Gatorade, dinner, and half a beer that I felt somewhat normal.  Oh well, lesson learned.  STOP MIXING SHOTS WITH COCKTAILS!
11. Wrap it Up: It is a great fear of mine that my 4 year-old son will make realizations about the existence of Santa Claus and feel disappointment at a young age.  I was 5 or 6 when, overcome with excitement, I awoke to sounds at 3am and snuck down the hallway to see my parents “in the Santa way.”  It crushed me.  I laid in bed and cried.  A co-worker told me her 10 year-old son just figured it out earlier this year which I think is on the other end of the spectrum, possibly a disservice to the kid AND the parents.  I don’t think parents and family members should bypass getting some credit for their giving and thoughtfulness by letting Santa take all the glory in his absence.  Instead, I think we’re doing a decent job of involving our oldest guy in gift-giving to others, as he got to choose a few toys and some clothes for other families in need.  He may not get his head or heart around it, but I’d rather have THAT take root in his sweet little heart as a part of Christmas than the idea of giving Santa all the credit after we’ve worked all year to pay for new underwear.

So hey, there ya go.  I’m done.  Friggin’ tired and gotta hammer away at this work stuff.

Have a Merry Merry Christmas, with family, friends, lovers, and losers.  The gift of selflessness is what it seems to be about, no matter how it’s advertised.