Here’s a list of my personal favorite Mandigo-powered sites. Congratulations to their respective authors on the great customization work!

Ohhhh yeah buddy, that is the author of my blog template introducing his “Author’s Picks” page.

And I AM ON IT.

Maybe it’s because of all the shameless product-pushing I do for the Mandigo theme and for Wordpress in general, but what the hell. SGB is bright and pretty and sparkly and this is the first time I have had any sort of site design recognition – and coming from the guy who built the template powering this fine blog, that’s pretty badass.

Thanks, Tom!

Vacation this year seemed a bit off. I was sick the entire time (and who doesn’t love that?) so a lot of it passed in a blur. However, in between Kleenex and shots of Cepacol, it looked something like this:

Friday:

Discovering the beauty of the borrowed iPass while navigating the Chicago suburbs to Jenn’s house.

Starting work on redesigning Jenn’s blog.

Golden Tee – a 91 foot putt!

Cold medicine, cold medicine…

Saturday:

Shopping with Jenn and Jess and getting a few sweet deals at Banana Republic

Meeting E’s executive chef friend at his restaurant and gorging on all sorts of food I can’t pronounce (free!) while waiting for E to arrive.

E getting to Chicago 8 hours late.

E getting us kicked out of a bar because he was drunk and kept “forgetting” that you can’t smoke in bars in Chicago. Me punching him on the sidewalk.

Cold medicine, cold medicine, cold medicine….

Sunday:

Lou Malnati’s deep-dish pizza.

Horseshoe Casino.

E loudly referring to me as his future wife and betting the craps table that he’d propose to me on the spot if he rolled a three.

E rolling a four. Me sighing in relief in between coughs.

Coldmedicinecoldmedicinecoldmedicine…

Monday:

Driving to Holland, Michigan while doped up on cold medicine.

Seeing E’s mom and hanging out with his high school friends.

Toothache begins.

Cold medicine coma.

Tuesday:

Hauling E’s butt down to the Secretary of State’s office to get some papers he needs to resolve The Legal Issue That Shall Not Be Named.

Chicago hot dogs and gyros at Mr. Kozak’s.

Spending all afternoon running iTunes backups for friend.

Toothache worsens.

Passing out on friend’s couch at 9:30 pm.

Cold medicine coma, coughing fits, near death.

Wednesday:

Driving home for 8 hours, still slightly hopped-up on cold medicine.

Toothache feels marginally better.

Checking odometer: 1,062 miles on the new car without a glitch.

Falling in own bed, coughing like cat with a hairball, passing out.

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On Thursday I came back to work, still sniffling and coughing but feeling a bit better overall. My toothache was still bugging me though, and as one of those bad, bad people who hasn’t gone to the dentist for five years, I was getting pretty concerned. I’ve had intermittent minor toothaches for years, but the pain on the left side of my face was freaking me out, so I grudgingly called the office and they agreed to see me yesterday afternoon.

And just in case you didn’t know, your teeth should NOT be in your sinuses.

See the maxillary sinuses? See how high they are in your cheeks? When they fill up with goo, that’s why your face hurts around the eyes when you have a sinus infection.

See how your teeth should end below the maxillary sinus cavity? It appears that mine don’t. The roots of my molars are actually INSIDE my sinuses, according to my x-rays. So they hurt when the sinuses fill up with goo. Even the dentist grimaced a little bit while he was explaining to me that he wouldn’t touch those roots with a ten-foot pole. The prognosis isn’t bad – it’s just painful but not actually bad for my health. If I continue to have sinus infections and the pain gets unbearable or I experience nerve problems then I guess they do something icky inside my cheek to fix it.

I did not accomplish ALL of my vacation goals (no Bears shirt – I bought myself some cute cords instead) but I did refrain from getting drunk and hitting on boys. So that was my vacation, and all was not wasted. How are you?

I had my mouse over the “Publish” button and was about to send off a post about how I hate being sick on vacation but it’s okay because my vacation is going fine anyway, blah blah, when my phone rang.

It was E.

I came up to Chicago yesterday to crash with a friend and do a little shop-shop-shopping since E had to work Friday night. The plan was for him to catch the good old MegaBus (woo!) from St. Louis at 8:30 to come up here today and I’d pick him up at Union Station at 3, from whence we would proceed to the rest of our vacation together – seeing more friends tonight, going to Michigan tomorrow, etc.

8:38 am

“Baby, you’re not gonna believe this.”

Have I heard that line before? “Are you on the bus?” I ask slowly.

It all tumbled out as one sentence. “I called the cab driver 45 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave and he was late and picked me up ten minutes before I had to be on the bus and he made two wrong turns and I missed the fucking bus and I am so sorry baby I am raging pissed right now and the noon bus is full so I can’t get another one till four o’clock and that means I won’t be there till almost ten.”

Delete happy post.

So I get to do what in the city by myself this evening? Am I supposed to keep the rendezvous with his friends that I’ve never met without him? Where do I park now? Meet friends where? I need a map! I am a planner and the plans have gone awry! What do I doooo????

Eff eff eff eff.

He’s calling the friends we were supposed to meet and stay with with and he’s going to get instructions for me. It looks like I might get to park the car in their swanky downtown building for free, so that’s nice. I’m probably going to have to meet up with these strangers and hang out with them before he gets there, which would make me a tiny bit nervous anyway but is making me much more nervous now because I am a germy ball of snot wrapped in blue Puffs tissues, and it is not a good look for me. Strangers don’t want to welcome the plague into their expensive lofty apartments to stay the night and clog up the furnace filter with ick. I’d feel much better if he were there with me, holding my grimy hand for the introductions.

But c’est la vie. They’re his lifelong friends so they have to deal with me (and I can still be charming with a red nose). And really? It’s just a few extra hours in a city I love, and I won’t complain. So I’ll go downtown today as planned, I just have a little more time to shop with money I don’t have, right?

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Chicago bloggers: whatcha doing this evening?

There’s a line in “The Devil Wears Prada” (movie) that I just love to steal when someone is sick. I refer to that person as “an incubus of viral plague” and it sounds so haughty-funny and people always laugh. I’m no Meryl Streep, but I used it on E when he had the flu and he even thought it was funny.

But it’s hard to laugh when you yourself are said incubus and your throat is ablaze with a raging inferno of fiery germs that no amount of cepacol or pectin can extinguish. Happy New Year’s Eve, indeed.

I’m feeling better this evening though. Tomorrow I’m off to Chicago (woo!) for a day or two and then to the Great White North of Holland, Michigan for the annual rounds to see E’s family and friends. I kind of love that even though we did break up for awhile this summer, E and I are repeating things now so I can call it our “annual” whatever. Now we’ve had 2 Thanksgivings and 2 Christmases and 2 New Year’s Eves (neither of which we got to spend together) and this will be our second family-visiting Michigan trip. Awwwww…

To Do in Chicago:

Buy a Bears shirt (or a Bears something)

Shopping with Jenn

Dinner with blog friends*

Work my mad skills as Wordpress web designer for a friend’s blog

Buy some sort of suck-up present for E’s mom

To NOT Do in Chicago:

Get smashed

Pick up boys

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* Chicago blogger friends, if I forgot to add you to my watch-out-I’m-back-in-town email list due to my NyQuil-induced haze, I’m sorrreee! Please email me if you want to hang out.

Every Who down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot, but I can’t think of more than a handful of people that I know in my age group who really looked forward to it this year.

A lot of us don’t like the annoyance and hassle of traveling, the pain of having to shop for ANYTHING between Thanksgiving and New Year’s (not just presents – even things like tampons and cheese can get you trampled by crazies in jingle-bell sweaters), and the stress of spending much more time than usual with family. Yay Baby Jesus and all, but Christmas has, in a lot of ways, become a pain in the ass.

Christmas has turned into Valentine’s Day, that great celebration of love and togetherness that makes even those of us with our schmoopy true loves want to vomit sometimes. My theory is that the pressure to be happy just kills it. You’re supposed to show the Holiday Spirit and Goodwill Toward All. It’s the rule in the same way that there’s a rule that you’re supposed to express your love in some exaggerated fashion on Valentine’s Day. And if you don’t do these things? Then you’re a mean one, Mister Grinch. You’re a nasty-wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mister Gri-INCH!

Sorry. Got carried away with The Holiday Spirit.

Seriously, I think the reason that I feel like crap on Christmas is because I’m supposed to feel good.

Example:

E and I had an argument last night that I swear we wouldn’t have had if it had been March 24th instead of December 24th. He got off work at 11:30, was all stressed, and wanted to go have a beer or three and play a video game with his buddy, instead of coming over and staying with me as originally discussed. He invited me along but I was tired and wanted to stay home. Whatever, I told him, go chill with the friend and blow off some steam, no big deal, I’ll see you tomorrow morning for Christmas.

But when I hung up the phone, I began to rage. Wait a minute, I thought, I have to be alone on Christmas Eve so he can play Golden Tee? Nooo! It’s freaking Christmas Eve! I’m supposed to be with the person I love and sharing some sort of deep connection as the magic of Christmas washes over us!

I called him back, annoyed, and he didn’t understand why since I’d told him just moments before that I didn’t mind. And my dumb ass went on and on about how it’s Christmas and we should be together and crappity-crap-crap and I bet his eyebrows just went up into his hair. I had NO reason to give him shit like that because on any other day, I swear it wouldn’t have mattered.

But the Things We Are Supposed to Do get ingrained in our heads and when we don’t do them, we feel guilty. Angry. Sad. I’ve been without a boyfriend for many, many days in my life, and the days that I really wanted one were inevitably Christmas and Valentine’s Day – the days when you just know you SHOULD have someone to be with. You may not care on December 23rd or 26th, or on February 13th or 15th, but damn those days in between. Even when you DO have a significant other, you are supposed to do Something Special with that person and if you don’t, you’re a foul one, Mister Grinch. Your heart’s an empty hole. Your brain is full of spiders, you’ve got garlic in your soul, Mister Gri-INCH!

Again, sorry.

I was raised in a church and I remember being told that we should celebrate Jesus every day of the year, not just on his birthday. I asked then why we celebrated Jesus’ birthday on just one day, and was told that it was to bring people together in fellowship and love that day. Then they said we should have fellowship and love all year too.

All year? That explanation didn’t make much sense to me – if anything, it reinforced the secular meaning of Christmas because hello? SANTA only comes one day a year! THAT is what makes Christmas a special day!

E and I took a walk on the shore of Lake Michigan at Macatawa Bay last year on Christmas Day. Truly, the only thing that made that walk on the lake shore any different from any other day’s walk on the lake shore was the fact that he had a furry Santa hat on the whole time. We had a lovely day that happened to be December 25th.

Have I completely killed The Holiday Spirit by thinking we really should focus on Santa at Christmas, and not the love-and-fellowship message of Jesus?

Oh well. Call me a Grinch if you want to. I know the whole song.

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Photos from a walk that just happened to take place on Christmas Day