'Sup, my happy little funk noggins?

The holiday season is in full force. I can tell because people are wearing silly red and green sweaters with alarming regularity and the most horrible music is being piped in everywhere. Yessiree, it's time for all of us to sit back and reflect on paid vacation days all clustered together in a wonderful confluence of football, food and free stuff. In other words, it's like Labor Day, only colder, longer with a big buffet and more relatives.

Perhaps I'm too cynical. Of course cynicism is the logical result of having Christmas cheer force-fed to you from 3rd week in October on. I don't even like the same music that I choose from October 19th-January 2nd. Marketing people are stupid. Stupid and richer than me, making them stupid and assholes. Come, let us collectively crap on their lawns in a primeval show of disdain.

Work on the new novel is actually halfways gearing up meaningfully. I've introduced 3 characters--an as-yet nameless narrator in the present and Brooks Monte and his pal Rube in 1978 (give or take). It's not much, but it's a start.

Software problems persist and Jan 1 for lilies of the field might be asking too much. I'll know more by the end of this weekend, but at the least I'm looking at a few hours of fighting with software to get it what it's supposed to do without me fighting with it. It's like customer service without the minimal relief of an undervalued paycheck. But once it's a go, I have one re-record and some splicing and editing which, in a perfect world, could be more or less accomplished in a day or two of work.

Other than that I got the privilege of spending three hours sitting in a vet's office waiting to learn what I already suspected--Bea has a bronchial thing and needs antibiotics. Three hours. For that. It's a metaphor for life--you spend hours waiting to find out what you already suspect/fear is the case--and then you have to pay for it.

In all fairness the vet was good. Better than my last couple encounters with regular people-type doctors. Anyone else like being talked down to? I know I treasure it when a doctor speaks to me like I'm 4 about my illness/injury/complaint as if somehow I'm personally unable to comprehend the ramifications of my infirmity. This is ironic since my grasp of the ramifications or concern about them correlates directly to my presence in a doctor's office. I thank WTF, but in fairness I don't think I've ever been particularly fond of hospitals and the like and, contrary to what seems to be a popular professional interpretation, I have things I'd rather do than pay $100/hr (at a 15 minute hour, I might add) to be ignored until a nurse and then doctor come swooshing in to look at me skeptically and speak at me with incandescent levels of boredom. If I wanted that kind of response I'd start dating again, which, unless I'm a total chachi, will be cheaper than $100/hr (at, again, a 15 minute hour...)

Almost makes me wish I could be plumber so the next time a urologist or some damn thing calls to get their sewer unplugged I could stand there nodding apathetically to everything they described and then condescendingly tell them what the problem really is and how I'm going to charge them $100/hr (starting with their ignorant description of the problem--with, of course, a 15 minute hour...) to take care of what they should've known better to prevent. Too bad I couldn't involve an insurance company just so they'd have to screw with co-pays and stuff.

I don't hate all doctors, but I don't especially like most doctors, either. And I haven't seen one since the infamous burrito night o' fun some months back. But I thought I'd rant for a while so my blog looked "lived in." I consider my work here to be done now.

Check this out if you feel particularly underwhelmed by my work.

Neater news is pending...

-Joe