It's A Ruff Life

Thanks, Aunt Juicebox. Your poke roused me out of my mental slumber and has resulted in lighting a tiny little flame under my ass. Not a big flame yet, but maybe by sitting here and attempting to rattle the box that is my brain, I'll find that a little mental exercise will stoke the fires and get me up and at it again.

Quite frankly, I haven't felt like I've had much to say. There is a tremendous amount of riff-raff bloating my brain cells, don't get me wrong. It's just nothing I feel is useful or worthwhile or worthy of putting pen to paper as they say. So many of you are hysterical, witty, wise, kind, compassionate and downright genius that I've been feeling quite sub-par as of late. On top of that steaming pile of unworthiness, I still haven't shaken the autumn blues. I'm not quite sure it's even the blues anymore. It seems to be a mish-mash of self-loathing, a dash of depression, a big ol' heapin' helpin' of self pity and an entire truck load of dismay and disillusion at the state of our country and our world.

Ready to off yourself yet? Or maybe just push me off a bridge? Well, then. Here's a little happy for you and and attempt at reminding myself why things don't entirely suck.

I got a new puppy! She's an adorable little mutt. She's 1/3 Bichon Frise, 1/3 Yorkie and 1/3 Dachsund. Here. Look.

Doesn't she look like a little teddy bear? Her name is Ellie Mae. Remember the t.v. show, The Beverly Hillbillies? Ellie Mae was Jed's daughter and she just LOVED "critters." When I saw my little puppy for the first time I thought, "Oh my hell! What a cute critter." So, there you go. I'm working on getting her completely potty trained and she has completely and thoroughly altered my daily schedule. She also has the stinkiest farts of any animal on the planet. This fact is almost negated by the fact that she is also the sweetest, most loving little animal I've ever known. Almost.

Oink

Did you miss me while I was away? Liar. You didn't write, you didn't call....but who could blame you? I was a walking pile of goopy, germy, rasping, oozing, contagious homo sapien. Yes, it's true. It got me. The Swine Flu.

For the past several days (Weeks perhaps? Who knows?), The Duchess and I have been like mommy and baby bat, holed up in our cave. We've built mountains out of wadded up tissues, sweat through fevers, become so dehydrated our lips cracked and coughed so hard our ribs are bruised.

Fingers crossed...I think we've survived the worst of it.

The Duchess lost two pounds and I managed to somehow gain two. What the hell?! (This once again goes to prove that my body hates me and is maliciously plotting against me.)

I think I'm back. To be perfectly honest, I just looked at how busy you've all been over the past several days and I have no freaking idea how I'm EVER going to get caught up with my reading! Can you all just send me a brief summary of what you've written about so that I can peruse it at my leisure? No? Damn it. I see how you are.

The sneezes are still exploding out of me too frequently to make for a happy and cootie free keyboard, but I'm hoping that another twenty four hours will clear up that nastiness and I'll be back to my old self again. Hm. I wonder how long I'd have to wait to come back as someone else? Possibly someone more humorous and with a better attitude. I don't know if I can wait that long. See you soon.