do i have sars?
January 02, 2004, 8:37 pm

This morning I greeted the 2nd day of my year of independence by grasping the lip of the porcelain queen, heaving a gigantic technicolor yawn, and then running for my mommy. To say that I have caught a "nasty bug" does not give this ass-kicking flu a hint of justice. I have spent the day alternating between taking down the basement Christmas tree and running to the bathroom to throw up again. It has been pretty productive, amounting to a depressingly bare basement (isn't it always that way after the hollydays?) and a delightful burst blood vessel in my right eye. Ew.

Despite the day being pretty crappy, I want to share this email from T-Dogg:

"Anyway, I had the strangest feeling just driving by your town. It felt like a grand resolution in a cock-rock song, like 'Love Bites' by Def Leppard, for instance. Those pre-choruses always threaten to be a little dark, then suddenly take the off-ramp into happy good feeling. Anyway, I think that will be a feeling I'll always associate with hanging out with you. More than any other girl, I've always loved just hanging out with you, listening to your stories, getting in adventures and shit. You'll always be one of the most special people in the world to me, and it's such, such, such a shame that we're not as close as we used to be. Maybe winter just brings out lots of memories of you. January just has that effect on me, i suppose."

And even though as I'm reading the email for the ninth time, and even though my stomach is churning, and even though things did not work out for me and for us as tightly perfect as maybe I had hoped once-upon-a-time, I'm smiling and nodding and knowing that I feel exactly the same way.

As much as I want to move on from everything and leave everything behind in starting this new year, I am so thankful that other people don't.