Sick as a dog (what does this mean?)

Well, I've finally recovered from the mother of all flus. It's the first time in my life that I understand how someone can die of the flu. And it was so sudden. One second I was fine, the next second I was not. That flu came out of nowhere and done me in for two weeks, then it was a long, slow recovery for the next two weeks. I hardly cough any more, but my throat is still irritated and I'm very tired most of the time, but at least I can do what I need to do (like work) without feeling like the walking dead. I still look like the walking dead, but as long as I'm not really dead, who cares. I totally missed Thanksgiving, but hopefully I'll be fine and dandy for Christmas, although I don't really celebrate it anymore. I'm not into things, and my family is so scattered, and my friends have their own families, and my cats don't care one way or the other as long as the litter boxes are clean and there's food in their bowls, and I usually don't have any money to do anything, so what is Christmas to me now? I can't even have a Christmas tree because 18-month-old Denali will bring it crashing on down, thinking it's his personal cat toy. That boy has no respect for my stuff, I tell ya.

Well, it's Cyber Monday now. Whoopee! I missed Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, so I might as well miss Cyber Monday too . . . to stay consistent, y'know. Besides, there's that money thing I mentioned. Some people have it, and some people don't. All I used to have were my dreams of what I would do if had the money to do them, but I gave up those dreams because hanging on to the same impossible dreams year after year is just stupid. And I'm not a stupid person -- a bit too dreamy, but not stupid. Geez Louise, I've used the word "stupid" three times in a short time span, exactly what I tell my college students (as an online tutor) not to do because that is a sign of lazy writing. Of course, I can't really tell them that; I usually tell them to use a thesaurus to find alternative words. They probably don't even know what a thesaurus is. Google it. 

Time to go. I'm tired. It's 12:15am and my sweet little Denali will wake me up around 5:00am (lately, it's been earlier than that because he apparently has an internal alarm clock that won't be ignored). It's like having a baby that won't ever sleep through the night. Man, I'm too old for this.

My first Christmas (and I was sleeping through the night like a good baby)