At least until I get into the middle of writing this.  I actually cleared a major phone system issue out of my queue this morning.  I needed specific voice prompts recorded for one of our programs and everyone there is, in IT terms, an ID-ten-T.  Yesterday I took the approach of writing to them the same way I would if I were scolding my daughter and they came through.  I should try that more often.

I created a rule last week in Outlook that sends any emails marked 'High Priority' to a folder name 'Low Priority'.  So far, so good.  The people with actual high priority problems don't have time to muck around with useless options.

My sister is getting married this weekend.  This is something of a momentous event as nobody ever thought it would happen.  At 42 she'll wed a man so patient, the Vatican should fast-track him toward sainthood.  Really.  She's a gigantic pain-in-the-ass.  Add to that her advancing MS and I think it's clear it takes a special sort of person to say, "I do".  Always one for drama, her appendix burst last Thursday while she was waiting for a surgeon to diagnose her (not a comment on Ontario's health care, more a comment on the crappy rural hospital she was at) and she spent a few days on IV.  She should be good to go.

I'm planning a sort of personal renaissance for the new year.  Not a New Year's resolution as such, since I've already started, but a life cleanup.  Maybe it's a fancy term for a mid-life crisis, sans Porsche.  I had my fast cars when I was young enough to kill myself with them.  I'm comfortable with whatever label people wish to put on this plan.

First, back on the diet and exercise.  Life provided me with plenty of excuses to slack over the past year.  From death, to injury, to home fixing, to equipment breakage, to various stresses, I've managed to gain back a bit (not much, currently four pounds over last year's best).  I resisted for a while.  I stayed the course.  I bogged down around the same place I always bog down (there's definitely a mental hurdle that needs to be jumped here) right as everything went to shit around me.  I've replaced the broken equipment.  I've given myself some realistic physical goals. 

First of all, join something official.  Involve a structured physical activity in my life.  Make the exercise more than just me beating myself up in the basement.  There's a Judo club not far from me.  I've always wanted to go back.  That will kick my ass pretty hard.  I'll take my daughter with, as this will satisfy her wanting to be in TKD with her brother.  Plus, I like the idea of my daughter being able to defend herself against larger people, and TKD is much more limited as a practical means of defense.  Anyway, this is about me.  Train.  Compete.  Maybe win, probably lose.  I'll almost certainly lose until I get below 205 (or at least 100kg if it's metric weight classes), which will be quite a while since I'm such a fat fuck.  IT and pizza do terrible things to a body.

Start writing things.  I don't know why I stopped.  Maybe I've lost "it" and everything I write will suck.  I don't really care.  I need to get back whatever it is I lost.  Whatever it is that's been beaten out of me.

Time to grab life by the horns, throw it to the ground, and make it tap.

Was that too macho?