I'm still alive...

(cue the Eddie Vedder earworm)

Yes, it's been a while since I've gotten off my butt to post here...sorry about that, folks. A few of the reasons why I've been a slackass:

1. It took about 2 months for me to finally move back into my bedroom from the futon in the living room after the Great Leaky Bedroom Ceiling Debacle--my landcritters apparently work with the Most Incompetent Plumber in Greater Boston, as it took him the better part of two months to figure out that the reason my ceiling only leaked when someone was in the shower upstairs taking one was because their damn tub/shower needed regrouting and if someone was actually taking a shower, water would splash around and slip through the crappy grout. *sigh* Once the actual leak was fixed, I finally moved back into my room, and the ceiling was actually repaired a couple of weeks after that with surprisingly little fuss and very neatly by the landcritters' contractor cousin. I still haven't gotten completely over losing the better part of two months to fucked-up plumbing, though...

2. I went off to play hardcore fangirl with NIN in five different cities (DC, NYC, Philly, Boston and Montreal), and had a wonderful time--it was truly just what I needed, and got me away from my job (let's not go there...) for a while. Five shows, five soundchecks, one meet & greet (NYC), one show spent on the rail of the pit (Montreal)...it was all a blast, but unfortunately it lead to...

3. The Ninnie Death Flu, aka "the crud I caught in NYC or Philly"--I left my house for the Boston show with a 100.4 fever (luckily, Tylenol knocked that down), and was just getting better when Montreal rolled around, whereupon I promptly came down with my friend Dante's cold and he mine (yeah, sharing a water bottle thoughtfully handed to Dante by Sweeney would do that...). Spent three days home sick from work before feeling well enough to stumble back, but kept on coughing my head off and running a low-grade fever, which my doctor assured me was par for the course with this particular bug. Started spiking a much higher fever (101.8 F) last weekend and felt as if it was taking all my strength just to breathe, so Monday morning it was off to Mass General and my doctor's office to see if anyone in the practice could see me. One office visit and chest X-ray later, it was determined that I didn't have pneumonia, but I did have some kind of bacterial infection (apparently in my lungs and sinuses), and one scrip of Zithromax later, I'm feeling MUCH better. Still dragged out from basically being sick for a month, though...how the hell do Trent & Co.--and any other touring musicians--manage not to get sick, or do they just hide it better? Whatever superduper combo of herbs or whatever they're using, I want it!

4. General slackassedness, brought on by 1, 2 & 3, not to mention my normal tendency to procrastination. I met a new friend today for the first time, and told her that what I really need is someone to crack the whip on me and demand new posts on a regular basis, which is unfortunately all too true--I get all kind of great ideas for things to yak about (many of which have nothing at all to do with music), but then I get sidetracked, or I decide "I can't post about that without pictures, and I don't have a decent setup to post pictures yet", or I think "I can't talk about that until I talk about X, Y & Z", so on and so forth. Anyone feel like playing Good Cop/Bad Cop, or maybe just Strict Teacher, and kicking my ass to get me writing more?

Let's just hope I end up having a better holiday season this year than I did last--trust me, there are definitely better ways to spend New Year's Eve than on a exam table, feet in stirrups, with the doc up to his wrist in you at the stroke of midnight. (And yes, I promise to post about this in much greater detail, if you think you've got the stomachs for it...)