So. Last day of the year.

 
I don’t really feel like doing anything retrospective, so I’ll just touch on the most recent significant events.

First, I learned a few days ago that an old girlfriend had died just after Christmas. That’s only the lead-in: in the years after we dated, she married my younger brother, so that she eventually became his first (of four) ex-wives, and the mother of my oldest niece.

My feelings about that are … odd. We had been close once — enough so that I had introduced her to my brother in hopes that they’d get along, because even if she and I weren’t going any farther together, I thought she was worth keeping around — but in years to come, my opinion would change markedly. I could do a long list of the behaviors and attitudes that lowered and ultimately eliminated my respect for her, but they wouldn’t really communicate the total reality. Suffice to say that she functioned as a minor but continuing irritant in the far background of my life, and I was perfectly happy never interacting with her at all. And (awful to say, but it doesn’t go away by my not saying it) my first emotional response on hearing of her death was a muted but distinct sense of relief that I’d never have to deal with her any more.

On the other hand, I like my niece, who just lost her mother. So LiveJournal is the only place I can admit these strikingly not-worthy feelings.

Second, my wife spent most of Christmas weekend in increasing pain, and Monday morning I took her to the emergency room. She has a twenty-two-millimeter kidney stone; for those not familiar with metric, that’s twice the diameter of a .45-caliber bullet. She can’t work, because 1) her work involves a lot of driving, 2) she’s on Percocet for the pain, and 3) mixing Percocet and driving is an arrestable offense. The earliest they can schedule the necessary surgery is January 12, and she’ll need a few weeks of recovery afterward, so essentially she has to take the entire month of January off work. (Burning through her sick leave and most of her accumulated annual leave.) And she probably doesn’t have enough Percocet to last until the next appointment that will get her another prescription.

Essentially, the most recent events in my life are things that happened (are happening) to other people.

On the other hand, my wife did like the stuff I got her for Christmas, so there’s a bullet dodged.