As many of you know, there is very little about the Christmas Holiday which I enjoy. Usually, during this holiday I am either short on money, time, or good cheer. By the last week prior to Christmas, my stress levels have me passed the point I can breathe. Last year this was caused when I not only got my check two and a half weeks late, but also did not get my usual Christmas bonus. The year before that Rebecca had lost her job and Christmas would mostly be about preparing to buffer ourselves against the problems to come.

When the month began I had already been handed a bit more than I could handle. Wally decided that he could no longer work at the store because he was looking for more work and didn’t feel he could keep up the responsibility. This wasn’t a huge problem, however, since I had been handling the FNMs prior to that with little trouble, the additional Friday gave me time to be able to get some side responsibilities done, however and would allow me additional shopping time this year.

In addition, the two weeks prior to Thanksgiving I floated the store a loan which I was sure would have paid off by now. However, due to the random decrease in player attendance at both the FNMs and the Drafts, income tanked during the month of November and I am still sitting on $800 which will end up being paid back to me in slow installments.

During the last week of the month, I was notified by Rebecca that the custody agreement, which I thought was going to be sufficient, was not usable and would have to be amended. This meant that I would not be allowed to see my daughter for at least another month, and it was especially painful because of the time of year, and my family’s desire to see her again.

However, Teri has been amazingly supportive during this time. It’s a little tougher for her and I really appreciate the attempts she has been making. I feel awful because I know what a mess I become this time of year and the fact that she understands is help on it’s own.

I have new plans for the store next year and so far they seem to be fairly awesome. Tom is going to come on in a more Partner style position and I am still in the market for a few others. I am currently watching one of my clients deal with a nightmare situation and I don’t want to end up there myself.

So where am I going with all this?

Mostly I am just passing out status updates to the world and explaining why the great deal of silence lately. Although it’s not completely responsible I was trying to enjoy as much of my time in November as I could.

To anyone which may feel like I have been ignoring them or not communicating with them as much, I apologize and to those of you who feel I was rude or insincere, I apologize.

If you read my last entry, you would believe that all of GenCon would have to be at least half as good as day zero, right? Wrong, very wrong. This year I was quite downhearted by the lack of things to do other than play Are You A Werewolf. Though the game is quite entertaining, it was definitely not the game I was hoping to play. I had come to GenCon with the expectation that I would be able to demo some new games to potentially stock in the store and that I would be able to find a few fun games of EDH on the side. Instead, all I found was an unlimited number of overpriced events and a few “secret dealers” in the game hall. All in all, the mall attached to the hotel which I feel bad because I really didn’t effectively earn, but had a key to and was allowed to stay in, was more fun in many ways than the convention itself.

The trip back would be postponed until Monday morning, which I figured would be fine because I still had an extra paid day off. However, on Friday I had gotten a message from Kurt, the former newest employee of Connected Computer, that he had found new employment with Target.

When I returned to work on Tuesday morning, I was suspended for the remainder of the week without pay and my boss’ excuse was that he could not trust me. I spend every day of my life having to support that job in some way, shape, or form, I get my paycheck late every other week, I am willing to work more or less hours depending upon the company’s needs, and I have worked for the same pay for almost 2 years now in a company that has been run by a man who goes by an alias and hasn’t paid his taxes for what I can only assume has been at least 7 years now and who spends thousands of the company’s dollars on gold and silver and locks it away in the safe in his office at home and I am the one who cannot be trusted.

This suspension is great though. Teri wasn’t feeling good on Wednesday, so she decided to go home early from work. I picked her up and we had lunch and lay around watching Arrested Development. She had a raid on WoW at around 5ish and had homework to do and I had to head to the store to take care of EDH. Then Teri said something I didn’t expect her to say, but really wanted to hear her say. She said that since she didn’t feel good that day she could probably just call off the next day. Part of me feels guilty for what I did next, mostly because I give people shit for doing the same thing. I texted Tony and told him I was having car trouble when really the only car trouble I was having is that the driver had no desire to drive. I spent the night at Teri’s and as guilty as I would normally have felt for doing such a thing, there was none. I felt like somehow I deserved this, and to be honest, I think maybe I really do.

The next morning Teri and I spent the first few hours talking in bed. Really about nothing in particular and about everything at the same time. If not for my ravenous need to consume large quantities on a consistent basis, I would have been able to lie around doing that all day. However, I was hungry and Teri still had homework to be done. I sat around playing a few hours of Left 4 Dead in Survival mode and getting my ass handed to me because bots suck at non-life. The last bit of time for the day went fairly swiftly and before I knew what had happened the day was already gone.

So why did I elaborate on all that? It’s a prime example of what I mean by trying to just go with life and see what happens. I’m really tired of expectations and people telling me what I should and shouldn’t think and feel. I enjoy spending time with Teri and she appreciates spending time with me. I know it seems like I am getting my priorities out of order, but I am still getting the things accomplished which I need to maintain control of. I’ve slacked a bit at the store, but I’ve got good people who can handle it just the same and could use the extra income anyway.

Overall I’m happy. Got a problem with that?