New Year's Eve was way fun. We went to Susan and Matt's party, hung out with good folks -- Dan, Nadia, Kameron and Dave (who wins for farthest travelled, being as he lives in Switzerland these days). It's great to get to see Dave, who used to bop into the Bay Area more often when he lived in Seattle and I miss that. But I can't really fault Dave for moving to Europe, since we don't see folks who live nearby very often sometimes, either (I mean, Susan is now in the next town over instead of literally around the corner, but that's not exactly a road-trip, y'know?). I should really try to see my local friends more often, since I have some control over that.

ANYway, I had a great time, and didn't even feel sick a bit. I think it may have been because I was seriously looking forward to the party, and I wasn't about to let a little tummy ache stop me. I dunno, but Sunday night was this golden evening for me.

The rest of the holiday weekend? Not so much.

Saturday morning I got up the usual time I'd get up for work during the week (which I try never to do) in order to get my hair highlighted. Oh yes, vanity. Well, my new hairstylist is so new that her highlights only cost $30, and this is at a fairly fancy Berkeley salon, and I'd been thinking about having them done for awhile now. I dye my own hair, but that's my whole head (and I've been doing it for nearly 20 years, so I'm pretty damn good at that); I only tried self-highlighting once, in college, and let's just say I learned my lesson the hard way (and when I was too poor to pay to have it fixed).

Ok, so highlights. Yeah. It took about 3 and a half hours. I'm very pleased with the results -- chunky highlights and lowlights (brighter and darker reds than the rest of my head) sprinkled naturally over the top few layers of my head, making it all look far more natural than usual, I think. I feel very vibrant and sassy when I look at my hair, which is really the point, since Tim is color blind ;-D

Ok, so those took a long time on Saturday morning. I was already feeling queasy by the end of that, but I figured it was just fumes. Then I went to writing group, and we carpooled with Lisa down to Pacifica. It was... well, I was so miserable that if we hadn't carpooled, I would have been hard-pressed to do more than hand my written crits to the critee and beg Tim to take me back home. It was the longest writing group meeting ever, thanks to my persistent nausea, body aches and pain. This feeling lasted all night, and most of the next day.

I already covered Sunday night.

Monday, I was sick again. Very, very sick. But I was sure I'd be better by Tuesday, when I had to back to work.

Tuesday, I had to call in. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit up, I couldn't stop running to the bathroom. At this point it was obvious that I had a bad stomach flu. I think it was the worst I've ever had, but maybe they all feel like that. I won't go into detail, but I will say that even highlights couldn't pretty me up on Tuesday.

Today, I went back to work. It was very busy, and I am only just tonight starting to physically feel better -- that glorious, I'm not doubled-over feeling you get when you've been cooped up and miserable for a couple of days. Not 100%, but relieved to just feel reasonably ok, y'know?

The upside? Well, I lost 7 pounds in four days. Talk about a jump-start to my resolutions!

Happy New Year!