A Very Merry Christmas, but One Lousy NightI'm not a religious or spiritual man - one of my girlfriends once remarked, actually, on how unspiritual I am. (This sometimes bothers me just a little, I think because sometimes I wish I could believe in or blame things on higher powers which act - or don't - in my best interests. Basically selfish, yes.) But, we've always celebrated Christmas in my family, so it's important to me today as a family thing. It's one of the few times that I can relax on a vacation without actually going away from home (usually if I spend a day off at home I spend it working on home projects). Of course, this Christmas I have gone away, which is all the better!My family does the gift thing every year. We have a tree (those Christmases when I've been on my own I've gotten a tree, too), we wrap all the gifts, and open them in the morning. All that stuff! Buying and wrapping the gifts can be a bit of a drag (indeed, since I mail-ordered many gifts this year, I had to wrap them the night I flew out), but it's fun anyway. (We usually feed the wrapping paper into the fireplace over the following week.) And there's usually some sort of dinner thing in the evening.
So as usual it was a nice little Christmas. My sister, Katy, was also here, and had been for the previous week. (We get along much better as adults than we did when we were kids.) I think we all received some good stuff. I bought Apple and San Francisco stuff - among other things - for everyone. The colored mouse pads (iMac mania is still going strong) Apple is currently selling went over surprisingly well. I received some interesting stuff, such as A nice start to my vacation.
 The continuation was not so much fun, though: After dinner I was feeling pretty full and my stomach ached a little bit. I figured I'd just overdone it, but there was something else going on. I had a touch of diarrhea before bed, and then woke up at 1:30 in the morning with another touch. Well, my stomach was really hurting by now, and I was also passing a lot of gas (belching, mainly). And when I had finished in the bathroom I stood up and experienced something that I don't remember ever happening to me before: I passed out. I'm lucky I didn't hurt myself by hitting my head or side on the counter or doorknob or something. But down I went, and I woke up I guess a few seconds later and thought how strange it was that all of a sudden I was staring the scale in the 'eye'. Mom heard me go down and came out and asked if I was all right, and I said, "I don't think so." She passed me a blanket and my bathrobe and brought up a bowl in case I felt like throwing up. I didn't feel like moving - either moving from the toilet, or just getting up at all. I lay on the floor for probably half an hour, and eventually felt better and went back to bed. I hardly slept at all that night, as my stomach continued to ache, depending on how I was lying. I did later feel like throwing up, but didn't, although I did spend a while lying on the floor of my bedroom where I could stretch out more easily (the twin bed in my old room is a little short for me). I finally did get back in bed at 7 am and went to sleep. I woke up and came downstairs for a bit at 10 am, and then went back to sleep until after 1 pm. I finally got up for good and came downstairs and watched television for the afternoon (football, mainly, as the Patriots lost an embarrassing one to the Bills). It was pretty nasty. Dad thinks I probably passed out due to dehydration, and we all discussed whether I had a short virus, or had gotten food poisoning. In my experience, viruses, rarely pass so quickly - I felt mostly better, if tired, by Sunday evening - but the one other time I've had food poisoning, I felt much, much worse than I did this time. So, I don't know. I was especially disappointed because it knocked out a day of my vacation, on which we'd had plans to go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts which had an exhibit on an Egyptian Pharaoh which interested me. Plus I haven't been to the MFA in many years and kind of looked forward to seeing some of their paintings and maybe finding a print or two to buy and brighten up my apartment. But, I was really glad that if I was going to get sick like that, that it would happen here, where my Mom was available to help me out. That's one of the bummers about being single: I don't really have anyone to rely on in cases like that. Good thing I don't get seriously sick very often. I have a great Mom.
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