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Visited with Trinity this morning and heard all about her adventures with Chinese acrobats and the Titanic. She and grandparents went to Branson, Missouri where they saw both. The largest, permanent Titanic exhibit in world is there. They all had a blast.

Phone calls to New York about business that happened while I was on vacation. Then more of the Anita Blake comic to look at. Wips (works in progress), and Finals. We’re nearly to the end of The Laughing Corpse in the artwork. Cool to see it in pictures after living in my head in words for so long.

Brunch, or Lunchfest.

Meditated.

Just opened e-mail here and have 21 new business e-mails alone. On one hand, good and amazing, on the other hand, argh.

Now expecting out of town friends for dinner. Hoping to hit the gym tonight, but feeling the holiday reach up and disrupt my schedule. Not that I don’t want to see friends, but can’t figure out how to balance all the social with the work and creative. I feel about my writing the way Anita feels about raising zombies, if we don’t do it voluntarily it comes out in odd ways. She raises accidental zombies and I get cranky, restless, impatient, and a general bear to live with; I am trying not to exhibit any of those symptoms, but know I’m struggling at this point.

We’ve decided to start a new tradition for the day after Solstice: Sushi. Pili, Thechickenchic on Twitter, is picking it up and bringing in so we can all visit. It will be a good visit but at some point Carri, Meerkatfeinated on Twitter, and I want to runaway to the gym. How to do that and not seem rude is the question? Every year I struggle to balance the holidays with all its many demands on time, patience and just sheer energy. I do better each year, but there always comes that moment when the great, tumbling, snowball, that is what Yule/Christmas has become slams into me and I am suddenly smashed into it being crushed into the hillside as the every growing snowball rolls downhill. I feel like some cartoon character overwhelmed by circumstances while a laugh track plays in the background, but I’ve always thought that for the cartoon character in question probably not so funny. There are friends, good friends, that I owe calls to, and time with, and I am left trying to figure out how to divide myself up and do it all. The truth is that we cannot do it all, none of us, we are all just human and for those of us whose jobs don’t stop for the holiday we must struggle on with the additional demands and even the additional joy of long separated friends and family. It is a joy to see them and get back in touch, but the other demands do not go away in the midst of all the socializing. Every year I try to figure a way to do what is demanded on all sides without stressing and every year, eventually, I have to embrace the stress part of the ho, ho, ho, and just let myself have a moment of grumpiness. Funny, I was the cheerful one in the airport on the way home, bolstering Jon’s grumpy side as we hurried from one gate change to another, but now its me that’s been Grinched. Bah, humbug, and pass the eggnog the Holy part of the holiday is over for us, but the commercial part marches upon us like a herd of ravening army ants eating everything in its path. I love the reason for the holiday the return of light and hope, but the actual practice of the holiday puzzles me.