Staying home sick today. I really wasn't that sick yesterday, but I thought it would be best to head off a major bout of illness with a well-chosen sick day; now that I'm home I'm as sick as a dog. I can barely talk and my head spins spins spins. So in lieu of doing the work that needs to be done, I'm watching Stacy's Buffy tapes and re-reading Poppy Z. Brite's biography of Courtney Love. The Boy, now fully launched on his Christmas vacation, is here to make me soup and toast. It would be so much sweeter if I weren't sick. But, well, I am, so I guess I just have to make the best of it.

Best news all week: I'm kicking the Xanax. The last time I went to the doctor, I told her that I was able to go the occasional day without it. She seemed pleased, and didn't write a new prescription. Last week I belatedly realized that I'd either have to kick it soon or go back for more, both of which seemed like an enormous hassle. So I've been listening to my own mind, and feeling the anxiety without reaching for a pill for the first time in months. I'm enormously cheered by the fact that I can stop taking the damn things without a noticeable downslide.

My two goals for the new year are to kick the prescriptions and become financially solvent. I feel like I'm almost 1/4 there.