Blame it on the heat. The kind of weather that have you walking around the house bra-less in singlets you stole borrowed from your husband's closet, licking icy poles to cool you down. Sluggish as hell.

That's my excuse for not doing this post before the turn of the year, anyway. Better than sheer laziness, which might be a little more closer to the truth.

But this sloth is pretty consistent with this little annual blog tradition, thank you very much. Ten years strong to this day.

Even this blog is an achievement in itself. I don't know how I managed to keep it going but, here we are. Hypotensive as fuck but nothing that a shot of Metaraminol can't fix.

21 books I read this year. Not bad, all things considered. Not bad at all.

I re-read Kristy Chambers' Get Well Soon! because she's hilarious and as a nurse myself, I can relate. Maybe not to her semi-extensive knowledge and skills in the different areas she worked in, but to her feelings about being the professional that people come to for help when all she really wants is to retire with enough moolah to travel the world and not have to worry about patients sticking objects up their asses.

Speaking of, for the record, I love my job. I really do. And colonoscopies are not as bad as you might think it is. Unless it's a bad prep wherein patients did not follow the instructions 3 days prior to their procedure, it's not as, um, shitty. But, yes, when we're rostered to assist the endoscopists, there's a lot of ass wiping involved. But I'll take that any day over night shifts.

Out of all the books I read this year, the ones that I would put on the bottom 3 would be: Holding Up the Universe, The Alchemy of Loss, and You Are What You Wear. Perhaps even throw in What If God Were The Sun in the list, too. You may beg to disagree but we'll just have to agree to disagree, whatever our reasons are. I'm no book critic and I can't exactly come up with a sophisticated basis for my dislike against said publications other than They just did not jive with me.

The rest I highly recommend.

If you want to rekindle your love for life and being alive, read Elli.

To appreciate your cognitive capabilities, check out Still Alice.

To gain a deeper understanding of your stress-related illnesses, try When The Body Says No. (This is the book I usually endorse to my patients when we get to talking and I feel like they might get something out of it.)

For a light, enjoyable reading, there's Where The Crawdads Sing, The Song of Achilles, and The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. Books so beautifully written the words readily melt like butter, smooth across your heart.