Ladies and gentlemen, yesterday was my last day at my previous job.

I am now off on two weeks' worth of glorious vacation time before commencing the new job. YAY! I asked the folks at work to keep my departure low-key, and they definitely complied (thanks to them for that - although none of them read this blog!), although I still walked away with a small fortune in Chapters gift cards to fuel my bibliophilic addiction.

I can tell I needed the vacation pretty badly. Last night after work, I started to feel a bit ill. So I took a quick nap, but I'd promised a friend that I'd be at her birthday celebrations down one of the major bar-filled streets here in town, and had to be there to meet her around 6:45 p.m. We had dinner, and the stomach wasn't feeling any better. And the exhaustion was setting in. So by the time 9:30 rolled around, I was nearly falling asleep in my chair (after all, it was past my bed time!). A headache was also starting to develop.

They moved from the nice Irish pub where we started to another bar nearby near 10:30 or 11. No air conditioning. Pounding music. I couldn't take it. I mean, I'm not the sort of person who goes out drinking and dancing, getting horribly hammered and doing stupid things to begin with... but throw in the heat and the noise and the fact that I wasn't feeling well to begin with - it was either get out or pass out. I left and was home by about 11:30. I felt like ass. And I felt like AN ass. I've missed this particular friend's birthday several years in a row now due to whatever circumstances have popped up, and was really trying to make an effort to go out and enjoy this one. I know she was really disappointed when I left and now I have to figure out a way to make it up to her...