Caustically Optimistic

2012 Resolutions

Pay the fine at the library.  I have no idea why I let myself get a library fine but in my culture this is worse than an STD.  If you’ve contracted an STD you’ve come in contact with another human and while you’ve caught is disgusting, and you’re disgusting, you’ve done something we haven’t and that’s admirable.  A late book to the library is inconsiderate in a way that gonorrhea simply isn’t.  When you’ve had a book late back to the library, you’ve kept some other sad, broke nerd from reading it.  You’ve trapped them in this world kept them from slipping into the other worlds.  You may have even caused them to encounter a television program that will surely rot their brains. 

 

I’m going to learn to accept compliments.  Most people really don’t know how to accept a compliment and many people don’t like them, or pretend not to like them.  I can’t hold a conversation with someone fishing for a compliment.  I have no use for them and end up being very rude when given one.  I don’t know if it comes from being more used to people saying unkind things or if it’s because I truly don’t care what you think or even that I don’t value in other people what you value, but it’s there.  There has to be a way for me to graciously and genuinely say, “thank you” or at least acknowledge what was just hurled at me. 

 

I’m going to use my health insurance.  I have a wart on my foot that hasn’t gone away on it’s own and it’s been there since college.  It’s ranged anywhere from twenty-five to seven hundred dollars to remove it and my loyalty to my locally owned coffee shop or corporate pit of a Jamba Juice has always come before my feet.  It doesn’t bother me.  What bothers me is two fold: first, I’m paying a larger portion of something I’m not using and second, I feel fine but a lot of people feel fine and fall over dead.  Something caught now will cost less than it would later.  However, like the dog, if it costs over a certain amount to keep me alive I’m really not worth it.  Bear that in mind as well as my wish never to be visited in the hospital. 

 

 

debate advice for republicans

I read this article on CNN written by a debate coach that flew in the face off all the debate wisdom ever assembled.  The two most important things to know about debating are, “less is more,” and, “don’t stay stupid things.”  My favorite thing about the article has to be how it trails off at the end the way someone does when they’re getting time signals from the adjudicator.  “Romney won because he did.”  Wonderfully written, truly so.

Romney is winning the debates in the media because deep in his cold, dark heart he is as Republican as Nancy Pelosi.  If you go on someone’s record (and don’t look at MY debate record because it will repudiate everything I’m typing) and really that’s all we can go by: Romney is to the left of the President.  Of course the media is eating him up, they know he’s no more conservative than Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan (the real Ronald Reagan from the 1980s, not cartoon Ronald Reagan that people worship like he’s the Virgin Mary). 

The big difference between being in a debate round and a Presidential primary is that in a debate round I’d need to make a compelling argument to win and in a primary the argument has to be that you yourself are a compelling argument.  There are some huge differences between a debate and the charade that the candidates go through every four years.  One of my debate partners always said that the purpose of debate is to ferret out the truth, through the discussion both sides would have the truth would come out.  These aren’t debates and they shouldn’t be called that so the whole article is pretty useless because they’re not debates nor are they judged as debates BUT I’m bored so now everyone has to suffer:

There was this dynamic in debate, when I was a kid, where the rounds EVERYONE had to suffer through were the elimination rounds.  The people who said the truly outrageous stuff rarely saw the light of day.   We’d never have to suffer through a Santorum and Bachmann.  If you said crazy, hateful, and downright dishonest things during the preliminary stages you wouldn’t make it very far and you wouldn’t be invited back.  Booing soldiers – or pretending you didn’t hear it, saying people should be left to die, or any of the truly outrageous things that have been said (not things I summarily disagree with) wouldn’t be tolerated. 

I’m pretty confident that if my coach were on the adjudicating panel for the Republican debates she’d have put a stop to it.  In fact I think the only thing that would have stopped her would have been a non-violent scuffle with the coach from Creighton on the way to stop it.  Marty, to you I say, “ladies first.”  I assure you, they’d be much harder on the Democrats for the silly things they let fly.   These shenanigans were never tolerated and I can’t imagine the Republican voters are putting up with this either.  We were policed, they put a stop to things we said that were absurd, and we were made to learn to tie a tie.  I cannot and will not vote for someone who can’t tie a tie.

Do you have any idea how incredibly difficult it is, and how amazing my coaches are (and by proxy the good people of Creighton, but not Patty who never voted for me – not even once) for being able to reign in – even on occasion – my ability to say absurd things?  I remember once in a round I was asked if I knew where the next ‘hot spot in the world was going to be,” and I responded that, my point was, “we can’t know where it will be but it’s probably small, unstable and ends in –stan.”  I was not wrong but I wasn’t truly ashamed of myself until I started hearing George W. Bush repeating my arguments in the State of the Union.  It was difficult, but my absurdities could be reigned in and I usually only let loose when people said truly stupid things like, “we admit Puerto Rico to the union because we need it to bomb Somalia.” 

Then you have the small issue of decorum in the debates.  We were never allowed to be so rude to each other, and this is a better example: a teammate of ours that we’ll call “James” was accused of lying about something, specifically about a country we’ll call, “Lesotho.”  Now, “James” isn’t a liar but I’ve never met someone more creative with the truth or had a more detailed knowledge of the boundaries of propriety than “James.”  We were incredulous, not only that he’d been called a liar the one time we’re positive he was telling the truth, but also that someone would call someone a liar.  You don’t lie but you also don’t call someone out on lying, the people judging the rounds are generally better informed than you are anyway. 

Do you really want a President who is, for lack of a better way to put it, a dick?  My friend Stanley (who isn’t small or unstable, but never-you-mind his name starts in Stan) likes to harp on the President’s unfortunate remark about the Special Olympics and makes the good point that people who say horrible things expose horrible character.  I’d juxtapose the bad behavior that comes out in the incredibly choreographed performances we’re seeing in the debates and something that slipped in a light moment.  Both are horrible and the Special Olympics comment weighs on me as a voter against things like always getting Mrs. Clinton’s chair in the sit-down debates in the 2008 cycle or being the clearest voice against mocking Mrs. Palin’s family dynamics, but it’s hard to defend something you planned to say being less awful than something you didn’t. 

The real problem with these debates boils down to that: adjudication.  The people adjudicating the debates have no problem with the things being said being patently false or untrue, the fact that they’d lie about their records and each other, and that most of them cannot tie a tie.  You are letting this happen. 

Mr. Santorum, I know you’re wearing those vests because the tip of your tie doesn’t hit your belt buckle: it’s why I wear a vest every time a tie is warranted.  We’re on to you, sir. 

As an adjudicator I was empowered to and definitely voted against people who were indecorous.  My favorite one was, for no reason related to the discussion at hand, the ‘affirmative’ side of the debate called their opposition ‘immoral’ for not being vegans.  I knew the people on the opposition and they were truly horrible people but of all the things that person had done in her life to fixate on a cheeseburger was beyond my comprehension.  I didn’t vote for the ‘affirmative’ team because – beyond their ideas being truly insipid – they were rude.  You have to ask yourself is nice guys from Utah who speak Chinese need to finish last?  Do I want that to come up on Google when people want to learn about the President?  Do I want someone who’ll talk to someone who agrees with them like that talking to people unsure of us throughout the world and at home?  I’d like to think you didn’t. 

Misty will claim there is no such thing is a decent, God-fearing Republican.  I know that while I can’t think of one that could get clear of the nominating process – you wouldn’t nominate the real Ronald Reagan today or Teddy Roosevelt – they do, indeed, exist. There are good, decent Republicans in elected office today that could attain the presidency.  After watching these debates I can’t imagine that they’d make it through the primaries.  Until we demand candidates who are serious, thoughtful, and trustworthy we’re bound to keep suffering through these shams, and none of us win in this scenario.  I’ve only heard of a double-loss once in debate history (it’s one of those rules that exist but never come into practice) but I think you have us heading toward one.

If my coach were giving these people advice I think she’d tell them to stay true to their records and life-long ideals, focus on their arguments instead of someone else’s construction of their arguments, and present yourself as the leader that people want to see: someone smart, articulate, and able to lead.  There is a reason that after eight years of a Republican President we picked someone named "Hussien" of a decorated war hero for President of the United States.  Give us a good reason to take you back, quit reminding us why we put you on the curb with the rest of the rubbish.  

Also, she's by no means vain but she’d take issue with the photograph of the person who wrote the article.  She’d kill me if I took (and I have) a bad picture of her and put it on the Internet.  

 

so the trees look taller

I have to find a new Target.  I have been going to this Target for twelve years.  I can’t explain to you why going to a Target that’s my Target is important, it just is.  I’ll get to why in a second, first I have to give you that backstory to make this story make sense. 

I don’t have an older male relative I can ask questions that you should ask an adult you trust but that you shouldn’t ask your father.  I don’t have any brothers (none that survived childhood, or that we know of), my uncles are either adorable dipshits and/or should be marooned on that island Mike Huckabee envisioned for people who’d vote against him, and my cousins are all younger than me and we’re not close.  I don’t even have close friends (of either gender, really); Jeremy bears the burden of seniority and if he were my ‘best friend’ it’d be a common law relationship/default consequence of sticking around longer that other humans would.  If I have a question that I’d imagine a normal person would ask someone they trust I look to Google. 

I was in the Health and Beauty section of Target looking to see if they had something similar to the things I’ve been using to shave because the stuff I use isn’t, well, Target-priced.  I wanted a less expensive alternative. 

I’m standing there uncharacteristically minding my own business when an old lady who looked like Barbara Bush (don’t worry, this isn’t the unbelievable part) asked me, “What do you use to shave your balls?”

I looked at her, and around her for the camera crew we all expect when these things happen, and said, “Excuse me, and speak slowly because I’m going to repeat this to anyone who’ll listen, but what did you just ask me?”  And she repeated what I thought she had said to me.  It’s not often I’m at a loss for words and after a minute I said, “Why do you ask?” Why?  I figured that anything that came out of her mouth would be just as priceless as what she first issued.  Apparently, her son sent her to the store to pick up something for him to shave his balls with because, she volunteered, he had a date.  I had half a mind to call one of my cousins or Jeremy and handing her the phone because they’ll never believe this. 

I should shop at Wal Mart because I’m pretty sure people who shop there not only hate America and love China, but don’t groom themselves that extensively. 

I really didn’t know what to say.  I should have informed her how solitary a life I led but I told her, because chutzpah like that deserves chutzpah in return, instead I told her that I burned all the hair off my lower body in a ancient Hebrew ritual.  Trimming ahead of time was suggested.  If you knew the lucky lady’s preferred liquor then using that was a considerate touch. 

My Buddhist friend, Christian, might have had better advice for her but what happened next was that a frat boy who had happened upon this exchange told her what he did (which was incredibly detailed) and handed us both all the products that he used adding how not only lucky we were that he was there to help us (he was unsure of the safety of lighting your pubic hair on fire) but also, he added, “I wash my dick with this stuff and the ladies appreciate it.” 

This isn’t where he hit rock bottom but it is where we started digging because faux Barbara Bush can ask you, a complete stranger, what you use to shave your balls – and use the word ‘balls’ – but if you use the word ‘dick,’ well, that’s just tasteless.  She was incredibly indignant at this point, and I’d have wandered away but I am not a quitter.  I had to see this through to the end. 

The frat boy said to her, “Its not our fault that you haven’t heard of Google.  You asked a question and we answered it.  We almost got away without pointing out the irony of Barbara Bush asking us how to get rid of a bush.  What kind of person asks that anyway?”

I’d have bought his groceries had he incorporated her pearl necklace into his remarks (and told him that) but he seemed like a polite, helpful young man.  She left me with more questions than answers but at the end of the day I don’t really want to know.  I'm torn on the issue of sex education in the schools but I'm pretty sure I know where I stand on the issue of sex education at Target.  They have helpful signs all over the store and that lane wasn't adorned with one that said, "Trim the bushes so the trees look taller."  

However, this reminded me of some things I should never, never forget.  First, Google things and don’t ever talk to another soul about anything remotely like this.  God sent us Steve Jobs to give us iPhones so we could Google things like this and not have to ask strangers at Target about the care and upkeep of the testicles.  It’s just not done.  Second, never leave home without your chutzpah, your moxie or your nerve because you never know when you’re going to be out of your network and no-where near WIFI because I imagine that wherever that place is, there isn’t much to do.  

 

Focus

Today I was cleaning out the closet in my room and I found the first Lego set I ever purchased.  That was at least twenty-five years ago, I’ve kept all the important pieces.  It’s a castle with knights, archers, and soldiers.  It’s called a “King’s Castle” but it didn’t come with a king, queen, courtiers or even a token damsel for distress.  I remember the trip to Montgomery, Alabama’s Toys R Us to get the set, putting it together and my mother rearranging things in the living room so it could be proudly displayed there.  When I was done with this castle it would go back into the box.  The horses, but they’re the only pieces gone.  That’s an accomplishment. 

Two things came out of finding this set.  I encountered something from my past that didn’t provoke any negative feelings and when that didn’t happen organically my mother didn’t take the opportunity to provoke them herself.  One of my goals or resolutions this year isn’t to find happiness, contentment, solace, or peace.  It’s all around me.  My resolution for 2012 is to stop letting other people ruin it for me.

Bud Potter says that being happy is a choice.  It’s not an easy choice because being unhappy is easier.  When I went to dinner with the people I used to teach with I could have focused on how the assistant principal who was terrible to everyone for sport showed up (did anyone want to see her?) or I could have focused on how nice it was to see Sandy, and to see Sandy out in the wide world enjoying herself.  When my mother talks about how I’m not apart of her family I can focus instead on the people who’ve chosen to have me in their lives instead. 

Really, the honor of being Alexandra’s godfather eclipses the unfortunate brightness of the array of ginger-cousin’s hair; picking up a spare faux-nephew and niece in the bargain isn’t bad either.  I don’t think I have time or heart left for family after contending with the avalanche of personality in those three.  Even if I were welcome on the maternal side of my family the paternal is much cooler, literate, active, and Aunt Stefanie always has bacon at her house.  The summer vacation I had with Doug, Valerie and their younger kids was the best vacation I’ve ever had – and all we did was watch elephants bathe.  Whenever I talk to Doug, Valerie, Jon or Melissa they ask, “when are you coming home” and, “when will you visit,” (respectively).  In the ten years since I’ve not been a part of the family no one has said either of those things.  It’s easier to hear what’s not being said but I should listen to what is being said.  Home is where your heart is because it’s where you’re wanted.  I was happier in Phoenix because I was wanted and needed there, not someone who was merely tolerated, barely. 

I’ll make the hard choice to be happy.  My heart is fighting me on the idea of surviving 2012 but I think fighting through to being happy will help.  Also, “The King’s Castle,” shouldn’t just be plastic blocks in my closet my heart – which I am hoping to bend to my will – should bend to the King’s will.  How much happier would I be if I left God in charge?  Following Him isn’t easy, but I don’t do easy things, women, or recipes.  Why I should I stop there?  When people roll their eyes at that or make snide remarks I’m reminded of how important it really is and I hope for those people that they find out but don’t really ever have to know.  When I hear people question God’s power or the place of faith in our lives I remember when we all held our breath, lowered our eyes, and broke our hearts when Siena wasn’t well.  When I was told that she coded I initially lost my composure and I may have thrown up in my classroom while teaching (it’s why we have so many rubbish bins about the room).  If you knew this perfectly extraordinary girl you’d never question there was a God in Heaven.   

Sandy reminds me that everyone has a cheering section and that no matter what difficulty you’re working through there is always time to be there for others.  Christ told us to love and serve God and each other.  If I know someone who could take a day off from her duty to her fellow humans it is Sandy, I’m thankful for that.  Alexandra (and cortege) should in reality present a responsibility but being a pastor’s kid’s Godfather is really an emeritus position and serves more to keep me in line than anything for her and I’m beholden to her not to divulge my base instincts.  My mother’s mother is alive today because I hold my tongue for the Al Hanjamin.  Christmas should teach us the power of infants and toddlers but it’s easy to forget.

I have the smaller resolution that I’m going be organized in my space this year and shed some of the things I don’t need.  Reorganizing the ‘castle’ I live in caused me to find the castle I used to play with as a child and reminded of whose castle it really should be.  I hate it when my blog sounds preachy or like someone else’s but in the end if I write out my resolutions here someone will keep me accountable.  It worked, for the most part, in 2011.  The resolutions I didn’t succeed in were at least worked on. 

Focusing on happiness, on where happiness is, will help 2012 (and beyond) be exponentially better than years past.  

 

Seven Resolutions for 2012

These are my resolutions for 2012, not for me to do as much as for you because these are the things that you did in 2011 (and years past) that really pissed me off.  I love reading the blogs written by the thousands of adherents to the Church of Narcissism of Latter Day Martha Stewarts telling us what to think, feel, and do.  You’re not going to do what I ask you to but I’d appreciate it if the following actually came to pass:

1. We’ll start small.  Hash tags or hash tagging belongs on Twitter.  Hash tagging causes things to function on Twitter, as they ought.  Hash tagging on Facebook or other social media doesn’t really add anything to your comment except trap you in the sweet, tangy amber that is adolescence online.  I didn’t like coming off as a surly tween when I was a surly tween I can’t imagine wanting to do it now.  It would be like saying, “L O L” or “B R B” out loud. 
2. I’d like you to stop using the word ‘epic’ to describe things that aren’t epic.  It’s not a synonym for marvelous or unique, even stupendous.  ‘Epic’ refers to heroic activities, grand and ambitious endeavors.  Winding up at White Castle drunk and stoned while a college student is fun and memorable.  It’s not marching an army across the Pyrenees to fetch your granddaughter like Eleanor of Aquitaine – which was actually ‘epic.’ 
3. Try getting sayings correct.  It isn’t, “Since Christ was a corporal.”  Christ was never a United States Marine; this doesn’t make sense.  He was, however, corporeal (or in a body); that was a long time ago.  “We haven’t had salad fish and loaves for lunch since Christ was corporeal,” makes more sense than, “We haven’t had someone change water into wine since Christ enlisted in the United States Marines.”  Also, it is in the last place you’d look not in the last place you look.  It’s in the last place you’d look because it is unexpected.  It is in the last place you look as well but that is because you wouldn’t continue to look after finding it.  Of course whatever it is is what it is, what else would it be? 
4. Stop breaking Adele’s heart, I mean, dammit it.  Girl has had enough!  However, I’d submit that she NOT find someone like you since you keep hurting her so.  Never you mind, if she doesn’t find someone like you she’d not have material for music and we’d be left with crap from Katy Perry.
5. Not every film at the cinema needs to be in 3D.  Star Wars with their space battles on a grand scale are helped by 3D.  Alice in Wonderland was brought to life when the unnatural world literally sprung to life.  The King’s Speech didn’t really need it.  3D is the new gratuitous nudity in film. 
6. U R NOT Q-T!  Honestly, you have a whole keyboard on your phone and computer.  Is it that hard to type out the whole word?  Yes, I’m a stickler for grammar but that’s because grammar ensures that we can understand what you’re saying.  A good example happened the other day, Ruth posted about her son, “It’s time to eat baby.”  I though, “I’m starting to like this kid.  He eats babies, too!”  She meant, “It’s time to eat, Baby.”  I realize that you’re homophonephobic and don’t want to marry your ideas with proper execution of punctuation either.  You could at least make your messages look like an adult.  I hate needing to stare at something to understand it when it's supposed to be in American English.  
7.  Stop invoking the Bible, it almost always shows you haven’t read it.  When someone says, “an eye for an eye” or, “am I my brother’s keeper?” it demonstrates that you really didn’t read it – and if you did you didn’t get it.  When you invoke the Founding Fathers thus, without realizing that they had the same disagreements we have today, you demonstrate that you’re just reading the parts that you like or benefit from.  The people who deny that it’s a ‘living, evolving document,’ need to consider that their ability to own guns privately (despite that not being in the Second Amendment) or have a right to privacy (find it in the text, I dare you) comes from it being designed to grow.  We wouldn’t need a Supreme Court on amendment process if it were figuratively in black and white.

 

grasp

My mother washed my notebook.  I have no idea what I was planning to tell you.  I have to start my whole life over at this point because all of my thoughts were in that book.  There were also passwords, bits of information, codes for work, etcetera in that book.  Say what you will about the iPhone – or smart phone you detest – it’s backed up somewhere.  There isn’t really a back up for paper.  I’m considering burning all of my old notebooks and starting over with the new one.  I’d like to forget a lot of my past.  What I’d really like to do is forgive.

 

I’ve re-read them all and am keeping one notebook.  It contains the notes I took while on a trip to Rome.  This one is only kept because I detest, above all else, plagiarism.  I know you’re thinking, “but what about?” everyone else becomes indignant about the other evils of life.  Plagiarism is the one that gets me the most because it needles in and extracts something from someone’s intellect, soul, and hard work.  It’s like robbing them but for most of us we don’t have recourse. 

 

Maybe it’s the lack of recourse?  It’s probably just that I have so few good ideas that I resent people taking them and passing them off as their own.  It could be that my good ideas are in fact pretty mediocre so in the long run, why take that?  I’m sure it’s probably easy to pass off a mediocre cleverness as your own than something that truly was.   

 

The journal of our adventure in Rome was the story of nine people spending a week in the environs of the Eternal City but the spin on events was entirely mine.  People borrowed it when we returned to get a basic sequence of events in putting an order to their own notes and to organize their photos (this was a pre-digital trip).  One person lifted entire sections of my text and put it in their photo album.  Since I’ve been keeping a journal since the seventh grade it’s gone from being a recounting of events, “traveled by train to Manheim, visited caves, neighbor bumped head,” to, “We traveled this morning by train to Manheim to visit the caves used by the Germans as a bomb shelter during the (second World) War and our neighbor’s kid bumped her head while there,” to, “Today Mom got us up at the crack of dawn to go on a family outing. The excitement of this idea soon evaporated when we realized that we were going with the neighbors as well – they’re boorish and don’t like being in Germany, we always end up embarrassed!  The caves were pretty interesting because they while most caves either occur naturally or as a result of mining for something specific these caves start as natural caves and were expanded for the specific use as a refuge during times of war.  Until the Second World War they had been a secret despite being around since the Hundred Year’s War; the guide explained that it was actually the Seventh World War.  The neighbor’s daughter isn’t terrible bright and bumped her head at least three times despite being the shortest in the group.  I think she did it on purpose because she wasn’t the center of attention like the time she ‘sprained her ankle in Lorraine.”  My sister can corroborate this story, but she can also elaborate on keeping track of this very dangerous person.

 

I’m not an amateur and some of the journaling now goes online if I think the story warrants it but you can thank that to my friend Ruth (who probably in truth tired of my e-mail missives and wanted them posted online so she didn’t have to read them herself) and this young lady from University (out of my neurosis that the story retain my authorship).  I’ve gone from recounting events to putting in thoughts on it and perhaps (if it needs help) embellishing it.  Chickens have never actually proposed sanctions against Melissa but I hold to the fact that they don’t like her because of her opinion of their intellectual capacity and propensity for democratic self-realization as a species. 

 

This journal stays because it has the more complete record of what went on – and is the proof that indeed the witty comments and stories in her photo album are my words, not hers.  She’s intelligent and capable in school.  She’s not witty or remotely interesting and I’m not entirely sure she could tell a good story without the aid of simply mocking someone.  Mocking someone else is easy; the tough part is really mocking oneself and if I released the journal to you it’d be apparent throughout that I have a healthy disregard myself.  You have to be able to laugh at you.  The person in question once, at the zenith of my blogging popularity, made fun of the blog and I countered with the offer for her to tell a story to entertain everyone in the room.  She looked at her feet.  Keeping the notebook is childish on my part, to the last, but I own that and all my other faults.  Could she own hers?  She can't and that's where we part ways.  

 

Many journals became lost in moves, they appeared to be just notebooks from school and were thrown out over time; don’t judge – we pulled up stakes thirteen times before I went to college and you can’t take everything.  If I were my parents I’d have destroyed a written record of my childhood as well because the parts I can remember will make for enough damning writing to last me the rest of my career.  My sister claims that I’ll be clear of libel charges because no one I describe would actually own up to it being based on them.    I think she underestimates the greed of the shady people we’ve been thrown together with during our lifetimes but I wouldn’t want to prove the things I say about people in open court had they been said about me.  

 

I also like that this is the trauma that disproves in my mind that my university was a good place to be – as no one cared about this event.  Everyone else points to a mishap that happened my freshman year which really just exposed a flaw in human behavior that could have happened anywhere but was uniquely suited to thrive among Lutherans.  The real injustice is that words are the friends I’ve always had (and always will have) where everything else seems to melt away in the dew of the dawn with each new day.  I don’t think that losing the journals would help me lose my grasp on my past as much as my grasp on the pain in the past.  If I go back and reread them I can reread the pain in my handwriting or the nasty comments I had to commemorate from others.  That all needs to go and be consigned to the flame; the perpetrators of my history deserve more than a day off but also an absolution.  I won’t forget the big stuff but the little things should have been treated as such a long time ago.   

 

gifting repackaged

This Christmas I made your gift.  I realized that holiday gift giving is important to others and that I should be a team player and participate.  People like stuff.  They like getting stuff from other people.  They hang on to that stuff and remember those people and associate the items in their possession with the person who gave them.   I’ve just recently come to this conclusion or realization.  I made your gift because I wanted you to have something nice to commemorate the holiday and encapsulate what I wrote above this paragraph.  I didn’t want it to have any monetary value and I’m fine if you toss it in the rubbish when I’m not looking.

 For years I’ve been disgusted with Christmas because of the commercialization of it and despite a preference for the discipline and piety of Lent and Eastertide I couldn’t shake this feeling of dreading and disliking Christmas.  Beyond my religious misgivings about direction observing the holiday has taken I have other problems with gifts and gifting. 

 

My grandparents disowned me eight years ago.  A part of that discussion was in response to their demand that I pick between maintaining a loyalty to my sister (Chaos Bean) or to them; I couldn’t do both.  This was their construction of reality – there were other conditions involved but it boils down that being the over the top, unacceptable condition.  When they realized that I could not be moved from my loyalty to my sister they became angry and made a string of accusations and insults and one of them was, “after all the money we’ve spent on you and all the gifts we’ve given you.” And I realized, I had been and could be bought and sold.  

I’m not denying I’m materialistic.  I like things, nice things, expensive things, refined things, and things that are handmade.  However, the caused a rift in our family that very easily could have been solved at the nearest holiday.  At the point at which they hadn’t pointed out an obvious fact such as this they could have sent a gift.  I would have accepted the gift and written a thank-you note.  This would have thawed the ice on relationship and started the process of healing, instead they’ve set up the scenario where I cannot nor never will accept a present from them. 

There were other issues I needed to work through.  I have never denied I was materialistic.  I did need to accept and work with the idea that for years that materialistic nature allowed me to be used to hurt other people (mainly my grandparents used that to hurt Chaos Bean) and it put a rift in our relationship.  I needed to work passed.  I needed to learn the difference between paying a ‘tribute’ to someone to buy their friendship and being generous in response to the felicity of someone’s friendship and love.  

If my grandparents had bought me off for so many years, who else had?  Had I been someone’s friend or allowed something to happen or been in someone’s company because I was benefitting from it in material ways?  I’m ashamed to say that my grandparents weren’t the only ones who had done this. 

This has been stuck in my heart for a long time and I haven’t been able to enjoy a gift much less be gracious and accept one.  This year on my birthday one of my friends was furious I wouldn’t disclose my address (or the exact day of my birth) because I didn’t want a present from them.  I realized that I didn’t want a gift from them because of my hang-ups with gifts and was missing that giving someone a gift was important to the person giving the gift.

My godmother maintains the (professional) opinion that I am autistic, not understanding something as basic as this only underlines her argument.

I think it’s easier to buy your best friend a Cowboy’s t-shirt or a beer than to verbalize that you appreciate the fact they are in your life.  I shouldn’t have robbed them of that opportunity – certainly not without explanation.  In general I break towards birthdays over Christmas anyway (the birthday is, after all, about you) and then I only get you something if I see something I think you need, would like, and I want you to have it from me.  

I have a lot of trouble with gifts because I have to figure out and work around my feelings on this whole issue.  I don't like getting things and wondering if its a gift or a payment.  Also, who would buy me?  Of all the people on the market, who's doing that?  

This is why this Christmas I made your gift.  I wanted you to know that I appreciate the fact that you’re in my life and that you tolerate my shenanigans.  I’m not sure if or when I’ll be okay with getting gifts in return but I think this is an important first step in becoming a normal person again.  Not normal, never that, perhaps functional.  

 

my holidays season will kick ass

I'm always annoyed at the holidays and I've decided that this year I won't be.  I needed a plan, an action, that would make this wish a reality.  We had a potluck at work and I’m never sure who I should be annoyed at when we do these things.  Should I be annoyed at the person who brought a bag of store-brand potato chips or myself for putting time and effort into making something good but also nutritious?  I’ve decided that my first rule is that, “It’s your own fault,” because when you can be the party at fault you can also be the agent of change.  So our potluck at work set the tone for my whole holiday season: I’m going to make sure I’m merry and bright and if you’re along for the ride, hallelujah. 

First: It used to bother me that I’d bake a carrot cake or make (a well-received) coleslaw – and other people would make something while the office jerk would bring in a bag (sometimes two) of store brand chips.  When it was ‘game on’ to make your plate he’d be first in line and swagger back to his desk with a plate heaped with other people’s hard work leaving his chips alone.  No one eats his chips.  I usually don’t eat most of what is brought (it’s not good for you) and this year I decided that I am going to not bring anything to the potlucks.  I don’t eat the food (save what I brought or Robin’s deviled eggs) and it makes me angry.  I stopped going to church potlucks years ago and I will never, ever go to another potluck or participate in another one.  That’s my present to myself.  If we all want to share crappy food together lets all throw in six bucks and order in pizza. 

Second: I’ve made everyone a gift this year.  I can’t afford to buy gifts for everyone I’d like to share something with this holiday season.  The purpose of a gift isn’t, “you need a sweater,” but to say, “I wanted to somehow, someway make your holiday season better.”  So, I made everyone a gift in the spirit of, “it was the thought that counts.”  Just like the gifts my mother used to make people I think they’re nice and I like them.  When you get yours, look at it and know that I spent my only day off making it and my intention was pure: to brighten your day.  Feel free to then toss my gift in the rubbish bin because chances are I won’t like your gift either.  I hate receiving gifts.  There is so much wrapped up in the gift beyond something you picked up at the mall and I’ll have no part of it. 

Third: there are tons of family ‘traditions’ we have around here that revolve around food.  The past couple of years I’ve done all that cooking, baking, cleaning, and worst of all spending involved in the process.  Dad said, “thank you,” Mom pointed out everything I did wrong.  This year if it is important to you having a good holiday if you’re my mother or the man on the street it will be up to you to do it.  You have the recipe for cereal so I know you won’t starve on Christmas morning if you don’t have that special breakfast you’ve had for over twenty years.  Just like Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay, you’re on your own.  As much as I may miss that breakfast I know I’ll miss the dishes and shitty comments less.  This goes for your tree as well.  My contribution will be getting it down from the attic for you. 

Send me an e-mail so I can mail you your present. 

 

 

floating

I’m supposed to write my Great Grandmother today.  This is always a tall order because it’s difficult to write out what is going on in my life in a way that she’ll understand and won’t make me seem like an enormous disappointment.  Something happened today that I cannot write her about because you just don’t write your Great Grandmother or even your Grandmother about what happened today. 

You’ll have to read it because if I had to live through this, so do you.

We’re having our kitchen floor re-done because a pipe burst.  That’s the kind of thing you can tell your Great Grandmother.  She knows what pipes and kitchens are and she’s probably had plumbing issues or had a floor redone.  This whole experience makes me wish I was in her day because schlepping water and knowing how to replace a floor yourself, or just having a dirt one. 

Well, to do what they’re doing today they had to turn off the water.  This impacted how I ate yesterday so I’d be prepared to not have a bathroom today because the toilets won’t flush until they’re done.  Unfortunately: I’m the Boy Scout, I’m the planner and the one who lives by, “be prepared.”  Other people were not Boy Scouts and were not prepared for toilets that didn’t flush.  This is very sad because whatever that person ate yesterday is currently floating in my toilet, stinking up my house while we wait for the water to be turned back on. 

I did find EVERY bottle of water in the house and pour it into the toilet while these were at lunch.  It wasn’t enough.  It’s still there.  If I didn’t have a dog and I knew when they’d be back I could have gotten water at the store.  Honestly, they should have gotten water at the store and fixed the toilet.  This is truly awful. 

The upside?  The dog has never been walked this much.  

 

the happiest place on earth

I went off the deep end today in Target. 

One of the things I hate to hear as a progressive or as a liberal (which ever yarmulke I’m wearing which ever day) is that we don’t love America as much as the rest of you do.  Being able to look to the other democracies and republics on the planet and saying, “they have an interesting approach to summer break in Germany,” isn’t saying that I want to dig up George Washington’s bones and pee on them. 

We do things differently in America, not always better or worse, differently. 

I was in Target and two boys were having an incredibly epic lightsaber duel in the aisles.  I don’t think people appreciated what a big deal this lightsaber duel was or how stupid it is to get involved or try to break it up.  I just imagine someone’s mother in cinnamon buns saying, “If you get a lightsaber for Christmas you’re going to lose a hand!” ala Christmas Story. 

I’m not going to tell you why I claimed to be the parent of these two boys when this went down because I’m not sure I know but I’m glad I did.  They very accidentally molested someone with their lightsabers and this someone wasn’t from here and he unreasonably blew up at them.  Maybe it was the fact that Vicki and I have had a lightsaber duel when were both twenty-nine in IKEA maybe it is because I was that five-year-old (I swear to God, I still am).  Maybe it was my belief as a teacher that we expect boys in America to be people they're not – if Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were real boys today we’d put them on medications and label them, “retarded,” or “criminal,” and most likely both. 

This man angrily explained how in his country they raised children differently and that I was a terrible parent.  I apologized again and let him know that I felt his frustration and could see where his reaction came from.  There are only so many tines I can hear, “In my country,” in a single diatribe before I get annoyed but where the man stuck his hand into my cage was when he started a sentence with, “This is why America and the West are inferior to my country…” because I have a lot to say about that as a Lutheran Democrat, Jewish in ethnicity, driving a Volkswagen and using Apple products, because while “America and the West,” do a lot wrong if your country was so expletive wonderful I’d be shopping at a Target in his hometown instead of him being in my Target.  I quoted one of my elderly coworkers with, “If you don’t like it here there is a boat leaving every day.” 

 If it were terrible here people wouldn’t come here for our freedoms.  We’d be in his wonderful country with their modern conveniences and problems.  The United States has so much it needs to fix from the Shermon Minton Bridge to the tax code to the idea that some of us pay taxes at all to our attitudes toward each other but even with that we’re still far superior to many other places you could live. 

Also, if we get nothing else right in America we get deodorant right.  One thing that crosses all lines in America is a love and enthusiastic use of soap and deodorant.    We’re a very pretty smelling people.  I’ve been to your country; you don’t do like we do.  I’m fine with you never, ever learning English (we don’t have an official language and all the people who want one are terrible at English anyway) if you learn not to smell bad.  I will never talk to you but I will have to smell you. 

I’m entirely confident that I will be a bad parent.  I’m not going to beat my kids and feed them garbage but if my kids had an epic lightsaber duel in Target and didn’t manage to break anything I’d not be unhappy with that.  If I have kids – and that’s not in humanity’s best interest – I hope they’re not the banal twerps you usually see at Target and I hope they love America for all the things that make it wonderful and horrible but unique and most of all livable.