mopefest. blah. part of it is the holidays, i know. in fairfax at my dad’s* and feeling displaced. missing a real feeling of family and in the bigger picture, of belonging. i feel very desperate for something or someone to cling on to, whether it’s right or not. i hate this feeling.
* i had originally typed “home.”
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When I first got a Mac, I stumbled across a program that strings up Christmas lights all around the outside of your desktop. And for the last 4 or 5 years, I’ve turned on the program at Christmas-time to help with the spirit of the season.
This year is no different. So if you too want to rock some Christmas lights: MacLamps is it. I haven’t tried it in Snow Leopard, but hopefully it has no issues. (Actually, I’m running v1.2, not even the newest 2.0. Shows what I know.)
I didn’t grow up in a house with tons of lights up, but there is certainly something comforting to me about them; maybe it’s the short days that the lights help combat in my head.
As a bonus:
I just found another program called “Sno” that drops snowflakes on your desktop (in case you want something less tacky.) The link to download it seems dead/down, so I’m mirroring the file here, as I found a copy from a messageboard circa 2002. So here that is: linky for Sno.
And now my desktop makes me look like the crazy cat woman that you work with. I’m not quite as into Christmas as perhaps the combination of these two programs might imply. Ah well.
Tis the season.
Reed fell asleep in my arms tonight. It’s the best gift I could have ever asked for.
It’s been a while since he’s fallen asleep as I’ve held him. I know the gaps between these special times will grow and grow until some point they are gone forever. The thought of that is crushing. I guess in some ways that burden of knowledge for parents is the flip side to the blissful innocence we try to guard for our children. Last night, as I turned a toy box inside out and rolled it up in the dark outside by the trash bin (no recycling for this stuff, lest the jolly fat guy gets found out), I felt at once both complicit and dutiful, as though I were perpetuating a lie but at the same time alright about it. We were careful last night to cover our tracks, to deliver on that promise that Santa holds for the young. In a year when I’ve had to explain death to our son, I wasn’t about to have Santa flicker out of his life, too.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve wondered why the season felt ‘off’ for me, as if I or it (or both) was out of place. And I’d heard others say similar things. I don’t think I realized what was wrong until just a moment ago. It’s about hope. News media errantly so often tries to quantify the Christmas season in terms of retail sales, when what it is really trying to gauge is how much hope we have. And while perhaps we manifest that hope in what we’re willing to spend at the store (i.e. here’s how hopeful we are about our economic situation, our relationships and therefore how we give), it can and should come in other outlets.
But with death and the constant background din of the bad economy, layoffs, foreclosures, it’s been hard to shake the feeling of malaise. Indeed, of hopelessness.
After days and days of bleak, grey skies, of my beautiful daughter asking in a worried voice “Where sun go?”, of, frankly, constantly looking down because there just wasn’t anything seemingly to look up for, the clouds parted today–literally and figuratively–and I saw the brightness of the sun, and (perhaps a more religious man than I would say) maybe even the Son.
Isn’t that something we cling to in these cycles we experience? As the earth tilts from the sun and the whole world seems to wither and die, don’t we frail humans need some light to give us hope?
I suppose in many ways, today was the kind of day we should try to have more often. We simply stayed in our jammies all day, played with toys and ate cookies. And it was great. I’d like to wrap today up and stick it in a snow globe, so whenever I needed to, I could simply take it off a shelf and have it all over again.
oh, christmas. how it feels like anything but. sandwiched in between my hard-of-hearing grandfather, who is spending the first christmas in seventy-four years without my grandmother, and my father, whose quirks and behavior have caused both my sister and i to recently hypothesize about him possibly being aspergerian.
it’s weird and sort of laid back on this holiday trip. i’ve been reading a lot and playing a lot on my laptop, having been blessed with the christmas miracle of poachable wi-fi from a generous -or more likely unknowing- frankenmuth neighbor. i finished the last twilight book with some sadness but am now pleasantly ensconced in the hour i first believed. i love the feeling of being comfortably settled in the middle of a good book – it’s dependable and there whenever i want it.
when it’s not really quiet around here it’s ridiculously painful. my grandpa, in his deafened state, has also grown picky of late – in food, of action… he reamed me the first night we were here for my lack of capitalization of his name, said that i could do what i wanted to with my own but that he wanted a big E and a big H. he spends hours a day playing sudoku, laying on his bed, and i swear sometimes i can hear his mind whirring busily.
i have such a difficult time listening to my father talk to him. he raises his voice and when my grandpa still can’t hear him, he shouts at him – as if the irritation and agitation are something he can’t hear, either. no amount of persuasion causes him to pause before one of his screamed tirades. he just can’t see what is wrong.
i miss todd. this is our third christmas together, yet not actually together as 600 miles separates us again. i find myself still reluctant to do christmas with his family, although we all gather together for easter and thanksgiving. i think it’s still ties to my mother. even if christmas current is nothing like the christmases with her, it is still tied to her memory. as if doing something with todd’s family would cut one last tie. things with him are still off, and i’m not sure i know what to do anymore.
my youth pastor and i found each other on facebook. i always liked him a lot and thought he was pretty cool. i remember thinking how cool it was that a pastor had once been a bartender and still enjoyed margaritas. he sent me a message that asked, “So…where did I go wrong that you list your religion as: “confused”???” i wish i had an answer.
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I have arrived back. Back to the west coast, back to home, back to work. Back to my scheduled life.
The holidays were, for the most part, grand. This year I asked for adult gifts mostly and I got adult gifts exclusively. New sheets, new towels, new dinnerware, new backpack. Also, a new haircut, one I only kind of asked for — when I told the woman that I wanted a trim “just above my eyebrows,” it turned out that she didn’t know what or where eyebrows are. My hair is very short now.
There was a span of days where I spent over 4 hours a day in an airplane/car — flying home on the 23rd, stuck in a car to Bristol, Va for 5 hours on the 24th, back to Richmond (4.5 hours this time — I was driving) on the 25th, a hellish 6.5 hours in the car to get up to Alexandria and back on the 26th.
And then there was the stress of navigating our way home on the 30th. Our itinerary was switched before we left in Richmond and we found ourselves almost stranded in Dallas. Of course, Eric and Lisa were going to take us in and we were going to spend NYE with them. But then we somehow got boarded on our plane. And, of course, Eric called, telling us not to bother boarding and just come spend NYE with them literally less than 4 minutes after we got onto the plane. It was not to be.
But I am home now, almost rested and feeling grand. It’s a strange feeling and one I am not used to. I feel ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, this is not what I will be doing. But what I will be doing is continuing to produce media and put things out. My book of drawings should be out on the 14th. I’m getting back into the writing, the animation and video.
My goal for ’07 was to get my environment, my life, my details organized — everything from money to doctors to boxes in my closet. It wasn’t glamorous or fun really, but I got about 85% of it done. The rest will come with time. I’m unsure what this year’s goal is. I hope it will include a non-stop stream of creative projects and works.
Regardless, I can’t explain the large spring in my step. But I am going to make the most of it and make every day count. There are only 363.5 left. As John has become fond of saying:
christmas was grand and lovely. now, two days after, my family is starting to make me insane. i have not had a single moment until now by myself and i am going out of my freaking mind.
more later, once i am not ready to gnaw my own limbs off.
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