Home for the Holidays

I'm a bit of a holiday nomad. Since I had the habit of moving quite a bit in my 20's, I got used to spending Christmas with, well, whoever was around - instead of having an annual trek towards "home".

"Home" wasn't a particular house or even hometown. My grandparents were all in Florida for the winter, so we didn't have a multi-generational showing each year. This is not a fact I usually lament. I have great holidays.

But this year, my mother was in town and we went to spend it with her cousins. Her cousins and their spouses and their kids and their kids' kids. Their Christmas is so much different than mine and yet, exactly what'd I'd like my own Christmas to be. Loud and busy and full of tradition.

Tradition is something I treasure. In fact, I keep a small box of traditions of friends and family I've heard of over the years. Simple, wonderful ways to celebrate the true gift of the season - togetherness.

Families, both born of blood and of the heart.
Friends, old and new.
Strangers, who may have come from afar, but who are welcomed to celebrate and join our collective family.
Home, where we go to be ourselves and to cherish our infinite blessings.

My Christmas wish for you, is that you have or make for yourself such a home. Fill it with traditions that celebrate those near you, as well as those lost. And pass them on, for they are the memories we'll cherish forever.

16 Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

1. I own, on dvd, all seasons of: The West Wing (Cool), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Moderately Embarrassing) and Dawson's Creek (I am hiding under my bed in shame)

2. I am an ordained minister and have performed 5 wedding ceremonies. I've realized it includes my favorite things: a. Talking to people and hearing about how they've met and their experiences up until that point, b. Taking those anecdotes and writing a new story, c. Speaking in front of people. If you know another job that combines those three things - send me your ideas. I think it's the perfect job for me.

3. Brad Pitt bumped me on a New York City street while he was jogging. He apologized, smiled and kept running. I don't get star-struck, but that smile - made me go weak in my knees.

4. I have become an "accidental" collector of antique typewriters. I pulled an old Underwood out of the garbage in NYC and since then have been given several by friends. If you're thinking of collecting them, DON'T. They are heavy as a mother scratcher. However, I do like looking at them on my shelf and one day imagine them in this cool study.

5. My worst "after school" job was at Popeye's Fried Chicken and Biscuits (I shouldn't have to explain why) and my best one was working at a health club. Handing out towels to a bunch of sweaty guys - yeah, way worse ways to spend your Sat/Sun mornings.

6. I have attended 5 different colleges. Can you say unfocused?

7. I worked as a company manager for a small theater in Connecticut for 3 years. While there, I spent an evening as companion to Hal Holbrook (his daughter was in one of our shows). He was a delightful man.

8. In Junior High, I wrote a soap opera called "Soapy" featuring all my friends. It was passed around "note-style" from locker to locker amongst my girlfriends. I just re-read it recently. It's embarrassing - mainly at how bad the writing is.

9. The worst punishment I ever received growing up was being grounded from my bicycle for two weeks. Yeah, I didn't get into a lot of trouble.

10. My sister and I once looked at all our Christmas presents before the big day. My mother found out, threw the presents in the middle of the living room floor and yelled "Here's Christmas!" For future reference, don't trust my sister when she says she'll take all the blame if you get caught.

11. I'm planning to participate in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Jackson, Mississippi one day. My fellow Sweet Potato Queens are all invited to join me.

12. I'm lucky to have great girlfriends, more than one best friend - and that my sister fits into those categories as my oldest and dearest.

13. One of my recurring dreams is of walking down the lane from my grandparents' house at the lake and picking asparagus with my grandpa in the nearby field.

14. I am currently reading 5 books. I rarely pick up one book, read it and then pick up another (except with the Potter books)

15. My favorite breakfast place: Mo's Midtown Diner/Hartford, CT; favorite lunch place: Food Dance Cafe/Kalamazoo, MI; favorite dinner place: Brother's BBQ/New York, NY

16. I drove 4 hours with my friend to a Patty Griffin concert, sat in the front row and then drove 4 hours back... on a Thursday night.

AWOL

I know it seems as if I've been a delinquent blogger, but I promise - I have a good excuse. My mother is visiting me for 35 days.

That's right, my friends, 35 days. That's 5 days shy of Noah's stint on the ark. So let's just go ahead and say I'm undergoing a visit of biblical proportions.

Don't worry - I'm not hiding under my bed just yet. In fact, it's going better than initially anticipated. And please don't think I'm not finding plenty to write about. I expect that "35 Days With My Mother" will not only be a best seller, but a major motion picture featuring Sarah Silverman as me and Faye Dunaway as my mother, okay, Shirley Maclaine.

Anyway, forgive me if I seem a bit absent over the next few weeks - I'm bailing water in my own personal ark.

A Day of Writing

It's been a very long time since I set aside an entire day for writing. Probably since the days when I used to get paid for it.

So, I found myself with a weekend with no plans. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I am having a hard time remembering the last time I had a totally free weekend. It works out well, as I'm still recovering from The Gick and could stand to give my poor liver a rest.

So today I decided it was time to finish some writing. Anything, just something. My fellow-writers may be familiar with this disease. Cantfinishanythingosis. It can be a fatal diagnosis - well, fatal to your chances of getting anything published, anyway. Those pesky editors are always looking for FINISHED work and not one of your half-baked ideas. Bastards.

Last weekend, I was hanging with two of my BFF's, KH and CT. We were discussing a fabulous "tell all" book idea for KH to get cracking on, when CT said "I can't wait to see which of WriterEm's books gets published first."

A couple things struck me about this comment:

1. I love CT's optimism. I've called her a Pollyanna on occasion, but she is just the sort of Pollyanna you want cheering you on. She absolutely, without a doubt believes I will publish one day. God bless her.
   
2. I have not finished a single thing (minus a flimsy short story) since I was in college. New York college. That's a freaking long time ago, if you don't know my long history with higher education.
3. It's time to start cracking.

So, I decided to turn today into a Writing Day.

First, I slept in a little. Because I think Writing Days should begin well-rested.

Then I ate some oatmeal and drank a pot of coffee. Oatmeal has lots of good fiber and is filling, so I wouldn't be distracted by frequent trips to the kitchen to peep in the refrigerator or cupboards, only to head back to the sofa with nothing in hand. The coffee, well, self-explanatory.

I worked on my current piece for about 35 minutes before I decided to check my e-mail.

There were a couple of funny e-mails from KH and our tattoo brother, MA. Which got me thinking about the last time the three of us were together back in Mobile, AL for Mardi Gras in '99. I pulled out some music I'd been introduced to during that trip - thinking it would make for excellent writing music. Then I checked 1/3 of the tattoo the three of us had gotten at Mardi Gras. I spent some time thinking if it was worth getting it redone, as the only person more drunk than I was when I got it was my tattoo artist, Lynn. I silently cursed Lynn for a few moments and reminded myself it was Writing Day.

I started rearranging my notes and outlining a chapter entitled "Dr. Jekyll, I Presume" (good title, right?) Then I got an e-mail from my dad. He's in the market for an iPod, which is cool enough that my dad wants an iPod. But even cooler that he wants one for his motorcycle. Seriously, my dad's pretty effin' cool. So, he was looking for what little insight I could offer about iPods. I gave him a call and told him the pros and cons of the Nano, iTouch and iPhone. We determined that 42 days worth of music was probably more than enough to meet his needs. I'd interrupted him putting together some shelves and I let him know I'd taken a much-needed break from my nearly 75 minutes of writing. At which point we both determined lunch might be just what we both needed. 35 minutes later, we were sitting at a local pub - him with a beer, me with more coffee and sandwiches.

An hour later, I headed back to my abode to commence with Writing Day. Except my stupid hair has this sponge-like ability to absorb any and all odors. My friends have remarked that at the bar, my hair still smells like my shampoo and aren't I lucky? This is true, right up until the moment I get home and then it smells like smoke and stale beer. Such was the case when I returned home from my pub lunch.

I quickly washed my hair and re-nestled with my laptop for more fabulous writing.

And then the phone rang. As it was KH calling from San Diego, I picked up and spent the next hour talking about a sofa that would not fit up her stairwell as well as less- and more-important topics.

Finally, I am back on the sofa getting ready to really hunker down for Writing Day, except I just don't know what to write. Except that I've pretty much failed at Writing Day and wouldn't it be great to share that failure with my family and friends who read my Blog?

Oh Writing Day, one day the poets will write of you and I and our tragic end. How I failed you and all we might have been. Hell, there's always tomorrow, right?

My Life in a Petri Dish

If you are an avid reader of my blog - you know that I've been sick recently.

(If you're not an avid reader, don't go bursting my bubble - just play along)

Anyway, a week-long battle with The Gick pretty much kicked my immune-deficient ass. But a nice dose of antibiotics helped the process along and exactly two days ago - I started feeling normal again.

That is, until today.

Today the scratchy throat started up and has been joined by its good friend, the runny nose. I am back in sickness central.

"Why do I care?" is surely something you're thinking to yourself. And it's quite possible you don't care or at least are thinking - "Jeez, take some echinacea and get over it already."

And I will, but first let me dish out some well-deserved blame. It will surely astonish you that this illness is not my fault. Not one little bit. Primarily because I've been good. I haven't been sipping out of people's martini glasses, I haven't been licking doorknobs and I even abstained from swapping spit with a fairly attractive bloke whilst hanging out with some girlfriends this weekend. I did what good girls do when they are trying to keep their germy germs to themselves.

The real culprit is this - I currently sit in a petri dish.

The Cube Farm has several blocks of offices, most with many cubicles, 12-foot ceilings and adequate ventilation. I do not live in one of those. My office, the Cube Annex, is a teeny tiny space that they have managed to cram in 10 cubicles. I can touch the ceiling with my hand extended whilst on my tippy-toes and our primary source of ventilation is a oscillating fan that has approximately a decade's worth of dust encrusted on its blades.

So, what happens is this - someone in our office gets sick. Then their icky germs spread to another person and that person uses someone else's keyboard. Then that person rolls their chair over to someone else's desk and drops off a book. Then that person chucks the book at another person (okay, that was me) and before you know it we're all sharing germs. And two days after I'm perfectly healthy, I'm back in the Annex and being coughed on by a sweet, yet evil co-worker.

I know this is the way of the world and if I took my One-a-Day vitamin with some frequency and drank my orange juice - maybe I wouldn't be in this predicament.

I guess I just thought if I were going to be aggressively attacked by viruses on a regular basis - I'd be part of some scientific experiment and getting paid some cash on the side.

As it stands, I'm just a poor bastard with a scratchy throat and runny nose. Again.

Objects in the Mirror May Appear Funnier Than They Are

I have a little secret. Not a big secret - just a little one. One I didn't really intend to share with anyone, well, ever.

Not because it will tarnish my supremely resplendent persona. I'm more of a smudged window, to tell the truth. And certainly not because I have my sites set on one day holding political office and fear some squinty reporter will dig up this revealing blog post.

Mainly, because it will make me look a little silly. And then I thought - if these suckers haven't figured that out by now - well then, god bless their clueless little hearts.

So here's the deal.

I set my alarm for 6:40 a.m. every day. I am due at work at 7:30 a.m. This would be a reasonable wake up time in order for me to shower, slap on some eyeliner and haul my heiney out the door. Maybe even manage to grab a quick cup of crappy coffee in the cafeteria before I begin my daily ritual of Office Weenie-ing.

But, I also love to wake up leisurely. That is, I do not pop out of bed, slap my hands together and burst into song. That is not, shall we say, how I roll.

So, I set my clock 35 minutes fast. This allows me 5 opportunities to bitch-slap my alarm and take my time getting up. Plus, it forces me to do simple math in a half-awake state as I attempt to ascertain the actual time and I think that just makes me a better person.

This, however, is not my secret.

The first thing I do once I turn off my alarm and actually let my feet hit the floor is limp like an old lady to the bathroom. You'd think I'd just undergone hip surgery. It's pathetic.

This, however, is not my secret.

I turn on the light and squint like a police officer just pointed a flashlight in my eyes at a checkpoint. Once my eyes adjust I do something quite ridiculous.

I look in the mirror and smile. Not just a little half-grin, a full-on Cheshire Cat shit-eating grin grin. In fact, I pull my face real close to the mirror (not to get a better look at my Medusa-like hairdo, but because without my contacts I can't hardly see my own self) and I grin even wider. I open my eyes real wide-like and occasionally even stick out my tongue. I stand there and smile until I laugh at myself.

It's not always a full-throated laugh. I'm definitely not rolling around on the ground, because while I think I'm moderately amusing on occasion - the moment is marked with a certain amount of tragedy (did I mention the Medusa-like hair?)

But I smile, let out a quick chuckle and go about the business of making myself look like I didn't just walk out of a scene from "Zombie Hos II".

This is my secret.

The question now is - why the hell would I share that with you? I only have one inkling of an idea and it is this - I think it is important to laugh at yourself. I think it's important to make sure you smile and giggle at least once a day. I think the best way to improve the way you look - isn't by running a comb through your unruly locks - it's by lightening your heart and spirit.

I'm a dumb ass goofball and there are way worse things to be. But let me toss out a double-dog dare. Tomorrow when you wake up and wipe the boogers from your eyes - smile some goofball smile at yourself in the mirror.

I dare you not to laugh.