My Father Designs Christmas cards...

I'll spare you all the poem inside, but I will wish you a happy holiday season!

Hope you're all merry and bright and such.

Less angst, more creepy

creepy Santa photos!

Enjoy. Or something.

Worst bar story ever

My oldest friend's father has been diagnosed with cancer. We were, to be sure, the happiest customers at the bar.

For years, we joked we shared a brain. Tonight we were strange opposites. His girlfriend is starting to want children. After nursing his mother through illness and with his father now ill, he fears the burden of responsibility to children: that one day, they'll be in his position. Trying to cheer him up, I told him first how that level of maturity made me sure he'd be good as a father. And we talked about how I'd like kids but can't seem to get past the fears of the things that might actually get me there.

Seriously, didn't trips for Christmas once involve whole moments sans angst?

In the manner of my people...

...I shall drink a little too much, get a little too emotional, and go to bed too early.

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Home: four people, five TVs, four dogs.

For whatever reason - call it irony or what you will - my whole day has been inundated with talk about dogs. Three members of my family have asked if I'm planning to get another dog. One person asked me if I read a story about dog fighting. Tonight, my mother found a stray that she wanted to talk about the right thing to do to help.

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From the book I brought home to read:

She said, "What are you going to do out at sea?" and I said, "Don't worry about the future."

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My parents have been renovating. Tonght I was forced to ask, "There are two buttons on the new toilet. What do they do?"

I feel like my parents' home has become a weird hybrid of "My Name Is Earl" and "Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer."

Go on. Try to reconcile that. Netflix and Advil will help.

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And now, to bed.

The Holidays

I'm due to head home for Christmas today, which is not the easiest decision. I'm on edge, and having conversations is an effort.

I debated staying here. Depressing, I know, but less likely to end in argument, as my family inevitably irritates me by the end of a long trip, and I'm usually in a good mood at the start. Who knows where I'll be by the end of this one? But my family has been fraught with illness of late, and it seemed like there was too much potential for regret if I didn't go.

So for now, I'm packing the bag for a late night flight, and hoping I don't get seated next to anyone too chatty.

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In an effort to feel a bit more Christmasy, I spent much of last night trying to duplicate an old holiday tape - actually tapes - that I had from my radio days of holiday music by all sorts of old blues and Motown artists (okay, there were some more modern ones in there - Springsteen's "Merry Christmas, Baby" is well worth hearing).

It's been a challenge, mostly because I haven't seen the tapes in about 12 years and can only remember a few of the songs I was thinking of. I am, at the moment, trying to decide which song is more of a holiday imperative: Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" or Clarence Carter's "Back Door Santa."

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Thanks to all for the warm thoughts in the midst of this calamity. It's helped. I hope you're all enjoying the holiday, whatever your persuasion. Hope that bit of music is the start of a fair thank you.

Assorted Lines from the Journal

The heater in my apartment makes strange creaking noises in the walls. I was to go to a party, but I couldn't. I felt sick. Groups make me tired, even on good days: all that networking and shaking hands and small talk. There was work to do and nothing to come home to, so why leave?

I don't go down the back stairs. I cannot look at the park.

I don't look under the coat I wore, collapsed over all those things. I thought I'd give it away for its proximity, but now I can't stand to lift it.

I try not to sneeze. For whatever reason, you loved that. Each sneeze, a phantom limb.

There's no snow out. Finally, I had something good to say about it: that it gave you a little pleasure to eat once, to run through. Perhaps I am cold enough without it now.

My friends are blooming with babies. Thinking of it in the shower, I coughed out to the steam and the empty room: it's springtime somewhere.

At night, I wake up - less now, but still too often - and reach to your empty spot. Sighing, I repeat to myself that there is work to be done, even if there is nothing to come home to.

Make Of It What You Will...

Perhaps it's a generational difference or perhaps it's the joy of having tenure. It could even have something to do with where one went to school (it was noted to me that all the faculty in my grad program who went to a particular graduate school shared a certain year-round tendency towards red noses and rosy cheeks).

I don't know.

But today, a colleague saw me in the hallway and noted I appeared to be having a rough day. I nodded, not wanting to go into any particular detail, and made some vague excuse about finals week.

They nodded sagely, and ushered me into their office where they pulled from the bottom drawer of their desk a bottle of their finest libation and poured me a cup. It was all terribly "Don Draper," and I'd lie if I said I wasn't grateful for it, particularly as it turned out to be my old libation of choice as well. And it did hearken back to grad school days of alcoholic blended drinks in the office.

I'll assume it means they've accepted me. But still, an odd moment.