Category Archives: personal

Solving the World’s Problems

January 27, 2012 By in leisure, personal Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

I’m in Baltimore right now, having spent 9 hours in transit from San Jose (the closest airport to my mountain lair). Here’s what I love best about travel: everyone approaches it a little differently. Some folks are infrequent travelers who dress up and act like the airport itself is an adventure. Some folks are more frequent travelers and so see the journey as secondary to the destination. For me, travel is stressful because it forces me into society where I may, at any moment, have to interact with strangers.

What would be the ultimate mode of transport? Of course, a private jet would be ultimate, but nowadays the sorts of people who are privileged enough to have such accommodations are vilified. To be sure, a private jet is hardly the most ecologically sound mode of travel. The amount of resources used to carry a single person to and from a destination are absolutely out of all proportion.

I might suggest, then, a mode of personal travel for the extravagantly rich that would be non-polluting, sufficiently opulent, and have the added benefit of solving the increasing problems of both unemployment and obesity. The Greeks had a ship called the trireme, which employed three rowers per oar to speed the ship through the waters. Let us imagine, then, a craft that combines the form of a trireme – a long bodied craft with men supplying motive power – with the mechanical advances of the steam engine – gears that convert the turbine-turning power of steam into the locomotive power supplied to the wheels.

I believe that the mechanics of locomotion would be easily adapted to the mechanics of rowing. A set of three cars – sleeping, baggage and dining – could certainly be pulled by 60 rowers (10 “oars” on each side of what would otherwise be the engine car). Using the existing rail system, if each rower were paid a fair wage, would likely be no more extravagant than the current cost of maintaining a private jet and crew. There would be no fuel costs, no need to maintain the expensive motor workings of an engine, no expensive insurance, since rail travel is less fraught with peril than air travel. To be sure, travel would not be quite as expedient between places, but is that so terrible? Modern life moves at a pace that I personally find unhealthy. People need time to relax, to ruminate, to reflect. Perhaps if travel were a bit less immediate and convenient, people would make more of an occasion of it. Perhaps they might dress up, perhaps they might be more conscious of their impression on their fellow travelers, and perhaps travel might be what it once was. And then, perhaps, they might leave me alone.

Fault Lines

January 23, 2012 By in personal, practical advice Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

When you encounter a problem, how important is it to you to establish fault?

For instance, if you are walking down the street and you see a piece of trash on the sidewalk, do you ask of anyone nearby whether it’s theirs? How about if you’re at home and someone leaves a piece of trash on the floor? Do you act differently in one place versus another? Why?

If you are at work and a problem arises, do you first establish who’s to blame, or do you first fix the problem?

There are good reasons for establishing who’s at fault when things go wrong.

  1. If the same person makes the same mistake repeatedly, they should either be educated (if they don’t realize they’re doing the wrong thing) or fired (if they do, but they don’t care).
  2. If many people are making the same mistake, your policies should either be more widely known or changed.
  3. If the mistake is something that only a single person can undo, such as an incorrectly sent email.

There is one very good reason to avoid establishing fault. It’s no use if the only reason you’re establishing fault is to cover your own ass. Sadly, though, this seems to me to be the number one reason that anyone bothers to get to the bottom of any problem.

All of this is really just me thinking hard about a current situation where something has gone wrong, and I’m searching for the person responsible. I’m trying to drill down and question my own motives because I don’t want this to turn into something negative, when I know that it doesn’t have to be. If handled properly, this could be a great learning experience for everyone involved.

Let’s see if I’m that good.

Dwelling in the Past and the Future

January 21, 2012 By in of interest, personal Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My mother is moving out to San Francisco in mid-February. She’s lived in her townhouse in downtown Phoenix for the last 18 years or so, and has, in the course of that residence, compiled an amazing array of shit. My mother, like everyone else in my family, has a hard time throwing anything away. On a scale of Dalai Lama to Hoarder, we’re all firmly in Pack Rat territory. In all the crap she’s sifting through, though, she came across a year’s worth OMNI magazine.

Remember OMNI? I liked the articles, but what I devoured was the fiction. OMNI gave me my first tastes of Orson Scott Card, Ben Bova, Harlan Ellison, Spider Robinson, George R. R. Martin and Stephen King. It showed me all kinds of things that people were thinking about, trying, doing. People who weren’t about to wait around for the future to come to them. People who were making the future happen.

Now that I’m working on re-inventing literature – putting together not just the words for a new kind of novel, but formulating the means by which people will interact with it – I feel like I’m taking my place among those people I’ve always admired. I feel like I’m helping shape the future. Maybe one day, I’ll be cool enough that someone will write about me in an amazing magazine, and that article will get some other kid thinking, and that kid will go on to create something else amazing…

I can’t wait to hold them in my hands again.

Taking the Stigma Out of It

January 20, 2012 By in personal, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I was out at a public gathering with the Pirate, and I saw a person wearing a zip-front sweatshirt with writing on it. The sweatshirt was unzipped and open so that part of the writing was obscured, and I realized that I was openly staring at this person’s chest in an effort to make sense of the writing. Upon noticing my staring, the person zipped the sweatshirt, my curiosity was satisfied and the episode ended.

Except that it didn’t. I wanted to tell the Pirate about it as an illustration of what a social dork I can be, but although I knew the person’s name, I could honestly not tell what gender the person was. The name was no help, as it was one of those slightly unusual names like “Dallas” or “Kennedy” that could go either way. The person’s physiology was no help at all, nor was anything about the person’s manner of speech, expressed interests or abilities, etc. The person’s gender had nothing whatsoever to do with the story, except that I didn’t want to have to say “I was staring at Dallas’ sweatshirt and Dallas realized it and zipped Dallas’ sweatshirt and I was all embarrassed because I realized that Dallas must have seen me staring at Dallas and thought I was some kind of idiot…” because if I told it that way, I would sound like an idiot.

I realize that in today’s society, gender has become a difficult issue. Openly transgendered people have challenged our notions about where in the body gender lies. Gender is no longer a simple shorthand for anything, and most especially not sexual identity, profession, sexual preference, mode of dress, or anything else that when I was a kid could be labeled “boy” or “girl.” But I’ve also realized that gender is only really important to me in two situations, both of which involve intercourse: when I want to sleep with someone (and as a person in a long-term monogamous relationship, that question was resolved a long time ago) and when I want to talk about them.

I talk about people all the time, and it’s difficult when everyone has a different idea about who they are and how they want to be thought about.  Some folks consciously or unconsciously stake their claim – they dress, act, talk in a way that reinforces the gender role they are playing. Some folks try to stake their claim, but meet with less success. Living in Santa Cruz, I also see no end of people who dress in ways that say that they’re just messing with society at large. But all of these people have an idea of themselves and their gender identity that may not be obvious to the casual observer.

So, how do I talk about Dallas and Dallas’ sweatshirt? Let me make this much clear: I like Dallas. Dallas seems like a smart, interesting person with cool hobbies and a lot of things in common with me. Dallas probably knows a lot of good jokes and fun places to hang out and interesting, artistic people. None of those things have anything to do with Dallas’ gender, and chances are that it would take me months, if not years, to get to know Dallas well enough to broach the subject of gender identity. But in the meantime, how do I talk about Dallas?

Which brings me to the subject of “it.” People have tried to solve the issue of gender pronouns in various ways. I understand trying to be inclusve: “Everyone should have brought his or her ticket.” But when you’re only talking about one person, that makes you sound weird. When talking about a single, definite person of indeterminate gender, you can use the kind of tortured constructions that avoid pronouns: “We gave each person a ticket and each person should have it,” but they are just that. Torture for both the speaker and the listener. The worst are the made up pronouns – ze, mir, hum. Those are just silly. And even if they weren’t silly, they’re hard to remember and most people won’t understand what you’re saying anyway. You can use the plural, “Everyone should have brought their ticket,” but it’s grammatically incorrect, and sounds strange when you’re talking about a single person and their actions or possessions.

But what about “it”? People object to using “it” to refer to human beings because we use “it” to refer to things that are not human beings and humans are egotistical and like to be assured of their special, privileged place in the world as the only ones with a language that enshrines their self-awareness. Referring to other human beings whose gender is unclear as “it” seems insensitive and dismissive. Using “it” to refer to someone whose gender is completely beside the point (as in the story of Dallas’ sweatshirt) seems lazy. But how can you be respectful, inclusive, not lazy, etc., when talking about someone that you don’t know? For times like that, I’d like to de-criminalize, as it were, the use of “it” to refer to people whose gender is unknown, unclear or irrelevant. If you want, you can use it to talk about me.

I know Dallas is.

“You should have seen it! Staring at my chest with its big, stupid mouth gawping open! Some people!”

Looking for the Ladies’ Room

January 18, 2012 By in of interest, personal Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

I was thinking the other day about the fact that when I was younger, it seemed like all the cool stuff in the world was reserved for boys. Participating in Olympic sports (because you had to be naked), acting, fighting in wars, being a doctor, shaving, attending college. Needless to say, my information was a little outdated, but it is true that at one time all of these things were solely the right of men.

More recently, I’ve been thinking about stuff like Varzesh-e Pahlavani, an Iranian martial art that I think is one of the coolest, most difficult-looking things I’ve ever seen. Or the fact that Highland Dance originated as a way for the Scottish military to keep fit. Most religious orders segregate the sexes. And everyone knows about Dervishes, about Gregorian chant, and Buddhist sand mandalas. And it’s in the back of everyone’s mind that these things are done by men.

I think I’m going to be doing some research into the more hidden life of women. Where, outside of child bearing, do women have primacy? What do women gather to do that is strictly theirs? What do women do to exercise, worship, create art in a way that men don’t? I’m looking for things that are organic to women’s own experience. Not “I’m a woman, and therefore I am going to consciously create something that rejects the male,” because that is inward looking, celebrating the self. I’m looking for art that says “I am using the strengths that are given to me to create something of value that is mine and cannot be created by any other.”

I’m not saying for a second that this stuff doesn’t exist. I’m only saying that this is a sad lack in my own education, and something that I feel lucky to have the rest of my life to investigate. And I’ll let you know what I find.

What I Do When I’m Not Writing

January 14, 2012 By in leisure, personal Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Lately I’ve been looking at my To Do list and feeling pretty amazing. It’s only midway through the month and I’ve already finished all the work that’s due by the 30th, leaving me time to work on a bunch of outside projects as well. But you know what they say about all work and no play. Besides that it makes you disciplined, rich and insufferable. Sometimes, a monkey just needs to blow off some steam.

Back in early November, my mother came out for a 3-week visit. As usual, while she was on the plane from Phoenix, she browsed the SkyMall catalog and was so riveted by what she found that she was unable to put it down, and she brought it home with her.

Normally, I LOVE SkyMall. It’s the easiest thing to mock I’ve ever seen. How can you resist snickering not just at the Isometric Meal Replacements, but at the sort of person who would buy such a thing. And is it the same sort of person who would buy the Fashionable Magnetic Bracelets? How could you resist when they offer you “potential relief from aches and pains”? And how about Cat Scat? The description promises that it “smells really bad to cats…but it’s only mildly noticeable to humans.” And what do you think that “mildly noticeable” smell might be? Could it be…cat scat?

What caught my eye, though, was the StreetStrider. I danced around just looking at the full-page ad devoted to the several available models, each one of which looked like the coolest thing I had ever seen. A couple of years ago, the Pirate and I had gone to the Maker Faire and had seen a prototype of something like this, and I had dreamed about it for months afterward. I love elliptical trainers because my knees get unhappy running after a while, but I can spend hours on the elliptical trainer I had in the basement. I say “had,” because after going through two sets of the metal skis that hold the foot pads, we could no longer get replacement parts. The whole thing was beginning to get really creaky after several years of faithful service and had to be retired.

Well, the Pirate is no fool. What did I find waiting for me beside our sparkly red fake Christmas tree but an enormous box that said StreetStrider on it. Once back from our trip, we wasted no time in ripping open the box and taking out all the twisty, hurty-looking metal bits that make up the StreetStrider. The DVD included in the box had a lot of shots of a guy with his hands entirely obscuring everything he was doing, but we got it all together anyway.

See those crazy happy smiles on the faces of the people on that website? They’re not real. What’s real is the grimace of effort, that “yikes” face you make when you’re not sure that you’re actually going to make a tight turn (the turning radius on these things is, I have to be honest, atrocious), and the mouth-wide-open look you get when you’re praying that the brakes will actually have some kind of effect at the speed you’re moving. But I have to say, I am crazy happy smiling on the inside. Oh yes. Crazy happy.

Monkey on a Boat: Day 4

January 6, 2012 By in personal, vacation Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Today, we got off the boat in Puerta Vallarta. I must say that one of the things I really loved about booking the cruise was that a good two months before we set sail, we were told “Now’s the time to book your port adventures!” There was a big list of things to do while in port, and all we had to do was choose and sign up on the same website we booked the cruise.

Thursday we got up early, ate a giant breakfast, and toddled down to the bar where we were to meet up with the rest of our group for the zip lining and rappelling adventure! In Puerta Vallarta, we walked off the boat and around the corner to another boat that was like a large rubber life raft.

We wave good-bye to the big ship

We may never see these people again, especially if we're eaten by jaguars

The rubber life raft thing took us at a hair-snatching rate of speed from the Area Militar de Vallarta, where our ship was docked, south about 30 kilometers to a place called Boca de Tomatlan. We got off that tiny boat and onto the kind of trucks that you normally see in old movies transporting soldiers who are going to meet their deaths in a hailstorm of enemy fire. So, not confidence inspiring.

Our dance of joy at making it to the preserve in safety

This is the dance of joy we did just after kissing the ground once we got off the truck.

The trucks took us another 5 or so kilometers to the preserve where we were to meet our fate. On the way, we all laughed and joked about the fact that the roll cage over the benches lining the truck bed had straps hanging from it so that if we were accidentally thrown from the truck, we would end up flapping behind the truck like a pair of underpants on a clothesline, only with less dignity. Adversity makes people bond together, and we were practically a solid mass of humanity by the time we got there.

After strapping us into harnesses custom-made to ensure wedgies, chafing and complete stripping of pride, we were ready to mount the mules that would take us to the top of the mountain.

Our little kid aboard her trusty mule, headed up the mountain

The little kid was really excited about the mule ride, but her enthusiasm was short-lived.

From the top, we took a series of zip lines and sheer cliff faces to descend.

Peaches on the longest of the five zip lines

It's over 160 feet straight down if she falls, and nearly half a mile by trail to get back up. Good thing she didn't fall.

The zip lining was fine although, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that on the very first zip line I was so frightened that I closed my eyes and ended up getting stuck about 8 feet from the end, suspended over what appeared to my closed, terrified eyes to be a bottomless pit, and I ended up having to haul myself hand-over-hand to the platform where I was roundly laughed at by monkeys and native guides. Good thing I’d left my pride behind with the mules!

Close to the end of the zip lining was the lowering-ourselves-down-a-cliff phase. For those of you who might be interested, here is a monkey attached to the side of a cliff by ropes:

Me, coming down a wet, slippery cliff face

I never saw the waterfall because I was too busy trying to find that place where I should have put my foot and didn't.

On the last zip line, we were whisked directly into a picturesque mountain pool.

The Pirate making a splash!

The Pirate has just slid nearly 70 feet down to land in this lovely emerald pool.

After this last zip line, it was just a matter of a half-kilometer hike back to our starting point, but that half-kilometer hike took us through streams, over creeks on fallen logs, and between enormous shrubs that are probably older than I am. We were hot, soaking wet and hungry, but it was easily one of the coolest things we’ve ever done.

On the way back, the bus stopped at a tequila distillery where Peaches (who’s of legal drinking age in Mexico) took her first taste of tequila.

Peaches sampling tequila

Here's Peaches, sampling her first tequila. Of course, the first sample is the rough stuff.

We got back onto the speedboat thing, where we were whisked back to the ship via a pair of enormous rocks covered in pelicans.

A large rock, completely carpeted in pelicans.

The top 12-inch layer is pelicans. The next 12-foot layer is pelican poop.

Technically, we could have strolled through Puerta Vallarta for another hour or two before we had to be back on the ship, but all we really wanted was hot showers and dry clothes. I think that’s now my new measure of the success of an outing: if all you want is a hot shower and dry clothes, it’s been an actual adventure.

Monkey on a Boat: Day 2

January 4, 2012 By in personal Tags: , , , Leave a comment

This morning, we had the first “character” breakfast on board – that’s where all the Disney characters show up and sign autographs and pose for pictures. While most of the waitstaff was busy bringing us our food, some of them were there solely to fold the napkins into entertaining shapes and put them on people’s heads. Most of the women received enormous bows. Some of the men got Robin Hood caps, but some of them got what looked like a bandana holding up earrings made from dish covers. Or teacups. Or milk jugs. I told the Pirate that not only was I going to take a picture of him in his lovely gear plate-cover earrings (they made him look like a Jamaican robot Princess Leia), but that he had to make it his new LinkedIn profile picture. He’s been married long enough that he just smiled and nodded.

The Pirate's new look

Most of the men ended up with some variation on this theme

While I was in the bathroom this morning, I realized something. While I washing my face and brushing my teeth, I realized that every so often I would feel like the mirror was a little further away than it just had been. Then, a second or two later, I would feel like I was going to fall forward into the mirror. It was very subtle, but it was the first time I could really feel the motion of the ship. As we walked down to breakfast, I realized that I still felt a little dizzy. Just a little, and mostly whenever I looked out a porthole at the passing ocean. It feels pleasantly disorienting and encourages me to breathe deeply.

After breakfast, we hit the bingo game where I ordered a drink called an “eco-tini.” It had acai berry, agave nectar, ginger, leaves, bugs…you get the picture. It came with a little bracelet of acai berry seeds. I put it on, and what it really looks like is my alcohol friendship bracelet. I hope that gin doesn’t get jealous. I’m sure this will just be a shipboard romance for me.

I want to go on and on about the experience of being on a boat, but it’s like any large-ish touristy building. Most of the space is taken up either by rooms or by boring things like utility cupboards and big bits of weirdly shaped metal with seventy million coats of paint on them. Once you’ve been through every single thing in the two shops, poked your head into all four of the bars and been to all of the restaurants, there’s not a lot to see. I did spend some of every day we were at sea in the gym, and I can tell you that it’s really hard to get a good head of steam on the treadmill when the ship is really pitching. So, the only other thing left is to spend a lot of time out by the pool, sunning yourself and fending off the advances of the seventy-four waiters hawking beverages. To be honest, I wasn’t always very successful at fending them off. To be even more honest, sometimes I didn’t even try.

Monkey on a Boat: Day 1

January 3, 2012 By in personal Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

I’m a nervous traveler. You don’t really need to know that, except that it will explain why, when I went to bed at 10pm the night before we left, I didn’t fall asleep for nearly an hour, and why I woke up every 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t miss my 2: 45am alarm. I was just thinking of every single thing I had to do when I got up, and of every single thing I should have done but didn’t before I left. And about all those things that might happen, but probably won’t, of things that won’t happen but probably should, of things that should happen but probably not when they need to…I know you’ve been there.

We left at 3am to make the ~6-hour drive from our house to Los Angeles where we could board the ship any time between 11am and 4pm. That’s right. I built in an extra seven hours, during which I would have nothing else to do but imagine what could go wrong later on the trip.

I worried that it might be hard to find the boat, to find parking, to find breakfast close to the dock. It wasn’t. There was really only one boat, and it had Mickey Mouse on the funnel, and you could see it from the freeway. Right in front of that one boat was one giant parking lot with one driveway leading to it. A block away was The Grinder – a sort of Denny’s knockoff with easily the worst food I have ever had ever in my entire life. None of my imagined problems materialized.

Disney Waiting Room #3,124

She's still cheerful because we've only been sitting here for five minutes

Boarding was exactly like getting on any Disney ride. Any time you get onto a Disney ride, the queue is shuttled from one room to another so that you’re always moving, you never see the tail end of the line, and the number of people in any one place never seems to change. And just like at Disney theme parks, every single person: the guy who took our luggage, the guy who directed us through security, the woman who took our picture, the woman who directed us into a giant waiting area, and every one of the eight thousand adrenaline-addicted, polo-shirted employees who roamed the rooms looking for unoccupied children to harrass – every one of them evinced a level of cheer that required shouting.

Please welcome - THE GAZPACHO FAMILY!!!!!!

This is the room you enter when you get on the boat

When we got on the boat, we had to stand in a sort of line because as each family walked through the doors, a man in white livery boomed cheerful things like “Let’s hear you make some noise for THE GAZPACHO FAMILY!!!!!!” or “Welcome back THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!” (and he enunciated each of the exclamation points, I swear). Then a phalanx of other white-liveried individuals applauded with ecstatic grins on their faces. But there are four people in our family, and we don’t have a common last name. Disney really doesn’t have a paradigm for that, and they wouldn’t announce us individually. Instead, they mispronounced both my last name and the Pirate’s last name, and then the manic applause began. This is how I can tell that I’m not cut out to be a celebrity. When faced with the applause of a crowd of people, I have no idea what to do apart from looking around uncomfortably and muttering under my breath.

Our luggage wasn’t in our room yet (I think it’s delivered by the same house elves that Hogwarts uses), so we went up to the top deck with the really, really loud swimming pools and cafes. Within minutes of boarding, I had a poolside table, a gin and tonic and an order for champagne to be delivered to the room. Thank you, Pirate!

I had booked a mani/pedi for 1pm, so I showed up to the spa. I was the first person to visit the spa, so once again I was assailed with friendly, cheerful greetings to which I had no appropirate response. The mani/pedi was as wonderful as those particular procedures always are, and Cameel, the lovely Jamaican woman who provided the service, and I talked and sang and bonded while she was sloughing off my calluses. When I left, she wanted a hug and told me I was the most fun customer she’d ever had. As did the woman in the gift shop from whom we bought a watch, and Yusef and Lavendra, the two men who have been assigned to wait on us at dinner for the entirety of our stay. What this tells me is that one of the keys to getting a job with Disney is the ability to fake sincere friendship. That’s really the key to getting a job pretty much anyplace, but they’re really, really good at it here. I know it’s an act, but I’m a sucker for it all the same.

Dinner was in the animation-themed restaurant “Animators Palate.” The walls are covered with black and white drawings from various Disney movies, and there are giant paintbrush-shaped columns scattered around the room. The bristles of the brushes are glowing LED things that light up various colors. The paintbrushes hold up what look like giant artist palettes with blotches of paint on them. The paint also lights up in different colors. The friendly waitstaff wore black-and-white vests with drawings of Mickey in various styles. At the end of the meal, the main screens showed an INCREDIBLY LOUD film about how wonderful and magical and fabulous Disney is, and then Mickey Mouse came out, did a hyper little dance, and then the waiters, now all dressed in rainbow-colored vests, danced around as well. Good golly.

By this time, I was barely hanging on. I was dizzy and having a hard time getting excited about any of the upcoming events, mostly because all I could think about was being able to sleep – two and a half hours just isn’t quite enough. The girls, who had both had good nights’ sleep, took off to the various kid activities, and the Pirate and I passed out at about 8:00. So much for kicking off the cruise. We found out later that both girls had been in and out several times while the Pirate and I slept, and we never heard them.

A Post That Has Nothing to Do With Writing

December 24, 2011 By in personal Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

My recent schedule (Nanowrimo, followed closely by my grad school residency) means that Christmas has completely snuck up on me. The Pirate and I went crazy sending out our Christmas cards right before I left for LA, we collaborated on Christmas shopping via email (this is made possible by the fact that I’m the sort of person who is perpetually buying cool stuff and putting it up in the closet “for a future gift-giving occasion”) and now we’re completing the last of our Christmas traditions: eating yummy food while watching noir movies.

It started before I even met the Pirate, and every year I would spend an entire day in the kitchen baking for the holidays. I would make eleventeen dozen batches of cookies, pies, breads – all while watching my favorite old movies. I could watch The Big Sleep or Sunset Boulevard or The Maltese Falcon over and over and over (and I have). Those two activities – food and noir movies – both became linked in my mind to Christmas, always culminating with my absolute favorite, Double Indemnity. To a kid who grew up thinking of Fred MacMurray as the benign, pipe-smoking dad on “My Three Sons,” seeing him as the sexy (at least, he seemed to think he was sexy), wisecracking, matchstick popping insurance salesman Walter Neff opened my eyes to a lot of things. It’s like watching a home movie of your parents on a date. And then killing someone. Or something. Not that I’ve ever done that.

There was a great xkcd cartoon about the most-played Christmas songs that says that what Americans try to do at Christmas is to re-create the Christmases of the baby boomers. I think that here at the Co-Prosperity Sphere, we’ve done a good job of establishing our own traditions that look nothing like what either of us did as kids. Tonight, we went out for Christmas Eve at the Pirate’s parents’ house, and now we’re back home where we’re going to snuggle up with some Indian food, some baked treats, and some amazing black and white movies.

I hope that the twelve of you who are going to read this have some things that you do every year because they’re things that consistently make you happy, whether they involve giving or receiving gifts, lighting something on fire, decorating some stuff, watching a favorite movie and/or listening to or making music. Whatever holiday you’re celebrating, I hope that it brings joy to your heart, and it makes you feel closer to not just your family, but everyone else in the world. In the Buddhist tradition of lovingkindness, let those things that gladden you make you think charitably about your loved ones, those near you, and even those people whom you may not understand or like.

I’ll be thinking nice things about you.