1/2/12 Shopping with the Visigoths

We took some stuff back to the stores today, going into Manhattan and braving the hordes that, contrary to our expectations, initially seemed to have stayed home. We only had a few things that didn't fit which we exchanged for the correct sizes at their respective stores, and we accomplished our early missions easily and quickly.

Until we arrived... at Macy's, where the hordes had been all along, tearing apart the displays of marked down shoes, and leaving the racks of discounted (up to 40%!) sweaters and ladies separates in tattered disarray.

When we left Brooklyn this morning, the sun was shining on a beautiful, crystal blue Monday, and by the time we got back home from our descent into the maelstrom, it was dark, and cold, and a desolate wind blew through our broken, disillusioned souls.

12/20/10 Save all Your Love

The tunnel between the Q train and the 4/5/6 in Union Square is a press of humanity, more than usual even, and I weave between the green metal I-beams that serve as pillars here while trying to side-step the masses blindly hurtling through their day.

"Save all your love," sings Jon Anderson, "to be a better child, to be a better child," and I see these faces, some blank, some sad, some just tired or resigned, and I realize they all were once children.

Christmas insists that God was a child, just like you were a child, like I was a child. I try not to romanticize (an unfortunate tendency of mine), but tears of love well up, and I wipe them away so no one thinks I'm crazy.

12/17/10 Did you forget?

The sign in the jewelry shop in the tunnel leading out of the subway reads, "Did you forget a gift for yourself?" I imagine the person reading that who thinks to themselves about all the gifts they didn't receive, all the times they were disappointed, thinking in their walk, "Yes, I need to get my own gift, since no one will get it for me," even though what they're really wanting is someone who knows them so well, has listened to them over the past year so closely that the gift is an expression of that love.

Later, at the deli, the man behind the counter sharply taps his knife blade on the cutting board every time before slicing a sandwich in half, and this delights me. The music on the radio sings, "All I want for Christmas is you," and I know that gift is the one thing we can't buy for ourselves - the unique expression of another human life as it intertwines with our own.

12/5/10 What more do you want from me? A cookie?

I followed the recipe on the yellow package, as aspiring bakers all over the country have for generations of Christmases. They turned out perfect, brown and chocolatey and delicious.

Then we watched walking dead and went to bed.

Sometimes, I don't feel like being all creative.

12/4/10 Which is what we named the tree

The courtyard of the church smells of pine and the cold stone walls. We excitedly debate the merits of each tree: height, fullness of branches, hardiness of needles, looking for the perfect one, the one meant for us, the tree for our first Christmas together, until the gentleman in glasses and orange latex gloves streaked black with pitch saunters over and asks if he can help.

"Sure," I say, putting out my hand out, introducing myself and asking his name.

He looks bewildered for a moment, as if no one today (or maybe ever, in the history of tree selling) has asked him that, then shakes my hand, laughing, and says, "I'm Todd."

12-25-07 melancholy christmas

A good christmas, but I feel very melancholy. I tried to avoid telling Katie about it but I think she just felt I was shutting her out. When I get in a mood like this there's nothing to be done, unfortunately, so I'd rather just not splash any of the shit I carry around in my bucket.

I found some poems I wrote in high school that somehow managed to avoid the fire I lit for them when I was in college, and they sounded about like how you'd think poems written by a 17 year old depressive would sound.

12-22-08 Putting it together

My father decided that he was buying, “for my mother”, a fifty-seven inch, DLP, HDTV. I sort of saw it as the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball with his name engraved on it, but whatever They seemed happy enough about the arrangement. I got to put together the TV stand which had a sort of IKEA feel to it, but since I love putting stuff together, I had a good time too.

12-20-07 - Perspective

My father and I delivered food and gifts to “less fortunate” (i.e. poor) families today for the Rotary Club. We showed up on the doorstep of this family in an apartment complex near my parents house in Phoenix, and they were watching TV. The man of the house was drinking a beer while the mother of the children nursed a child in her lap. As we left I said to my father, “Hell, I’ve lived in worse places than that, and nobody brought me anything for Christmas!”