Wow. A whole week gone by

So I sez to Mable, I sez...

Merry Whatever-you-celebrate! This marks the first year that I have felt markedly uncomfortable attending the usual xmas eve services at my dad's church. My brother in Law and I snickered all through communion about how the tiny glasses of grape juice made us feel like giants, and how running my finger along the edge of the glass was playing the xmas hymns rather than the organ. Our snickering set off my sister, so the three of us incurred many looks of wrath and doom from my mother. This year I even felt uncomfortable saying "Merry Christmas" to people! Zoinks! I don't think I qualify as an aetheist per se, because I don't firmly disbelieve in God or gods of any type, but I just never think about it really. I delight in all things blasphemous, but mainly because I just like irking the strongly held beliefs of people who can't accept change. I've always said that people with firm convictions make me nervous, and that holds true.

That being said, it was nice to see the fam again. It took a record 4 days until all the reasons that I left home in the first place started creeping in. My family is pretty cool and I'd be hard pressed to convince some pople that they are very irritating, but like most families it's easier to see the faults from within. I made out like a damn bandit this year, for which I felt a little guilty because I don't really need some of this stuff, but very grateful overall. I also confirmed the long-held opinion that my sister knows very little about me when I recieved $20 cash in a card as her present to me. I heard someone say the following at some point:

Cash is the second worst present you can give to someone, because it basically says "I don't know anything about you. Go make yourself happy and leave me out of it." The worst present you can get someone is a gift certificate, because it's just like cash, but you can only spend it in one place.

At least a gift certificate says that you have some inkling of what the person might like. Jenny spoiled me rotten with my very own sock monkey and a guitar! A freakin' guitar! (Picture of sock monkey playing guitar to follow) The monkey's name is Clyde Forgotten. Nice ring? I thought so. "Teh Jenner" also got me a faboo book called "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's great. You should read it. Now. It's everything you want in a drug store. I got myself a few CD's that I've been wanting to pick up, including the likes of Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly, and Son House aka the men who inspired Jack White to take up the blues. I figured if Ol' Jacky Boy can rant and rave about how great they are, I figure I may as well check 'em out. It's true that Son House sounds a little like Lyle from Napoleon Dynamite, but damn. Damn damn damn, that is good stuff. Which brings me to the lyric of the week:

Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face
Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face
Your mother will talk about you
Your sister and your brother too
No matter how you try to live
They're gonna talk about you still
So don't you mind people grinnin' in your face

It's amazing that Blind Willie was blind when he learned how to play the guitar. He's got one song called "Atlanta Strut" which is just about different ways that people walk and different sounds. Basically it's this:

I had to go downstairs, you know
And I go down stairs like this:
[guitar lick indicating walking downstairs]

I heard a rooster crow one time
and he crowed like this:
[guitar lick indicating rooster crowing]

And Leadbelly spent over 30 yeas in jail for killing one guy and stabbing another! I wonder if these guys are like the modern day equivalent of 50 Cent and 2-Pac (Tupac? Two-Pack?). I'd love to see a knife fight between Leadbelly and Nelly. That would solve so many problems with the world. Tupac Shakur is totally alive, by the way. There is no way that he had 15 albums worth of unrecorded material to be posthumastely released.

I think I've officially derailed. But I'm kind of out of steam anyhoo, so here are three pictures which sum up xmas '05 for me.

There are eight people, two dogs, and a cat hidden in this picture! Try to find them all!


If you look carefully, you'll notice that only one of these four people know there's a camera present.


The kid and I.


And one final note: It is a damn good thing there's lots of sugar in the house right now.