a realist's new year's resolutions

Including feasibility ratings on a scale of 1-10, with 1=not at all likely and 10=easy peasy. Fallback resolutions are listed where probability of success is low.

Become less judgmental. (2*)
Work on a novel without talking about it like a twat. (7)
Smoke only while tippling. (8)
Leave home more frequently. (4**)
Eat more veg. (7)
Act decisively. (3***)
Care about livelihood. (5)
Work on neuroses. (3+)
Cook most days. (9)
Develop positive attitude. (1++)
Take more vacations. (6)
Lay off the Diet Coke. (3+++)
Practice dance moves. (8)
Tidy up daily. (4++++)

*Judge people only in secret.
**Work less in pajamas.
***Avoid decision-making.
+Seek medication.
++Hypnosis?
+++Drink water sometimes.
++++Make fewer piles.

shaming the family

Every year, my family attends the Christmas service at First Presbyterian Church. I’m not crazy about this tradition for a number of reasons, one being the disproportionate number of elderly congregants. As far back as I can remember, the place has been filled with old people who smell weird, look scary, and shuffle through the stuffy sanctuary with their air of tired menace.

Over the last five years or so, I have noticed that their ranks have thinned steadily, but this time it seemed as though the pews were practically empty. You see, word got out that the married minister bonked the single secretary, and I think his resignation sent a fair few FP coots beyond the veil, or at least into the arms of another church. Perhaps they, like my father, don’t care to worship in a “den of iniquity” (his words, to my delight).

It is hard to pin down the first of my actions that brought shame upon my family, but it was probably when I asked my mother if the interim minister was the one who looked like Boss Hog. My sister was similarly embarrassed when I shut down halfway through during the meet-and-greet ritual, that dreaded part of the service where you have to shake hands with the people sitting around you and say “Merry Christmas,” or “Peace be with you.” (I realize that sounds innocuous enough, but my indifferent-stranger phobia is a matter of public record.)

Ironically, the person who most shamed the family (to my mind, at least) was my sister. This might not sound so odd until I point out that she is a graduate student in seminary school—i.e., a person who should know a thing two about dignified churchgoing. Yet during the bit at the end of the ceremony where we all hold candles and sing “Silent Night,” H turned to me with a look of perverse malice and poured hot wax all over my hand.

Now, as a heathen, I can’t say for sure what Jesus would do during a candlelight carol, but I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t commit a sadistic act in the middle of the second verse. I’m also guessing that he wouldn’t have followed my lead, which was to discreetly whisper, “Fuck you!!”...twice.

Mercifully, my parents are so hard of hearing that their shame didn’t set in until hours later, when my sister ratted me out over dinner. I guess the whole Judas thing has been written out of the seminary school curriculum.

the apple, the tree

One of the things that has surprised me about growing older is my diminishing capacity to feel shame. Things that would have embarrassed me in the past no longer matter because I'm finding it increasingly hard to care. In many ways, this has been liberating, but it is also worrying because I believe that shame plays an important role in our society. Without it, we would all be like my uncle, who farts in public, wears plastic bags over his shoes when it rains, and insists upon holding hands and praying before meals in restaurants.

In any case, the shame-loss phenomenon is the only thing that can explain why I have no problem revealing this very lame fact about myself: I am a huge fan of the television show Survivor. Last Sunday was the three-hour finale and I planned my viewing like it was a fucking event. Still, I surprised myself when, upon learning who won, I began clapping like a retarded person out of sheer delight even though my favorite contestant lost.

Instead of feeling ashamed in that moment, I was thoroughly amused by my own dorkiness. I had to share it with someone, so I called my mother, the one person I knew would never judge me. “I can do you one better,” she said. “I watched the finale out of boredom, even though I hadn’t seen a single episode of Survivor all season. Inexplicably, when the winner was announced, I burst into tears.”

We must have laughed about that for a full five minutes, but my mirth was immediately followed by a sobering realization: growing old might also mean that stupid shit like Survivor will move me to tears. Then again, if the adage “with age comes wisdom” is true, then maybe Future Me will be a more discerning watcher of television.

If that means I have to stop watching So You Think You Can Dance, then I may have to abandon this mortal coil.

unclean

I felt a bit down today upon surveying my filthy apartment and involuntarily thinking that it looks like some kind of super-squat for an army of particularly messy street people.

Then, in the holiday spirit, I cheered myself up by thinking about circumstances that would be even worse. For instance, there could be real street people living in my apartment, or I myself could be a street person in a not-so-super squat. After that, I got distracted with trying to decide which of those alternatives was actually the worst scenario. (Still not sure.)

Fun fact: I actually squatted, sort of, when I lived in London. Ironically, that place was much cleaner than this apartment.

on envy

Recently, an acquaintance was published in The New Yorker, his second piece in only five months.

This guy—a college friend of my ex, R—is bright, witty, and an unfathomable douche. I’ll admit he made a bad first impression when he asked if he, his then-girlfriend, and a random acquaintance could all stay in R’s studio apartment during a visit to Chicago, but I tried to look past it. It wasn’t until R revealed that his three guests had slept in his full-size bed (?!?) while he spent a sleepless night feeling weird on his futon that I was dead certain that this person sucked. Worse still, the trio refused to leave the studio during the day, preferring instead to sit in foldout chairs in a silent semi-circle.

So it was with trepidation that, some years later, I agreed to stay overnight with the douche when I was with R in New York. (This was before I became too old and cranky to stay with friends who don’t have guest rooms.) He was living in some kind of co-op with five or six roommates who shared housework, food, etc. Unfortunately, they did not share everything, viz. linens, which became clear when R informed me that his friend had only one bath towel...for the three of us.

Let me just say now that, had R’s friend been a normal poor person, I might have been merely disgusted instead of disgusted and full of hate. You see, the reason he had one towel was because he had no job; he was a “writer” who spent his time submitting unsolicited manuscripts to television shows like “Scrubs.” With no discernable source of income, it seemed clear to me that his parents were paying for his (admittedly unglamorous) life in New York, where it costs a fortune even to live in abject poverty.

That night, when we went out for a few drinks, R’s friend entertained himself by belittling my job, for which I write solicited manuscripts and, in turn, get paid. He asked a series of questions (“Do you write your own stuff? What about short stories? No novel? Well, surely you’ve written some poems...”) before making a condescending comment, the not-so-subtle implication being that a real writer could only tolerate a job like mine if she spent all of her free time working on her opus.

To which I silently replied: “Sir, you have one towel.”

In any case, it seems that all those years of subsidized struggling have paid off now that he’s BFF with the folks at The New Yorker. His first piece ran in August, and while I’ll concede that the bit about the magic hen was hilarious, there were a few too many city-insider jokes that felt like they were written by someone whose knowledge of Manhattan was gleaned from Sex and the City. His second piece is about one of my all-time favorite topics, monkeys, but I just didn’t find it all that funny.

I deeply resent The New Yorker for publishing this guy, whose work, I suspect, was chosen mainly because of his skill in mimicking the style of every other smug person who has ever written for The New Yorker. (Except for David Sedaris, who is perfect.) Which leads me to the question I have been chewing on lately: am I frustrated because this guy is a prick whose lackluster writing has been published in a magazine I subscribe to, or because I am jealous?

Either way, at least I have lots of towels.

household objects that reflect my current state of mind

Offended by his cheery demeanor, I killed my fluffy chicken by turning him upside-down.


I think this salt shaker is supposed to look pouty, but her air of existential panic and unsettling lack of limbs reminds me of that impotent feeling that always accompanies a big deadline.


Which do you suppose is worse: the number of Diet Cokes I have consumed or the fact that I haven't yet thrown the cans away?


My junkie bear symbolizes ironic despair, and also reminds me that if I wasn't working, I could be watching The Wire.


This one is more of a self-portrait, really.

...a collection that begs the question: Which is more odd, my state of mind or my household objects?

they muster

Check this out: yesterday, mom spoke to a friend who happened upon a veritable turkey cult. He drove past a field swarming with 100+ gobblers gathered around a terrible beast that he took to be their leader: a giant albino turkey.

Clearly, they are up to something. But what?

On a related note, a recent conversation about turkey predators led to a frightening realization: where there are turkeys, there are also hawks and eagles.

Fowl play alert level: severe

meet my nemesis, the wild turkey

Mom called today with some troubling news: driving home from the grocery store, she spotted a group of 40 or so wild turkeys running amok just a few short blocks from her house.

This is the newest development in an ongoing investigation. By investigation, I mean a series of phone calls over the last few years during which my mother and I discuss the turkey problem from every conceivable angle, including where they come from, what they want, how to elude them, and (most importantly) how to fend them off if they attack.

It all started a few years ago when mom spotted several large turkeys lumbering up her neighbor’s driveway. She was shocked to register that they were over four feet tall and, worse, almost certainly living somewhere nearby.

Deeply shaken, mom began to worry that the turkeys might find their way to her own driveway. She set about researching them on the web, but upon reading this story about a New Jersey postman who was forced to beat off ornery turkeys with a stick, she knew she had to dig deeper. Perhaps, she reasoned, TN turkeys are more polite than these Yankee birds.

She was distressed to learn that eyewitness reports of local turkeys’ treachery were all too easy to find. A colleague told her about trying to drive through a huge group of turkeys who crowded a stretch of lonely road; unmoved by her car horn, they craned their necks to peer into her window. Another colleague sent these pictures of turkeys she found in her backyard:


Mom’s research took an even darker turn when a friend witnessed an interstate accident caused by a turkey that flew through some poor bastard’s windshield. A few weeks later, another friend saw an abandoned car on the shoulder of the road, a dead turkey lodged in the windshield. By the time mom drove past a huge turkey carcass on the side of the road, she was seriously spooked.

Soon enough, as though conjured by her growing fear, mom arrived home from work to find a gang of turkeys loitering by her mailbox. Evidently, their menace was so great that she felt vulnerable even though she was in her car, so she sat there screaming until they ran away.

While my crippling fear of birds often clouds my judgment, I am pretty sure that wild turkeys are objectively scary. I perceive in most birds a certain cold intelligence, but turkeys, like crackheads or Jack Nicholson, have crazy eyes that heighten their malice. Yet, inexplicably, I’m burning with curiosity to see one for myself—which is why, over the holidays, with a combination of fascination and dread, I will cast keen eyes across mom’s neighborhood, hoping to see something that already haunts my dreams.

diy vodka infusions

Like me, most of my Chicago friends are foodies who have elevated binge drinking to heights that would impress even the most ambitious teenager or fraternity pledge. Perhaps this explains why we decided to infuse our own vodkas and gather in my apartment for a tasting party the weekend before Thanksgiving...it was the inevitable marriage of two pursuits we hold dear.









CD before, during, and after.



Though it seems like we’ve been talking about it forever, I think the idea was born during a conversation with CL about the many virtues of horseradish-infused vodka. I was introduced to it at Russian Tea Time, a Chicago restaurant with a wide selection of house-infused vodkas. My first visit—four years ago, a birthday celebration with T—was a revelation. We each enjoyed a vodka flight, much to the horror and amusement of our fellow diners, who clearly felt that lunchtime was a little early for the hard stuff.

The horseradish was my favorite, and I have been obsessed with it since. CL had a similar experience, and we often discussed the possibility of making it at home. This evolved into the idea that everyone in our circle should experiment with home infusions and come together to share the results. Brilliant!

We established a few ground rules, including a 2-cup minimum to ensure there would be enough of each flavor to go around. We also decided that it was important that we all use a single brand of vodka as a base. We chose Smirnoff because of its low price point and its win in the NYT taste test.

That, I think, was a mistake. Have you ever had straight Smirnoff? I had not, and I was surprised to learn it is distinctively disgusting. I recommend using something more neutral, like Stoli, or, if you’re feeling fancy, Jewel of Russia. I’m no connoisseur (in fact, excepting whisky, I don’t much care for liquor), but that vodka is good.

It looks like V and I are dancing, but actually she had just spilled several gallons of water on the floor.

That is not to say there was no dancing.

For weeks, maybe months, we discussed potential flavors often and at length. At first, these brainstorming sessions were exciting. But over time, with growing dread, I came to realize that some people (myself included) have perverse views on the appropriate ingredients for a tasty drink. Somewhere between pomegranate and bacon, we lost our ability to distinguish right from wrong.

Here are my tasting notes, with flavors ranked from nice to vile:

Lemon: While it may be obnoxious to award first place to my own vodka, I will be the first to admit that it was an utterly uninspired creation. Unfortunately, my plans for blood orange-peppercorn and wasabi-cucumber infusions were thwarted because the citrus was out of season and wasabi is really hard to find. In fact, this infusion was a product of sheer desperation. Upon discovering that my cucumber vodka tasted very much like pond water (see cucumber, toward the bottom), I sliced up a mess of lemons the night before the party. The result was just what you’d expect: tart, delicious, and decidedly ordinary.
Ancho chili: I liked its heat, but I think that using fresh chilis (maybe habaneros) would have been better. Dried chilis gave the vodka a smoky note that I didn’t care for.
Coffee: Pretty good. Like me, A waited until the last minute to make his vodka, but he beat the clock by letting it steep under a heat lamp for a day or so. Its color was unpleasant, but I agreed with J’s observation that it was the most believable infusion, like something you would actually buy in a store.
Horseradish: I thought this would be my favorite, but CL didn’t filter it well enough, resulting in a sediment with a rather unpleasant mouthfeel. (I suspect this problem could have been avoided by pouring it through a coffee filter.) Also, it looked like rank piss.
Maraschino cherry and lime: I was indifferent toward this one. I think that fresh cherries would have been more interesting, but a special preparation might have been required for a successful infusion.
Cranberry: I think there was something else in this one (vanilla?), but I had already downed a fair amount of vodka by the time these guests arrived. I vaguely recall thinking that it tasted like cough syrup.
Lemongrass & ginger and ginger & honey: These guests arrived even later. If I was too tipsy to formulate a coherent opinion about the cranberry vodka, I’m impressed that I even remember trying these. One or both tasted like herbal cough drops.
Cucumber: Some people liked my cucumber vodka more than I did, but I thought it smelled and tasted like pond water. It might have been more successful had I used vodka with better flavor; cucumber really brought out Smirnoff’s gin-like botanical notes.
Salami: A novelty flavor in the worst possible way: salty, greasy, and just plain gross.
Dill & garlic: I’m not entirely certain that I’m remembering this combination accurately because I didn’t try it; after knocking back salami vodka, I wasn’t up for any more adventures. Some people liked it; others didn’t. The fact that people referred to it as “pickle juice” suggests that I would have been among the latter.

I love this picture because D looks positively batshit.

Their glowing hands make it look as though they have superpowers.

Our tasting party taught me an interesting and unexpected lesson: experimentation is not always a good thing. Conventional flavors—the handful you’ll find on the Absolut shelf—are conventional for a reason: they taste good. (Or, at the very least, they don’t taste terrible.) The last thing you need during a serious tipple is to drink something that makes you reach for the sick bucket.

Not that we had sick buckets. We’re way too classy for that.

on snow

I had a little moment last night upon looking out my window to find my usual surroundings transformed by the first real snow of winter.


Genuinely moved, I found myself thinking about Christo, the artist. I’m not talking about those orange flags in Central Park or the huge umbrellas in CA, but the old school wrapped-up stuff. I wish I had been around to see this building he wrapped in NY:


And I am so obsessed with his wrapped trees that this print hangs in my office:


Of course, he is cool because he goes to great lengths—spending huge amounts of his own money and navigating complex webs of bureaucratic permissions—to make surreal public art that is controversial and, above all, fleeting.

But more than that, Christo slams me in the gut with the massive scale and sheer weirdness of his projects. The secret majesty of his wrapped trees is in how they make you see what is familiar with fresh eyes. His wrapped buildings reinvent the landscape of a workaday world where routine and petty miseries inevitably wear away our wonder; his version offers surprises and has a sense of humor.

That is the real reason I love Christo—he brings out in me the reluctant optimist. (Also, I once read that he snacks all day on garlic cloves that he pops like candy. That just sealed the deal.)

And this is why I’m willing to risk cliché by writing about the beauty of snow


this brief instance, before I have to cope with all the unpleasantness of a Chicago winter and the fashion crimes it will make me commit, when I marvel at my city’s still beauty...this unexpected reminder that the world, though somber, is not yet spoiled.

As I was leaning out of my window for the pictures I noticed that someone made a snow angel in my courtyard.


It might have been that squatter in my laundry room, but I was charmed all the same.

procrastination station

Today I am facing a big work deadline, and I have been procrastinating like it’s my job. In fact, I am such a procrastinator that I have invented a new form: meta-procrastination. That’s right, I am procrastinating by writing about procrastination.

To wit: I have compiled a list of my top five favorite ways to avoid work.

iChat videoconferencing: I use iChat with only one person: my sister. Instead of having conversations like normal people, we play music and dance. Sometimes, while dancing, we IM (rather than speak, so as not to interrupt the jam) each other things like, “This song is hot!” or “I secretly love Justin Timberlake!”

As you may have guessed, this is the all-time best way to waste time. I highly recommend it.

Internet Boggle and sudoku: I know I’m not alone in this, but sometimes it feels that way.

Googling friends, family, and random acquaintances: If there is anything on the Internet about you, I have probably read it. Does that make you feel weird? Don’t worry: If there is anything on the Internet about my elementary school classmates, I have probably read that, too.

I used to worry that this habit was abnormal, but I have since learned that many people do it. My friend K admitted to googling me once, and her search yielded an awesome discovery: K.O. The Modern Singing Cowboy.

On the other hand, my friend once dated a guy who, when we first met, told me that he admired my graduate school essay on the word dialectic that came up when he googled my name + University of Chicago. That was creepy because I didn’t even know him and that shit was buried on, like, the third page.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering if I wish I were a modern singing cowboy instead of a person who wrote an essay on the word dialectic, the answer is, emphatically, yes.

Making to do lists: I like to make obsessively detailed lists, and then never again refer to them.

Talking on the phone with D: This might not sound so ridiculous until I point out that D literally lives beneath me. We talk for several hours each day because we are far too lazy to visit one another’s apartments, except for important activities like watching tv or playing board games.

Usually, I beat myself up for all the useful things I could be doing instead of procrastinating, like writing, watching The Wire, or exercising. But lately I’ve been trying to have a more positive attitude, so I decided to make a list of all the things I’m glad that I’m not doing instead.

Top five worse ways in which I could procrastinate:

Writing fan fiction: I didn’t even know this genre existed until JK Rowling made that announcement about Dumbledore being gay. Soon after that, I read a Cary Tennis column where someone admitted to being consumed by HP fan fiction. WTF?!?

Reading those online comics for the tv show Heroes: so very tempting.

Chasing cats: also tempting. I don’t mean them harm; I chase because I love. This actually used to be a habit of mine in college, but I have reformed.

Watching sports: Imagining a world in which I could feel bored enough to watch sports is a very sobering activity indeed.

Spying on my neighbors: D is really into this and I would totally do it too if our neighbors were the least bit compelling.

(Quick digression: I went to a ‘meet your neighbors’ party a few weeks ago that was held in the laundry room, where we ate bratwurst and grocery-store potato salad. I was both distressed and fascinated to meet the weird people who live here. Many of them were surprisingly old, including a lady who couldn’t walk and someone who I suspect was actually homeless and squatting in the laundry room. Unfortunately, the neighbors you can see from my windows are the dirty vegans I provoked with remarks about bacon.)

What are your favorite ways to procrastinate?

meet my nemesis, the open road

It is no secret that I am a nervous person. On a given day, any number of banal tasks/household items/indifferent strangers freak me out. For the most part, I have learned how to manage these phobias. Some of them, like doctors or the sea, come up so rarely that they aren’t really debilitating. Others, like birds and tooth loss, are a little trickier.

Still, none of those things fills me with unmitigated dread so much as a simple task that most people take for granted: driving. (Well, except maybe birds. That shit might be clinical.)

I sold my car when I moved to London, and I decided not to get another when I landed in Chicago. A few months after I relocated, my license was suspended for not paying a speeding ticket I had received earlier in the year. It seemed like the perfect excuse to give up driving for good.

For years, this posed no problem. I like taxis and people watching on the bus, and while many of my friends here argue that cars = convenience, I am convinced they can also be a more of a hassle in the context of a sizeable city.

More recently, not driving has been more of an issue. I have been traveling more for work, and finding a taxi in many parts of this country is not so easy. (Also, the people I work with clearly think that either (a) I have had a DUI or (b) I have a weird medical problem, but I kind of like the intrigue; in any case, I wouldn’t trade convenience or a better reputation for my experience meeting disgruntled taxi drivers in Oklahoma City who had graduated with MBAs from the business school of the first university I wrote a coffee table book for.) So, because I’m traveling more and because I don’t plan to live here forever, I have resigned myself to the fact that I need to start driving again.

I was encouraged and surprised a few weeks ago when I actually felt excited to get behind the wheel when I was with my friend D in a zip car (think: urban car share). D is from Manhattan, so she’s not much of a driver either; as it turns out, while she can parallel park, she isn’t much use in a regular lot. When I had to take over for her in the grocery store parking lot, I found myself just a little bit giddy.

Thanksgiving break provided the perfect opportunity to renew my license and relearn the rules of the road. I had to wait for two hours or so in a DMV waiting room that resembled a welfare line or maybe a TB ward (and where, interestingly, I’m pretty sure there were several drunk people), but I emerged a licensed driver. Added bonus: I got rid of my ID card, which my sister made fun of because she used to volunteer at an assisted living facility where all the retarded people had ID cards instead of drivers’ licenses. (It didn’t help that I truly looked “touched” in my ID card picture.)

And so it came to pass that I spent my break tooling around JC in my mother’s car…always accompanied, of course, by my sister and/or mother, the latter of whom insisted on sitting in the backseat because she was even more fearful of my driving than I was. While I was always aware of that familiar undercurrent of controlled panic, I found that I was no more nervous than when I actually drove on a daily basis. It turns out that I still don’t like left turns, bridges, those concrete barrier thingies, trucks, or going over 40 miles an hour. Who knew?

Next step toward becoming more mobile: learning how to ride a bike.

thoughts on riding a mechanical bull

There are many things that I enjoy about visits to my hometown in northeastern TN. I love playing Boggle with my sister, running into high school classmates who have lost their hair or teeth, and eating barbeque in a doublewide-cum-restaurant at the end of a dirt road on the side of a mountain. Still, I was hardly prepared for the very exciting experience I had over the Thanksgiving holiday: riding a mechanical bull at a bar called the Electric Cowboy.

There are times in life when you are confronted with something unexpected that, while theretofore completely unfamiliar, you immediately recognize as awesome. I’m thinking of gloriously weird places I have stumbled upon, like the South of the Border theme park in SC, the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in London, or the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia; or even experiences that are more ephemeral, like finding a bluegrass circle at a bar in NY led by a man wearing a gold badge and a ten-gallon cowboy hat who calls himself the Sheriff of Good Times, or being carried onstage as “food” for a giant synthetic earthworm that graced the stage of a Gwar concert (also in TN—but now I’m just bragging). (But seriously: Gwar.)

All to say that riding the mechanical bull at the Electric Cowboy was one such special time.

My brave friend W went first, which gave me extra time to drink for courage. In a sense, that was good because--let’s be honest--one must be drunk to mount one’s mechanical bull. Once that hurdle was overcome, however, I discovered that intoxication was also a liability. First of all, you must have your wits about you when the operator helps you on your bull so that he doesn’t handle you inappropriately. Moreover, you must have full command of your motor skills as the bull twirls one way, then the other, all while lurching back and forth with treacherous intent.

And then, critically, you must be able to focus when your photographer friend asks you to lift your (borrowed) cowboy hat in the air as you clutch the saddle with one unsteady hand and hope to god that the dress you’re wearing is not riding up in such a way that might give the patrons of the Electric Cowboy the wrong idea about your honor.


So that’s my first thought on riding a mechanical bull: you must be drunk, but not too drunk. (I find this maxim also works well for bowling.)

My second thought is that you must befriend, and not mock, your bull operator so that he will feel moved to take a special picture commemorating your experience. Our operator gifted W (but not me) with such a picture, which, to my delight, was captioned “I rode the bull at the Electric Cowboy!” alongside the misspelled name of our hometown. (He also gave her a $150-off coupon to a “spa” that I suspect he runs out of his bathroom, but I’m not so envious of that.)

Needless to say, I can’t wait to go home for Christmas.

blog or die

In retrospect, I think I set the tone for this Saturday by staying up way too late watching the last few episodes of the first season of The Wire. I love that show because it is so deliciously depressing, and that is precisely what today has been...not in a cut yourself sort of way...more in a it's overcast and snowing and I'm listening to that Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set while playing too much Boggle on the Internet sort of way.

I've been listening to those albums a lot lately, actually, and I have found that I really relate to what Sufjan calls That Creepy Christmas Feeling. For me, his best songs articulate an uneasiness that I have never been able to put my finger on. I suppose I thought the xmas blues were for people with estraged children or drinking problems, but S cheerfully refuses to be so simplistic. He finds the perfect balance between whimsy and melancholy: that sad plucky banjo tempered by silly song titles and fanciful arrangements. (It's really quaint and gloomy in a way that reminds me of Elliott Smith.) For S, I think a big part of it is about reconciling mixed feelings toward a holiday that he finds both holy and distressingly commercial. That contradiction doesn't bother me so much (can you feel my godlessness shaming my family?), but I relate to his message: Christmas is weird, but sometimes weird warrants a celebration...with presents!

Less deliciously depressing was a conversation I had with A last night about choosing the next place I'll live; I guess that was just plain depressing in the traditional sense. Many of my friends are grad school students who are finishing their dissertations this year, which means they'll soon scatter all across the country to whatever schools are smart enough to offer them jobs. I have lived in Chicago for more than five years now, and while I like it fine, it was never a place that I saw myself settling into for the long term. For a while I thought that I would go somewhere else next summer, but since I had to move a few months ago I might wait an extra year. The problem, of course, is that I've never been in this strange position of moving to a new city without some sort of outside motivator. I work for myself, so I will never be tied to a location for the same reason that most people are. So how to decide?

I don't mind change, but it can be awfully uncomfortable. And a little sad.

So that's why, at least in part, I decided to start blogging. I like the idea of an outlet for idle thoughts and less idle worries. I'm also a writer who isn't exactly writing the things I want to write--a whole other can of worms--and given the whole 'frustrated writer' stereotype I'm quite sure there are many versions of me out there. Is that why we read blogs--morbid curiosity about other versions of ourselves? Or is morbid curiosity about ourselves (egotistical introspection?) what drives us to write blogs in the first place?

Self-obsessed introverts unite: Viva la Shallow Brigade!