I'm faking it.

Well, as you may have heard, Christmas is indeed coming, and the goose? Fat. Before I deposit the required penny in the old man's hat, let me admit to you, faithful blog-reader, that I have done something this year that I have never done before.

Washed my hands after using the toilet? Nay! Read on!

In the past I have been something of a purist when it comes to the Christmas tree. Always insisting on a real tree, always adamant about the warm glow of colored lights... I have all these fond memories of going to one of those cut-your-own places when I was a kid. Something about the smell of the fresh-cut tree, the feel of the soft needles, that feeling that you went out and found the perfect tree that was destined to live (or die, I suppose) in your living room... There's a romance about these things. A real tree meant Christmas to me.

Sally on the other hand grew up in a fake tree household. Christmas to her meant going down to the basement and hauling up the old aluminum-frame tree, same one as the past 5 years. I'll admit, it's a lot simpler that way. To her, I believe my insistance on going out and getting the real deal each year amounted to a huge pain in the ass, not to mention in the pocketbook.

So this year I decided it was time I grew up a bit and gave up a little ground. We hit the aisles of Target and came home with a nice little pre-lit metal number. The lights are white (a little cold for my taste) but they shimmer which I have to say is kind of endearing. And darned if the thing doesn't look downright cute with all our strange mess of ornaments on it. We may have replaced our flesh-and-blood tree with a mindless metal fascimile, but I have to come out and say that against my better judgement, Robo-Tree is growing on me.

And so the moral of this latest in a long line of pointless blog entries is this: As I get older I realize more and more that your youth is spent trying to be a particular person. You identify all these qualifying characteristics, and then you attempt to be the person that fits them; I'm the person who hates fake trees. I'm the person who loves accordian music. I'm the person who speaks in a fake british accent... What-have-you. I think reaching the early stages of maturity (because maturity may just be a process that continues right up to death) involves letting go of those qualifiers and realizing that being yourself is not something you attempt. It requires no effort. By that I don't mean "It does not require effort," but rather "It requires you to make no effort." You don't try to be yourself, you simply are yourself.

Letting go of the whole tree issue is, for me, a step towards learing to simply be who I am, and in doing so, maybe beginning the process of maturity. I don't need the tree. I still love Christmas. I still see the magic, and I still get excited like a little kid.

Sheesh, I'm boring myself here. Let's move on, shall we?

Some of you may have recieved a Christmas card from Sal and I this year. And you may have noticed that I misspelled "Einstein" on the back of the card. Of course I only realized this after I had printed and mailed 50 or so of the things. Sigh. Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you. Know what I mean?

Merry Christmas if I don't talk to you before the 25th, and for my Jewish friends, in the words of my very Baltimore next door neighbor, Happy Heineken!!!

I'm back!

Try to contain your excitement. I'll keep this one brief.

Three things:

1) So the election... We all know how that one turned out. I'm over it. I'm counting on the Bush administration to keep me sufficiently outraged, and isn't moral indignation a lot more fun that contentedness?

Besides, it's not like Kerry wouldn't have found a couple of ways to piss me off. I haven't actually liked a president since Ike. Now there was a man who knew how to button his trousers.

2) November saw me in Lancatser PA, Atlanta GA, Fort Wayne IN (IN? ID? IND? MA?) and Las Vegas NV. It was Christmas madness from start to finish. We came, we saw, we hung gigantic wreaths. I believe Jon Bon Jovi said it best when he said "I've seen a million faces, and I've decorated them all..." Or something like that.

Anyway, this year, I can honestly say that while being away from Sal for something like 27 out of the last 35 days was kind of rough, all my trips went very well. Every crew I worked with was awesome, and there were no major snags. (well, nothing we couldn't fix...) I rest easy knowing that children all over the USA now have a safe, colorful place to rest on Santa's lap while their cursing, panting, needle-eyed parents choke each other to death over the last bottle of Old Spice. God bless us, every one.

3) Hmmm. There was a "3" when I started writing this. At some point about a paragraph ago, number 3 kind of up and fucked off on me. Huh. I'm sure it was something really funny too. That's what I get for trying to digitize my christmas music while I blogged. Well, if I see number 3 around I'll be sure to trap it and post it for display up here.

Now that I'm back I'll try to update el blogo a little more frequently. I'm sure I'll have lots of funny, interesting things to say once the sedatives wear off.