Falling out of like...

Like the preponderance of daisy dukes and UGGS, seemingly mutually exclusive clothing that had new york city by the cahones this temperate and tempting winter, the holiday season has, so far, been antithetical at best.

For all the Ho Ho Hos: yes. Holidays are hard when you're not hard-up. And for the hooked-line and swingers, a partner in crime is really just a cash-burn when the economy is crumbling (read: the devil wears discounts). And this year, out of nowhere, I'm caught somewhere between single and sworn so I'm not even gonna try to decipher how that factors into my temperament.

But romantic status aside, my own personal holiday season, like most of the rest of my life, has resembled a kiddie ride more than a roller coaster and yet still seems hard to navigate. Take away the dissenting aunt, the jewish factor, a little sister and the mom's-mom/dad's-dad 1-2 political polarity-- and add a few mood-stabilizers, new cousins, old friends, napping, and 17,000 empty calories and you've got, right there, the baseline in my 3 days without leaving the house (and counting).

But it still seems void of something weighty and meaningful. Maybe it's the distance between Massachusetts and Malawi... or the disparate family pockets that made for a higher frequency of emotional peaks but destroyed the amplitude of the holiday as a whole. I think, more than all of this personal mumbo-jumbo, there's an underlying current of religion that I can't hold on to. As many a jew has pointed out of late, Channuka really isn't a big deal. And Christmas, to me, isn't at all a religious testament. I know the word for that 'baby jesus meets adoring fans in a barn' scene but I can't tell you why they're up.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm falling out of like with the holidays as they've been defined for me. I think the religious facade is waning in the face of hardship- which is absurd, right? And without the public ramming religious enthusiasm into every wrinkle of my brain, without a family intact, without a land-bridge to africa, or a rented room in an NYC bar stocked with finger-food and karaoke and everyone I love in the moment, I'm losing track of WHY we do this to ourselves. WHY we engage in this over-stimulating, far too infrequent voyage to some pre-destined safe-space wherein we pay tribute to where we came from and who-all got us here... Baby jesus? Really? What could we possibly be celebrating!?! The idea that I'm celebrating something esoteric and religious is mind boggling when I spend 99% of the holidays trying to hold on to what keeps me put together. Family. Adopted, newly discovered, aging, rock-solid family.

Throw your creches to the mystics and let's just admit it. We're celebrating Kwanzaa here, folks! And next year, we're gonna do it right. We're all hitching a jumbo jet to Africa. Fo shizzle.

Snuggie Wuggie Saves the Sales

We're approaching the exact middle of Epilepsy season and, as I feel like I've been no where near the big bang of consumerism, I think I've been fairly unexposed to the egregious consumption of the holidays. (Virtual shopping and mouse clicking my way through checkout has definitely helped!)

But, I DO work in herald square. And my office building DOES have an external support system as the ppsi of the air emanating from Macy's across 35th street tirelessly keeps our I-Beams from crumbling like cheddar straws. Yet it doesn't feel like a holiday tide has crashed down on the city... it feels more like mid-July stampedes. Though maybe that's because my desk faces a corner. Far from the windows. Directly beneath the heat. And I missed the entire snowstorm as Office 2007 blew up my computer.

Or MAYBE feels like July because the struggle between debit and credit reminds me of the war between my bathing suit and my belly as one stretches to accommodate hot dogs and watermelon and the other just stretches...

Anyway. I think that while the world watches the government toss zeros around like doughnuts and hypoallergenic dogs like they're available at the local pound, there's a bigger micro-epidemic happening that I'm just beginning to be annoyed by. There's a struggle between saving the economy on the macro level, which, we're learning, involves spending, and there's the micro-status of our own personal bank accounts that should revolve solely around not spending DESPITE the RIDICULOUS sales (that seem awesome but are actually very very sad). And it feels so GOOD to save money!! Right? I mean, you know, it feels good to save money as you spend money because you're saving all that money (you never had) by buying things for ridiculous prices! And you're lending a hand in the bailout of the economy to boot!

I think this gravitation towards sales is called being Italian. (50% guilty!) Or young (poor). (100% guilty!) Or manic. (125% guilty, except when I'm not.) I guess, what I'm trying to say, is I'm bemused by the irony of spending to save and how in the back of my mind, every time I click through a checkout I feel like Rosie the Riveter, doing my part to rescue the anorexic-bulemic economy.

Well fear not. Yesterday, as my boss left the office waxing poetic over a gag-gift, I realized: we don't need the feds to cough up some cash. What about SNUGGIES!!!! I did some research, 1 snuggie per person would raise, approximately (not accounting for relative shipping costs), 1 Billion dollars. And if everyone bought TWO snuggies? Well, as we all sat in our homes and sweated out the new year, that would reduce our dependency on foreign oil AND raise 2 billion dollars! And, what's more, if you BUY 1 (for a limited time) you get a FREE snuggie!!! You're saving yourself 19 dollars and 95 cents!!! And all you have to do is SPEND a twenty to GET a (virtual savings of) twenty!! That's a collective SAVINGS of 1 BILLION dollars!!! So 2 Billion raised, 1 Billion saved, that's a 3 Billion stimulus package right there, right? I totally did my part and bought a snuggie.

Hmm.... And then my credit card was charged $37 dollars. Because, suffice it to say, in my excitement over net zero spending on snuggies, I failed to realize they had to not only ship - but also HANDLE my snuggie and because they're sending me a free snuggie, that's double the shipping and double the handling. Now, double the handling... I can get on board with that... BUT EFFING PACK THEM TOGETHER!!

Long story short, when it's mid-July, and I'm in a snuggie instead of a bathing suit (and I hope it's here by then, 2-12 weeks is a wide open window), you'll all know why. And until then... happy shopping and best of luck avoiding the pitfalls of being young (poor), manic, and Italian in a virtual reality awash in 2 for 1 sales.

SQL: UPDATE dbo.MyLife SET Complications NULL

This is an update post (obvi).

Over the last 1 month and 13 days...

I have shed a tear as the tyranny of the religious right was shackled by a minority - both from the executive and the legislative branches of the government, though, admittedly, in different ways.

I have been rejected from (honestly) 17 would-be employers bringing my tally up to over 40.

I have been accepted by 1 would-be employer and, consequently, I've started working, I've disappeared into a fog of pharma, I've slid around a learning curve like a bowling ball on a concave see-saw desperately converting potential energy into heat and sound and light and everything except the other effing side of the kiddy toy... and I've gotten paid for the first time in 4 months.

I have been home. I have been to other people's homes. I have not yet learned to knit as it appears daunting and consuming and painstaking.

I have worked on a sunday after working on a saturday. I have seen a pole dance on the subway.

I have been to 5 fundraisers. I have not drank at 1 of them and have been forced to buy bottled water even after tipping for tap.

I have lost my voice to karaoke. I have woken up to a view of horses.

I have been sobered by sadness and certainty after ceding smitten-ness and success.

I have watched people struggle with the concept of 'time zones'. I have been not amused.

I have intended to buy a flight to San Francisco to be, again, a part of my sister. To see a girl I miss perpetually. To not wear a coat in december. To recover a sense of reality. To slow the atherosclerosis in my heart.

I have dethroned suffocating confinement.

I have played with a puppy.

I have listened to an endless, pedantic life story (begrudgingly) and yet still adore the people who introduced said endless, pedantic life story into my realm. (tremendously)

I have decided that mocha is an art and coffee-bean-roasting is hot and sexy.

I have updated countless databases and merged endless tables and queried for pointless statistics and adjusted font on decks over a hundred times. I have tried to explain my job, unsuccessfully, for at least 47 minutes, aggregate.

I have discovered eggdrop soup with wontons. And chicken broth. And my roommate's stash of delicious steak marinades.

I have spent 12 hours discovering something I didn't know existed and have spent the time since lamenting their indifference.

I have written lists. I have written txts. I have written melancholic gchats to long distance friends. I have circled the 'send' on my phone for minutes and hours and torturous, long day (sic).

I have, literally, (sic)'d my own ramblings.

I have written another blog.