Christmas Eve

It is Christmas Eve, 11:09 AM. Cabin fever is starting to set in. Really I’m worrying about my cat. I know I shouldn’t. Ron didn’t get to visit when he said he would which pisses me off but I’m sure kitty is alright. I think Brig was going over today so that should get him set for the next few days. My sister and brother in law are still in Nashville and weighing if they are going to come or not. We pushed the van down the street this morning so dad could go deliver holiday packages to friends and family. We aren’t going anywhere for Christmas – we were supposed to go to my uncle’s but the snow is too bad in the rural areas. My jeweler-uncle spent the night last night here for the third night in a row. We watched Jaws twice yesterday. Not really on purpose we just ended up letting it run twice. It beats the Christmas where we watched Schindler’s List multiple times. I don’t think a small German child screaming ‘GOODBYE JEWS! GOODBYE JEWS!’ is really in the true spirit of the season.

I hadn’t dug snow in years!

I’d wanted to see Kate/Doug and their new baby and Dale and Andy/Kate but none of that is gonna hapen this time around. I’m getting antsy – but not from being cooped up with mom and dad – but really from just having all options for external exploration ct off. And now that the roads are clear, people are driving like assholes on the frozen ice and having accidents so the roads remain a danger.

I’ve going through my blog archives from June through November of 2000. Nary a political post. It takes me back to Suck and Feed Mag and Word. A few reports of clubbing and when I was dating Erik. It’ll be fun to see the blog evolve after the first Bush election and after I meet Ron. I have to add titles to all of the Blogger-era posts and categorize them as well.

Ron is in Honolulu for the day and then he flies back tonight. I think his mom and brother are coming in from Milwaukee for Christmas Day.

Wooo – I’m getting sleepy again. I have got to stop eating toffee. I’ve been re-reading The Abs Diet. I did pretty good on that plan until all the apartment trauma of September. I need to get back on the horse. Any horse. But the toffee is so good. The problem with it is that there is no fiber – so you can just eat and eat and eat it but you don’t get full. I mean at least with cake your stomach registers alarm after the fifth piece – not so with this toffee.

(9:24pm on Friday)

It is Christmas Eve. I just got done checking the news online. I got bored with ‘White Christmas’ I thought I’d watch it to see how easily it might be to stage as a stage show musical – which I believe has been done before. I do that sometimes as I’m watching a movie – try to select how scene changes could best be accomplished and pacing as well as costume chagnes and stuff like that. Yes, I am crazy.

Church was pretty boring. I hadn’t been in a church since last year. And this church is one of those moden ones that lacks any sense of mysticism or grandeur. I grew up going to a church in the grand cathedral tradition with statues and stained glass and marble – the works. THis church is post-Ecumenical Council and has all the ambiance of a darkened Home Depot. Plus, they do folk music for their service instead of the classical-based stuff. I always did like the memorial acclamations in their original incarnations. I always like the vowel sounds in Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The ahhh in died, the ih in risen. The eh in again. Each vowel can park right behind your front teeth.

I have got to stop eating toffee. I’m serious. I really do. We broke open a Whitman’s Sampler this evening and ate the first level. I did manage to sneak some steamed broccolli down my gullet during lunch (we had re-warmed chili – dad had put some cocoa and beer in the chili to give it a sweet tang to compliment the chili powder). We ended up having dinner at Appleby’s after church. I’d eaten too many sandwiches/chili meals and said we needed to go out and have something different. There was a deaf family behind us and then a European family to our right that kept letting their blonde oblivious little girl roam the restaurant unattended.

Hopefully no shoveling tomorrow. My sister and brother-in-law are going to try and make it in tomorrow morning. We’ll see. It all seems sort of anti-climactic since we’ve been snowed in since Wednesday night. I wonder how Chicago is doing. Though I think that since you can do so much on foot in my neighborhood, the snow doesn’t slow you down as much as the godforsaken cold.

Watching White Christmas reminded me how much I love tap dancing. Maybe I’ll add that to my new year’s resolutions. I was no Astaire but always found the sensate side of tapping – like playing piano with your feet – very satisfying. Especially with a group where you’re all able to synchronize so all the clicks happen in perfect harmony. I think I’d be a great Danny Kaye or Donald O’Connor or Tony Curtis sidekick.

(10:15)

Just got done reading some of the latest Choice, a magazine for professional coaching. Sometimes I feel like all the coaching stuff is just a load of bullshit. The promises made by training organizations for prospertiy and success sounds surprisingly similar to the dreams I had going into acting school. And the same effect seems to be at work – you have a whole industry focused on training and education versus getting people working. It’s a self-fulfilling industry. Stephen Fairley said it himself – someone has to address the pyramid schema (I didn’t say scheme) that is built into coach training organizations. That has changed in the past few years as training groups have realized that to dump all of these graduates into the wild with no formal business training is pretty damned stupid – sort of like dumping a bunch of acting school graduates in LA to fend for themselves with no skills training beyond acting work. I see coaches like Melanie Dewberry-Jones who is a complete bad-ass woman – I swear to watch her coach in a training class I took was like watching a virtuoso. And I think that the coaching business community is loathe to wake up to the fact that legislation and regulation of the industry is inevitable. At least in this country. I wonder aloud to myself if I should get a degree in counseling to fend that off. I just feel like these training groups are pumping out people willy-nilly that are expected to make $90K in their first few years. Maybe I’m just jealous other people have done it and I haven’t hit on my own magic formula. Maybe I have hit on the magic formula but haven’t cultivated it. Maybe it’s just sour grapes. I don’t know how many personality questionnaires I can consult before I just lose my mind. The problems of the world seem so overwhelming that I don’t know where to start. And notice how I assume that I am to be of service? Others my age (hell, I’d say most Americans) don’t consider themselves to be of service to anyone else besides themselves. I get so angry that I live in a culture of bigotry and deceit where basic deceny for human beings seems to be at an all time low (let me make that a 30 year low). Why is integrity so important to me? I’m not a huge believer in sin and grace – but I just know that being a decent caring person is the baseline for being a citizen of Earth. Maybe it’s altruism bubbling up from my DNA. I don’t have much hope for the world right now. And drinking water labeled with ‘love’ or ‘peace’ doesn’t seem to be the right way to go about things. It’s like when peopel substitute prayer for action. I’m all for meditation and focusing and teh power of intention. But often do we pray in our climate-controlled churches in our pressed sunday best instead of going down to a shelter and doing tangible work. If just throw money and good will at a problem we can just pray it away? Same thing with worry. Worrying about something you can’t control is so pointless. Worrying about something you can affect is useful because rolling all the worst-case scenarios can help you to find holes in your plans or structures- if you can think past the ulcer.


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