Talk Thursday: The Christmas Letter

Is it just me, or has the whole year been stuck on fast-forward? I'm positive by this time last year it was just barely August. Now here it is December, and all kinds of things that I was counting on haven't happened yet. I haven't dropped forty pounds, for one thing. I don't have an agent yet, for another (came really, really excruciatingly close, though. Damn, I hate the near misses.) Haven't taken off on a six-day cruise down the Volga River between St. Petersburg and Moscow, with a two-day stop at the Hermitage to, you know, take in some art. (Well, realistically, that's one for a fatter budget year.) And now all of a sudden it's about to be Christmas and I haven't (gasp!) written the Christmas letter yet.

(Do Buddhists write Christmas letters? Heck, do Buddhists even celebrate Christmas? There's a question that you can ask ten Buddhists and get twenty different answers, never mind forty deep discussions. As far as I can tell, there's one big Buddhist holiday and it's in the spring. The rest of the year is pretty much holiday-free. Or, as I like to think of it, every day is a celebration of life. So Buddhists celebrate everything. Which I guess makes us the anti-Jehovah's Witnesses. If one of those folks knocks on my door and we happen to shake hands, will we explode? Somebody needs to tell the people at the Large Hadron Supercollider.)

I don't know why so many people have a beef with Christmas letters. I like them. There are plenty of people in the world that I used to hang around with a lot but since more or less lost touch with, used to be good friends but our lives went different directions and we drifted apart but I still care about them, that I'm tied to by blood but haven't seen in a long time, and so on, and I really don't think hearing from them once a year is such a huge imposition. Maybe I would mind if the Christmas letters I got were all about their kids winning the Tri-State Spelling Bee with their rendition of psychoichthyspaliadosis while their husbands were busy getting promoted to junior partner at Jackal Jackal Jackal Hyena and Slug, but they're not, usually. Most of the people I know are pretty ordinary. Some of them have some pretty extraordinary stuff going on (like living in Trinidad, or with twenty-six rescue cats, or with stage-four lung cancer), but they, themselves, are just ordinary folks. The older I get, the more I appreciate ordinary.

I try to write Christmas letters that are funny, engaging and (most important) true. By nature I'm basically incapable of lying, but I can (and sometimes do) shamelessly exaggerate. So I need Joan to keep my feet on the ground. She has the ultimate thumbs up or down on whether something gets included in the Christmas letter. She also rules on cute, which is a much harder quantity to, uh, quantitize. I mean, it's adorable when the tuxedo cat with only one eye climbs up onto one of our chests and buries her face in an armpit, but to other people, is that cute or just gross? I wouldn't have any idea, see. That's where Joan comes in. (And...expecting a thumbs down on that one. Just in case you were wondering.)

There's also the picture issue. We try to send a couple of pictures along, so people can see that we're aging gracefully. Or not. What few pictures we have of us tend to be on our cell phones, though, and apart from emailing them to myself (which takes ages) I still haven't figured out a good way to get them off. Yes, it's a little faster on the new BlackBerry than it was on the old one, but it still crawls along at a glacier pace. (Obviously I need a Torch. Somebody who has $400 bucks to spare needs to get me one for Christmas. Of course, if I knew anyone who had $400 bucks to spare, I'd probably talk them into donating it to Heifer International for a couple of water buffaloes. I've always wanted to give someone a water buffalo. It just seems like a good thing to do.)

Well, anyway, the Christmas letter isn't gonna write itself, nor is it gonna copy itself, stuff itself into envelopes and mail itself to households in North Dakota, Arizona, Oklahoma and, uh, Trinidad. So wish me luck. Who knows, maybe next year at this time I'll be writing from the Hermitage. Between reading emails from my agent. And forty pounds thinner. Hey, it could happen.

Talk Thursday (on Saturday): What I Did This Summer

Sorry for the delay. We had technical difficulties. Apparently my antivirus software was having an argument with something called "Norton 360". I don't even know where that came from. I thought it was illegal for your laptop to download something without telling you. Well, even if it's not illegal, it certainly shows a breach of trust in the relationship. Perhaps we should seek counseling.

I know summer doesn't officially start until June twentysomething, but for me it kicked off in early May, when Texas Frightmare Weekend roared into town. Two solid days of horror movies, memorabilia, guest lectures, extremely amusing T-shirts, great costumes and all things scary. Next year's weekend is already in the planning stages, so if you're a fan of horror and you live anywhere near North Texas, you should really consider checking it out. If nothing else, it's not often that you get to see six movies for fifty bucks. Okay, some of them were better than others. But still.

In late May I went to the Pen to Press Writers Retreat in New Orleans, where I had a number of spooky experiences. New Orleans is kind of rumored to host those, from what I hear. Among them: Hearing a bunch of things I didn't know I already knew, all rolled into a package and actually explained for the first time, about how best to write commercial fiction. Running into JulieAnne, a girl I went to junior high school with a million years ago in the wilds of Utah. (And by the way, you should check out her blog; it is really good.) Wanting a beer, for the first time in like five years, to the point of calling my sponsor and asking her to talk me out of ordering one. She doesn't normally do beer, just food, but she humored me. Maybe it was just the alcohol flowing freely in the French quarter or something. Couldn't have been the intense anxiety about having to, you know, talk about writing with people, something I basically never do except in certain contexts. Nah.

We've also had a lot of fun with appliances blowing up and otherwise misbehaving. Next on the agenda is almost certainly the water heater, which, we found out quite recently, is 19 years old. That's, oh, about seven to nine years past the life span of a water heater. My uncle Bob told us not to worry, though, because water heaters only fail when you're out of the house for two or three days so that they can flood your entire basement. We don't have a basement, though, just kind of a laundry room, so hopefully we are exempt. At least until we save up another $600 or so, that is.

Recently, we've had yet another dispute with our idiot neighbor about yet another tree. Last summer, while I was out of work, I watched him bring in a skid loader and dig a big hole in his back yard. This could not possibly end well. Turned out he was installing an underground swimming pool, normally the kind that sits three to four feet above ground. Once you put them underground you start running into city issues, such as needing to get plumbing and drainage permits and putting up a certain kind of fence to protect the local kiddos and things of that nature. He didn't do any of those things. I checked. (I have that power.) He did, however, come over and ask us to remove two trees on our side of the fence because they were dropping leaves in his new pool. Oh, for Christ's sake. I was thinking about saying something along the lines of it's nothing you and your chainsaw on your own side of the fence can't handle, but, no further comment. Still, I dutifully called our tree guy and he came over and gave us an estimate. I took the estimate next door and showed it to the idiot neighbor. Just to be a sport, I even told him I'd pay for half, as long as I got it up front in cash. He hemmed and hawed and finally said he'd get back to me. I'm not holding my breath.

I also had a lot of fun with hypoglycemia this summer as a result of the continuing tinkering with meds (which, despite the fact that it's been going on for a good seven or eight months now, shows no sign of even slowing down). I spent three weeks on the vegetables-and-whole-grain train and have come to the reluctant conclusion that I'm probably stuck there. Every time I try to eat the way I used to, it all comes crashing back, which is to say, I almost go crashing to the floor. I mean, there are worse things in the world than eliminating sugar and white flour from one's diet, but I'd rather do it because of some saintly religious ideal or other instead of "because I frick'n have to." Kind of like one of my bosses eats strictly kosher to serve the glory of God rather than "because I was raised that way." Yes, that's childish, but I'm age-frozen at about twelve and a half, so I can be that way.

Last weekend, Joan and I were upgraded to new BlackBerries by our kindly service provider. Not the Torch, which would have been great, but considering mine is almost five years old, anything is a significant step up. Mine is fuschia, which is just cooler than cool. We had all kinds of trouble getting them up and running, though. There were two trips to Fry's involved and something like four hours spent on the horn with tech support. But, they work now and mine rings to "In a Big Country." It was either that or Warren Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money." Heck, now that I think about it I don't see why I can't use both.

Which brings us, more or less, to the present moment, the only moment that we will ever have, the only moment that matters. Savor the present moment, kids. Especially if you live in North Texas: Savor the brief pause between the blast furnace and the deep freeze, the 90-degree days and the 75-degree nights. They're all too rare in this world of colliding weather systems. And speaking of which, it's the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina today. Having a roof over one's head is a good thing. Having a house that's not under ten feet of water is also a good thing.

Going to renew my flood insurance now. Later.

Dear President-To-Be Obama:

Playing in the background: Jean-Michel Jarre, one of the Chronologies from "Hong Kong"
Meters swum today: 1700

Not that you ever listen to me, guy, but I gotta chime in on this "who should be my vice-president" thing. I mean, I'm sure you've thought about it, but now that only about five people hiding under a rock near Odessa still think Hillary Clinton could be the nominee, the whole choice thing is gonna be the next fierce debate. And I'm sure everybody, from your wife, your close friends and shrewd political advisers to ill-intentioned saboteurs from the national media and anonymous Buddhist bloggers in Dallas, has an opinion. All the same, here are my thoughts:

Not Hillary.

Don't get me wrong. I like the woman. I think she'd do a good job. I voted for her in the primary, even (sorry about that). But after the last few months, I'm positive she's the wrong choice. Why? Well, like I said in the several emails I sent to both of you roughly a year ago (do you ever read your email? You need a Blackberry, dude) voters don't take you seriously if you spend months slamming each other only to suddenly unite in a "dream ticket" as soon as one of you gets booted from serious contention. And yes, you were more of a gentleman about it than she was, but with all that fur flying through the air, none of us think you're capable of suddenly settling down on the couch and sleeping with your heads on each other's backs. (Pardon the cat metaphor.) Either we need to assume you were both lying all this time, or we need to assume that you're lying from this point forward. Gotta be honest with you, neither assumption is an attractive thing in a soon-to-be-saddled-with-every-problem-known-to-humankind world leader no matter who his sidekick turns out to be.

So having said that, here's my suggestion: Janet Napolitano. Yeah, I know she's a Republican and the governor of Arizona. She'd still be fabulous at it. She's tough, smart, a savvy politician and good at what she does. She's also totally cool. I used to know her when. And she's a lot better lookin' than John Edwards. And ol' Outgoing George didn't listen to me when I told him he should put her on the Supreme Court, so she's even available. Kind of.

Thems are my thoughts. Go forth and campaign. Oh, and incidentally, if you do end up picking Hillary, put her in charge of the national health plan. What? She's already done that? Great. She has experience.

Hey, if you want to know how oil from the Saudi wells (and other places) becomes gasoline that powers your car, you really need to go here and read this (thanks, David!) Once you get a look at how frick'n complex it is, you might have a little bit more insight into why gas prices are so high. There's gotta be thousands of people involved with the production of that stuff in your tank. Buy David's book, too, as long as you're there.

More Blackberry Blitzen

You gotta wonder if your new PDA was a mistake when it's featured in a CNN story a week after you get it. Blackberry Blackout Still Unexplained; No Comment from Research in Motion--it all sounds so sinister. See, I told you popping the battery out to make it behave was a bad idea. Next thing I know it'll start emailing pictures of me swapping smooches with Britney Spears to my boss or something. It's smarter than I am, and now it's bent on revenge. I'm in trouble.

What's really interesting about this article, though, are some of the Blackberry users. That one guy they quoted, Mr. Gold, gets a thousand emails a day. You gotta wonder how many of them advertise things that will make your penis bigger. And the Canadian politician who said all of Parliament shut down because nobody could communicate? Uh, hello? Talk to friends much? There's an old Twilight Zone episode where aliens shut off the power in a suburban community and everybody goes bananas. I guess ol' "Bod" Sterling was a pretty sharp guy after all. Here we have one three-hour gap in emails and somehow that's equated to a catastrophe.

Myself, I didn't notice. Well, I noticed in that I was trying (unsuccessfully) most of the evening to check my bank balance, but I didn't attribute that to any global clusterfuck. I just thought that, once again, I couldn't figure the darn thing out, or it couldn't figure out my bank's Web site, or my bank's Web site couldn't figure out how to talk to this tiny thing, or something like that. I don't remember getting furious and calling Research in Motion to berate them for their three-hour gap in service. Then again, I don't get a thousand emails a day, either. I suppose if I missed 125 emails I might be pretty furious, too. (Does that guy ever sleep?)

Which just goes to show something or other about perceptions about whatever's going on, and attributing the cause to something that may not be so. For years I thought I kept catching colds because I went out with my hair wet. Then, when I was about 28, I discovered I had a rare-but-documented-birth-defect-of-the-sinuses and I needed surgery. I had it. Colds went away. Well, not entirely but I don't get sick but once or twice a year now. Also, from the time I was about six I thought I was some kind of train wreck as a human being because I was too fat, couldn't stay on a diet, ate everything that wasn't nailed down. And gee, there was nothing like parents, kids at school and society in general to buck up that little preconceived notion. All fat women are miserable moral failures, you know. (Fat men, on the other hand -- well, that fella must've played him some ball back in college. Nothin' wrong with him but a healthy appetite!)
Now at the ripe old age of pushin' 40 I discover I have a chronic, incurable illness with no name, that's like alcoholism or drug addiction but involves--food.

Imagine my surprise.

In a way, recovering alcoholics have it easy. They look at a bottle of something and if it says, "Contains Alcohol," they just don't drink it. Food, though--kind of necessary for life. Ya don't eat, ya won't have to worry about any of your other problems either, at least if you do it long enough. Yet the treatment, such that there is, involves the same treatment program that's helped zillions of alcoholics. There's an Overeaters Anonymous, people. Yeah, it's hokey, and yeah, it talks about God every five seconds, but I go. Look, I'm the most cynical person on the planet, practically, and I wouldn't have hung around with these folks for five minutes if it didn't, somehow, work. It does. It's weird, but I've decided I'm okay with weird, at least on that level.

This may surprise you, but even though there's this very strong Judeo/Christian thing going on in AA, OA and the related Twelve Step groups, there's no conflict with Buddhism, at least that I can see. The whole Buddhist mindset of remaining in the present moment and being mindful of your actions totally fits in with the Twelve Step thing. To say nothing of this idea that you need to take your hands off the controls and let God drive because you keep crashing into a wall. I'm not especially good at that, but One Day At A Time and so on.

So anyway, next time my Blackberry gives me fits, I'm going to find out if there's something else going on besides a chronic screw loose in the operating system (me). And one of these days I'm going to get my mind around the idea that I couldn't stay on a diet and I ate everything that wasn't nailed down, but it wasn't my fault. It's a disease. Kind of like malformed sinuses.

(Like how I came full circle on that one?)