'Being Awesome' Is The Same As 'Preparing For The Worst'

I was so proud of myself -- started ordering everyone's presents in October, a few at a time so I had plenty of money in the bank. Had it all pretty much done about a week ago. Just in time to hear last weekend that the people we rent our house from want to move back into it.

They gave us until December 31st.

We're going to have to find a place that doesn't suck, but will take 7 people, a dog and a cat, in like a week. And then move all our mutual shit into it -- in late December. IN ALASKA. Do you know how icy a U-Haul can get? I do. Don't back it up a hill, or it's a tractionless deathtrap inside.

I know this from moving, last January, into the house we currently live in. The hill is still there. So will the tractionless deathtrap. FML

So now is the cut-off on ordering things to my current address...yay for early Christmas shopping. And also, getting the last order in for "Cyber Monday" (not what I thought at first, thankfully) brought me this little bit of lol as I reviewed my order:

So, silver lining...I don't know where I'm going to live and that's only the first step of a journey of a thousand chilly cardboard boxes full of jumbled miscellany that is all my earthly possessions, but my checkout looks like I'm buying a headless Venus de Milo Bratz doll -- at least, if you squint a little.

Incorporeal-Corporeal Incorporated

So I enjoy an extremely hypothetical theory that the whole form and function of what makes me me is run like an impersonal, high-level business; thousands of workers, hundreds of middle-managers, unknown zillions of support staff repairing copiers and refilling water coolers. Myriad branch offices, housed in towering office buildings of many different realms; Memory, Reasoning, Skills & Talents, etc. There are many departments and divisions within each, and they don't network with each other very well. They're all just trying to get through the day; hoping no one catches them looking at pictures of cats, or asks them why the copier still isn't working. They all got where they are today on the Peter Principle (no, okay, for realsies) and have no real idea what they're doing.

This fanciful theory has been evidenced to me countless times; in fact, "incidents" from my tiny legion of bumblers happen almost every day. The latest snafu has been at the Psychosomatics Office, a liaison between the Divisions of Physical- and Emotional-Distress; the Chief has been going through a rough patch with the wife, and somewhere between abusing his prescription muscle relaxers and the sleepless nights on the couch, his ability to make executive decisions became a curse instead of a blessing. Little experiential aides keep popping their heads 'round the door with unwanted minutiae, and in all his rage and the fatigue, there's only one call he feels ready to make:

Meanwhile...

I appreciate that you've got stuff going on, man. But, nausea for everything? Is that absolutely necessary? Get back to me.

With The Power Of My Mind

Poor tiny puffballs

Every year, October becomes the battleground of my passionate, if newly-made, seasonal convictions: Your costume should not be covered by a parka. You do not trick-or-treat past snowmen. THERE IS NO SNOWING ON HALLOWEEN.

Alaska does not agree.

Snow, snow, inevitable snow. It usually starts to dust in late September, early October -- but that first attack better land hard, because after that, my guards is up -- and I hold the inevitable forces of Winter at bay, with the power of my mind.

Yeah, I'm crazy. It's okay, you can say it. I know.

But perhaps losing your mind strengthens it, because although it's now solidly November there's still only about 2 inches of snow on the ground -- held back, ostensibly, by my awesome no-snow brain powers. Admittedly, Winter and I got through October in a tense standoff where there was no snow because it was too cold to snow, but it warmed up and got down to business a bit since November rolled around...but not up to Alaska's usual ha-ha-screw-you standard. Did I, like, break it?

What year is it??

The grass is bare, exposed, yet frozen solid -- if you walk on it, it breaks with a gritty crunch. You could mow your lawn by shuffling. Fallen leaves are preserved without decay in icy casings. It's like we put Fall on ice up here in the land of the Ragin' Anchor. I'm starting to fear my own powers; I'm going to end up a Batman villain if I don't watch it.

Baby's First F-Bomb

I learned "the F-Word" in first grade, as so many things are at that age; contextually, on the playground.

I had to observe carefully as it was most frequently said by bigger kids, who had to be given a wide berth; they were volatile, unpredictable, and had superior reach. However, it was obviously an expression of anger at one's own misfortune, such as when you miss the ball, stub your toe or someone plays a trick on you. That seemed clear enough...but it seems I had missed some social connotations, and as a only a nascent social scientist, had not correlated the lack of teacher presence when the dreaded "F-Word" was said.

So when I was riding home with my mother one afternoon and she was rudely cut off in traffic, I implemented my new understanding with a sympathetic "Fuck" at her plight -- which almost caused her to really crash the car.

She was also, unfortunately, giving a coworker a ride home that day. They had never ridden with us before, and never did again -- leaving me to wonder what impression my first "Fuck" left on this nameless grown-up, and whether the maiden voyage of my F-bomb contributed in any way. How it affected her work environment, I still dare not inquire.

Let The Hate Fail to Flow Through You

Murder...murder...murder...snuggle.

Hope that made your day like it made mine.

Oh, The Human - Uh - Tea

So, this is our obese baby bear cat. Lola.

Class act, I know

She does cat things -- lays on shit; demands food and attention; makes terrible, terrible things in the litter box -- you know, all that good cat stuff. However, she also has a hobby. A worrying, and somehow strangely refined, hobby.

She drinks tea. Tea of Human.

To clarify, this is not Human Tea like "Look, she's eating People Food, how adorable" -- she drinks hot water in which people have been steeped.

Okay, it's also referred to as bathwater.

Or rather, shower water; she hops into the tub right after we've showered, and laps at the little puddles. She looks up at me, licking her little chops while I towel off...highly unsettling. It's not exactly a taste for blood, but if she starts licking me at night I'm gonna sleep with the door locked. She already tries to suffocate me at night by sleeping on my face. If I don't post after a few weeks, direct the authorities to check the catbox. Tell them to bring a gas mask.

Countdown To Possibility

It's sort of a sad joke how many times I've missed a day and had to do the old two-the-next-day dance, more of an expensive habit of self-denial that this is actually a form of birth control and not just recreational pill-swallowing...but the real point here is I inevitably had to peel off that little strip of reordered days to make the pill calendar match reality, and now it starts on Friday. Pretty bass-ackwards, right? Except, as expected*, I started reading into it way too much. Are you ready? Here we go!

It's a countdown to the nascency of fun.  Not a countdown to the weekend per se, as that would involve the sticker starting on Monday. Nor to weekend nights and all they entail; that would be the standard start on Sunday that comes on the package. This is something a little more esoteric.

Everyone who gets as ramped up about Christmas as I do (I've already started singing the songs) knows, the best part of Christmas isn't Christmas Day; it's Christmas Eve. Having sung songs, shopped, cooked, decorated and sung some more for 24 days, one reaches a beautifully cider-simmering fever pitch that culminates on the Eve, where all preparations and adult organization disintegrates back into straight-up childhood anticipation. Even with all the gift receipts wadded in your bag, you're still thinking: Ohboyohboyohboy SANTA'S COMING.

It's not the actual gifts, or food; it's the anticipation of them. Reality hardly ever compares to the fantasy of what's just around the corner. So in theory the most exciting day of the week is Friday, when you can't wait to clock out, get home, and start having all that fun. My bizarro personal calendar counts down through those disappointing non-Fridays, so that when I reach the start of a new row, I feel like I'm at the peak of some great precipice of promise, about to take the plunge back down into mediocrity. It lends a certain inertia to the workweek, I must say. In an almost terminal feedback loop, I am now starting to get excited on Thursdays for the exciting nascency of Fridays. Told you I'd read way to much into this.



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*Author's Note: It is weirdly difficult to write expect after except. Watch out for that one.