the Scrooge in all of us...

"It's Christmas time, the season of perpetual hope!"... yes Mrs. MacAllister it is, but you also left your son at home while you vacationed in Paris!

It happens to the best of us, the holiday season arrives and normally people instantaneously become nicer, or most do anyway. I am one of those. I'm a giver. If I have a dollar, I spend it and share... it's great, but also a wrath since I tend to be the one who buys rounds after rounds when at the bar, but some people don't seem to reciprocate.

I tried to force the spirit unto me by putting up the Christmas lights on the roof, dressing up the house in holiday decor and putting on some holiday colored sweaters. I even went to a friends house who incidentally use up about 1/2 the states electricity resources for the winter and helped them decorate their house... it looks pretty darn good, especially the elves playing baseball in the yard. That trick of imposing the spririt on me worked for about 3 days..

Then I tried to go shopping with a friend to get her presents... it just got me depressed, but also I have realized that I am becoming more and more in hate with large crowds of people with no direction, and my legs hurt (I'm getting old-er ... soon approaching 30)

This year was the first year, since I can remember, that my family didn't get gifts from me for Christmas. It's the times... but aside from the material I have lost a bit of the sense of one of my favorite holidays ever. Is it because gift giving is the meaning of the holiday to me..? I don't know really, but I didn't care to be much a part of the festivities besides wanting to get inebriated and that couldnt really happen either because I was ill. All this together wanted to create a Scrooge in me... or bring out the Scrooge in me.

Alas, the holiday has passed and I survived... the Christmas tree remains in my parent's home and it won't come down until after January 6th, 3 Kings Day. Normally we would get presents on that day, but not Gold, Frankincense or Myrrh... this year I hope its a salary.

So this season of hope was more a season of dope... It went by with a meagerness, not too eventful and a bit depressing. At least the sun came out today and well, tomorrow is another day but hopefully in a years time Santa will be back around with more surprises.

Tick, tock, tick, tock....

Those things that you encounter day in and day out that remind you of something so vividly: an event... or person.... or experience.
Its like a bomb has gone off and the vividness of the memory gradually depletes, creating the down slope of a bell curve.
Although sometimes, as is the situation at hand, the encounter providing the memory is stagnant, causing what would be seen as a traffic jam at the top of the bell curve on the way down. The memory replays over and over again, and although the memory is beautiful, it causes for a bit of discomfort and anger due to the steadfast effort to disassociate, in hopes that the light would turn green or that the vehicle would grow wings.
Nevertheless, uninvited memories, beautiful or not, are a forced way of reflecting, which in turn is good for the soul. For that matter, I will continue to sit at the top of the bell curve, and nurture my soul.


Free Write @ Chapman University Library.

the middle of the holiday season.

It's here- the long awaited day of eating so much great food to the point of discomfort that you need to rest 5 minutes before you do it 7 more times... an hour.

I am briefly reminded of a time that I decided I would host Thanksgiving dinner for what ended up being 2.5 people, I sure wasn't the half. For some reason I was over zealous and prepared food for a family of 10: a 19-pound turkey, rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes, carrot ginger soup, cranberry sauce, stuffing, 4-cheese macaroni, 3 pies and then some... Needless to say I had nothing to do but eat for the following 3 days with good company... and to top it off about 7 large bags of discounted Halloween peanut M&M's were consumed during the breaks of the feasting. I want the entirety of 2006 Thanksgiving recreated this year!

Sadly, I think it will be different... and not just for me but for a multitude of people around the world- even those that don't know they are celebrating Thanksgiving. As "American" of a "holiday" that it is, the idea is present- be thankful, as we should be all the time. But this time around, the tables and bellies of the majority of people eating dinner on November 27, 2008 will be less full. I say majority because i can't help but notice the amount of people that flaunt the fact that they have not really been affected by the recession/ depression. While some of us have liquidated their IRA at 25 so that we can eat and pump gas (gladly gas has gone down now!), others have not even remotely noticed, besides whats over played on the news, that the economy and a lot of people are suffering. Yeah there is 16% unemployment rate... what's it to them, they've got money in the bank, or daddy's credit card.

Recently at a panel discussion in Santa Barbara, California on the Future of Non-Profits in Santa Barbara it was reiterated that non-profits everywhere are in a difficult situation. Most already face hardship because of limited resources, especially financial, but this time around they are to act as the safety net for the previously mentioned sufferers. The fact that charities are to act as the safety net, event for government programs is huge. But it also goes to show the importance of the sector and the amount of support that should be given and how much more is needed.... Otherwise we may all go under... like is said to be in the UK.

I guess this episode of gibberish is just that. Now I am just waiting for traffic to die down on one of the busiest travel days of the year so that I can drive to the place that will host my gluttonous adventure tomorrow evening...

Until next time, I'll keep on pondering...

numero uno, not the pizza....

yes audience, its the first one of these... and since I am not quite sure what my audiences' demographics consist of, then this one's for you American....

Oh beautiful for gracious skies, for amber waves of grain... yes America the Beautiful, and the historicity of yesterdays squander being it the presidential election gave it that much more beauty. Barack Obama, who I was impartial to initially (I kinda wanted another Clinton for a bit), won the title of king of the world. Well President of the United States of America, and the synonymous titles that accompany, inclusive of, or so some presidents seem to play out (aka dubbya) King of the World, otherwise seen as equivilent to Fernando Cortez, he who massacred a large majority of the indigenous in the new world... things go full circle? now the new world does the same to developing countires.. and so we carry on.

The resonance and feeling of pride and glory for the red white and blue was huge last night! The hair on my arm was at full attention when Charles Gibson officially announced the US of A's first African American president... and those who know me would know that my arm hair at attention is quite a sight to see. Soon after, McCain (and his cheek) came to the mic to concede from the Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona. Not one inch of me liked him, well maybe the jokes made about him throughout the campaign, but when he gave this speech, I loved him. He became a new person that was able to hush up the booing elephants in his crowd, and his heart opened up and showed that he was indeed human, as opposed to many extreme conservative republicans now a days. I admired the camaraderie in the concession and the offering to help with the troubles of the nation even though he did not win. Better luck next time... and tip- don't choose a random no body as your VP, especially if they aren't going to fully support your platform. I guess you didnt know that either...

The 15 minute agonizing wait between J.McC's speech and the acceptance speech by the new king of the world was trecherous. With my arm hair still at attention and a feeling of joy, happiness and a bit of remorse for not having been more active during the 20 month campaign sweeping my entire being, I almost found myelf in tears for being able to witness and live through such a historical event. I closed my eyes briefly and placed myself in the civil rights movement, when individuals were denied their human rights on the basis of skin color, and now that same skin color was going to lead a country of 305-million peeps. I felt damn good and then a wave of excitement was shouting from the T.V. as the President-elect was walking up on stage in Grant Park, Chicago in front of hundreds of thousands of supporters. He praised all the important people in his life, Michelle, Malia and Sasha, his late grandmother... but most importantly it was his calling to those that did not vote for him that I was most gratified with. He urged a unification of those that opposed him, the other 46% of the nation that went the other way, for a workable 4 years.

The night left me drained. I felt great becuase of the results of the presidential election. Alternatively I felt deceived by my own state (as if I had my own state since Ive claimed so-said residency in about 3 others around the nation) for not tackling Prop 8; one which strips the human rights of people, yet passed Prop 4, one which gives rights to animals... and dont get me wrong I love animals, except for the occasional fly I swat, or the ant that I pin between my thumb and index finger. The commercials were deceiving and people ceased to educate them selves on the repercussions in passing Prop 8, selfishness and religion aside.

I guess its just a new platform to be even more aggressive in the fight for justice, along with the various other issues that the USA needs to address and fix ASAP; education at the top of my list.

Until next time, I'm going to go read my book and educate myself.