Sixfoot6.com - Putting Stuff Away.

Notes on Aging and Xmas

posted Dec 26, 2005, 12:33 PM | 3 Comments

I have one of those December birthdays that leads to early submission into kindergarten and "this will count for both" combination gifts, so family, aging, celebration, shopping, eating and the new year get rolled into one snowball. Jenny compiled a great holiday slideshow of much of that stuff. I have a few thoughts.

1. December has really flown by, especially when I consider that I work out of my house. No commuting time or hours to clock in at an office, and yet time keeps speeding up. I'm chalking this up to age, since when you're 5, one year is an eternal FIFTH of your life. Now a year is but a wisp.
2. I've had Lazy Sunday and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah stuck in my head for a full week.
3. Jenny's cooking just kicks more and more ass. She created this birthday pear tart without a recipe. With a rice steamer, juicer and dope casserole dish arriving in her stocking, our new year looks tasty.
4. Rounding 28 has brought with it physical curiosities. Dark hairs grow off the tip of my nose, and everywhere on the rim of my left ear. ONLY MY LEFT EAR, NEVER THE RIGHT. When I'm nervous, sometimes the left ear gets hot. I clench my teeth sometimes. Sitting at this desk is affecting my back and eyesight. I get ornery about people bothering me while I'm doing the dishes.
5. Socks and sweaters turn out to be nice gifts. Who has money for their own sweaters? Nobody.
6. My family had plans to cut back this Christmas, but that didn't quite go down. Maybe giving (and shopping) has become so wired into us that we can't hold back. I threw some handmade gifts into the mix. Maybe I'll share pictures. We were hoping that a milder Xmas would mean more time together and less time at the mall. The highlight was a trip to Edaville Railroad, where I went for my 8th birthday. We sat in the caboose. The lights were beautiful.
7. We live as stuff-accruing machines. This is not sustainable.
8. Lovely to have Jenny sharing our traditions (drinks at Gilda's on the 23rd, Xmas Eve in Fatty's kithcen, coffee and presents 9am Xmas morning, noonish breakfast [Jenny's gingerbread pancakes were yummy], an evening at my aunt's house in Barnstable, lasanga, word games).
9. Asshole is still the best card game evar.

Time Before Time

posted Dec 13, 2005, 12:51 PM | 2 Comments

Funny, isn't it, the dissonance of memory? Songs you once loved seem recent and new, but the events that accompanied them far gone. Words I wrote in 2000 seem internet fresh, but I don't remember ever writing them. And that was like 15 site designs ago, a mesozoic era gone in webby time.

It relaxes me, I think, to balance the now across the before and the after.

Itching For Change

posted Dec 12, 2005, 08:09 PM | 1 Comments

You try to do something nice for the children and families of this community, and what do you get? Itchy ankles, my friend. HORRIBLE, ITCHY ANKLES.

Two weeks ago I told myself, "Self, it's high time to rescue the sidewalk from all them branches and leaves." 200 feet of sidewalk consumed by years of neglect. Kids walking in the street. Pine needles everywhere. Mass hysteria. So I rallied up some rakes and clippers and spent the last wek of November fighting mother nature in the name of civilization and truth and all that is good and right. I sliced back the brush, dug out the turf. I did a good thing. And for some reason did it I wearing neither sandals nor gloves.

Apparently half of that turf was poison ivy or sumac or something. I'm a good boy scout and everything, but I didn't see no leaflets three. All was cool until four days marching around NYC this past weekend rubbed bubbling oils all up and down every inch of my foots. Flaming feet on the Fung Wah bus. DON'T ITCH DON'T TOUCH THEM PINK ELEPHANTS ITCHY ELEPHANTS.

Well, at least it's not on my face anymore. The Phantom de L'Ivy has left the building.