Archive for December, 2005

I am ruined for Christmas cards.

Growing up, there was always a good chance that when I opened a Christmas card from a grandmother or an aunt or a family friend, something flat, fungible, and quite possibly green would slip out and flutter to the floor. At the height of the phenomenon in early high school, I made out like a jolly Christmas bandit. And when my birthday rolled around a few weeks later, my wallet could engorge itself on a second wave of cards.

As much as I enjoyed the holiday largess, maybe I would have been better off without it. Because today, when finding a heartfelt message from a friend should be worth more than any amount of money, I find myself reading their words through a thin layer of disappointment that their loving sentiments weren’t hidden behind a greenback or two. It’s not even rational. I could find a card taped to a case of champagne or resting on the hood of a new Ferrari, and I would still be disappointed not to find a check for $10 tucked inside.

My soul-rot could take a while to clear out, but hopefully I can help out the next generation by holding out on them. Not that I actually send Christmas or birthday cards, but I imagine I’ll get around to it some day, and when I do, we’ll keep it traditional. Open up the card and find … nothing? Another, smaller card reading “it’s for your own good”? Anthrax? OK, not anthrax. But no cash, no checks.

Actually, maybe checks that bounce. That’ll teach them.

Even though the statement comes with enough caveats to choke a horse, it’s nice to be able to say “Oh yeah, I was in GQ one time.” You know, without lying, like when I said it before. more…

I have swallowed my pride and set up a blog. General Nonfiction Pulitzer Prize, here I come. If I had a cat, I would write about how wonderful she is, but life finds me without a cat, so I have backfilled this with some older things I had written to make it look busy.

I refused to use emoticons for the first few years because I thought they were plebian, and I even went through a phase in high school where I refused to use conjunctions. If Dan can do this, there must be relatively little linguistic harm in it.

This post has been emoticon- and conjunction-free.

You have two choices when it comes to eating in Japan: stick to the tried and true and only eat things you’re already comfortable with, or just give up and eat whatever creatures happen to be for sale. I opted for the latter. more…