I’m actually going to decorate for Christmas this year. And by “I’m”, I really mean we, and by “we” I really mean Joe. A couple of strings of white lights from the $.99 store (yes, we really have one, as well as a $.48 store…and a Sheetz), maybe a tiny electric tree that spins on a ceramic pedestal and chimes “Here Comes Santa Claus” in a warbling electric tone until it loses a circuit, whereupon it will slowly grind to a halt and start demanding your change in a low, robot voice as you pass it by…yeah, I think we’ll have a pretty little Culver City apartment when we’re through. I might even try and buy a flag pole so I can post my huge American flag from the balcony. Piss off all the local liberals. That’s pretty festive.
It’s been seven years or so since I last decorated with any enthusiasm. When I was a kid I kept a box in my closet filled with that white stuffing you put in couches. I had strips of it that, when placed in a configuration that resembled a drunk Kelsey Grammer’s tire tracks after bouncing home from the strip joint, simulated a snowy surface upon my inner window sash. I would then make paper snowflakes and tape them to the different panes, stick my crochet’d jolly snowman in the middle, and line up the custom-designed oven-baked dough letters I had made when I was ten (painted in alternating green and red). When I stepped back, what was displayed was a beautiful tableau of faux-Christmas spirit, proudly whispering “Merry Christmas”, illuminated by electric window candles. Yes, those were the good days.
Since then I’ve grown cynical and lazy. And by “cynical and lazy” I mean I went to college. Which is really all college truly teaches you to be, anyway. If you happen to come out with a degree in something other than a B.S. in Jadedness & Despair, then you’re considered marketable. I’m not sure what left me more jaded about Christmas though, my college days or my parents splitting up just after Christmas of my freshman year. That was the year that mom left and never came back or called. We called the police thinking maybe there’d been an accident. But she had just vanished like tupperware on the day after Thanksgiving sale.
The very next year I declined to even go home for Christmas. I spent Christmas morning at my then-place of employment, the Veterinary Hospital. It was sunny and cold, and flurries were falling, and it was probably the most miserable I’d ever been since beginning the old college try.
So you might say, my college years were formative in shaping my Christmas humbuggedness. I always did cry at various Christmas movies though. A Christmas Carol (both the George C. Scott version and the Muppets one) always started the salt water flowing, but of course the big one was It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s funny, I often hear how people are tired of that movie, probably because it comes on network tv and plays non-stop for a month. But I own the DVD, and not the crappy colourized version either. I’ll watch it again this year, and cry when George Bailey comes back to the land of the living. *Sniff!*
I finally received the script for the film I’m editing, 13 Months of Sunshine. I read the script last night, and it’s as good as I hoped it would be. With good actors, it shouldn’t be too difficult to make this film go places. It will be a good date movie, and not just for Ethiopians.
My book is barreling along nicely now. I’m getting to the exciting payoff for all the buildup, and I’m finding my pace, learning to write action scenes with a little more excitement than I’m used to describing, but also building up suspense, so that when the big climax comes, it’ll be like I’m punching you in the face. But not literally.
I’ll have a post up soon about my personal peeve with the use of the word “literally” to describe something figurative, and I’ll call out one of the English language’s celebrated literary geniuses in several shady, if not outright incorrect applications of the word. Like, literally dude. Peace out.