9:55 p.m. - 2006-01-02
Holiday Round-up
The holidays are finally over. The sparkling lights and candles have been methodically snuffed out, the spilt wassail mopped up, loved ones and family already forgotten for another year. This year was better than most, holiday-wise, but there is still relief, a sense of "good riddance to glad tidings", and one looks forward to getting on with one's life. Or, for those of us with no particular life to speak of: non-holiday television.
A LOT of non-holiday television.
Yes, it's true: Kia made the call and we're drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. We're getting CABLE. CABLE TV! The amount of tv available to us is about to explode, and I don't know if it's going to be the best or the worst thing to ever happen to us, but years from now if we find that we've become obese, I think we can safely pinpoint 2006 as the beginning of our enlargening.
Holiday activities this year included but were not limited to:
*Not going to Michigan! Much as I enjoy my large and insane family, I made the Michigan trip (Detroit/Flint area) early in the fall and I just didn't have another trip in me for Christmas. Plus, Christmas at my mom's house poses something of a challenge to my nervous system.
*Hanging around Kia's mom's house and looking at slides of younger versions of the Karlen family. This was fascinating because Kia and her sister Missy often wore matching outfits as young children and also Kia's mom Barb had kind of a Mary Tyler Moore look going on in the sixties.
*Christmas Eve church...with a children's jesus birth pagaent! Absolutely riveting, probably because I couldn't tell what the fuck any of those kids were saying onstage.
*Playing for drunk people on New Year's Eve. On this holiday, there seems to be a custom of enjoying spirituous beverages and then going forth into public to bother the vibes player who's distractedly trying to figure out which song he's faking his way through. One such reveller asked to play cowbell on something, and she was fairly polite about it but wouldn't leave me alone, so I finally relented and let her play it on a song. Was she good? No. I could tell because while she was playing the cowbell no one yelled "MORE COWBELL!" like everyone always does ever since they had that one sketch on tv where Christopher Walken keeps telling the Blue Oyster Cult guy to play more cowbell. It was a funny scene and all, but, sheesh, let's give it a rest sometimes. Okay, people?
*Seeing a couple movies
King Kong: Well, this one has a familiar story: A giant monkey, lured by the bright lights of broadway and dreams of stardom leaves Giant Monkey, Dinosaur and Terrifying Natives Island, goes to New York and gets his big break. Somewhere along the way he becomes involved with an attractive blonde, which causes controversy in the giant monkey community. Substance abuse problems follow, and soon the giant monkey and the blonde are destitute and embark on a cross-country crime spree, which ends tragically and in slow motion as the two are gunned down next to their car by revenuers. Entertaining, but each scene went on about a half-hour too long.
and Side Effects, a confused little movie about the phamaceutical industry. It's not funny when it's trying to be and not moving when it's trying to be, either. But the lead is pretty, in a sort of vacant 70's supermodel kind of way, and they shot lots of exteriors in Madison, which kept us distracted as we'd observe, Hey, that's our dry-cleaners! That's that place we went in that one time when every other place was closed! That's the street where we found those socks! and so forth.
And now, on to the New Year, with fresh hope and wisdom garnered from the year past. Now would be a really good place to have a quote by one of the great poets suited to the occasion, but these diary entries are poorly researched and I've never bothered to memorize any poems. So, to end this entry, I'll leave some space and let you recall some moving poetry or imagine some of your own. Here goes:
Beautiful! I could never have said someting so profound in such simple yet musical language. Happy New Year to us all!
