Gladys, my wayward ovary, is now scheduled for laparoscopic repairs on January 30. Personally, I'd prefer to just take her out to dinner and a movie and try to patch up our differences, but there you are. She remains completely unrepentant, and oblivious to the fact that her partner, Muriel, hasn't given me any problems in --oh, I'd say a good twenty years. There's no pleasing some folks.

Went out sledding yesterday for the first time in at least two decades; this is one of the benefits of having a niece and nephew, of course. A whole bunch of assorted relatives and friends hauled various slippery objects out to an Indianapolis golf course, then deliberately sat or lay down on said objects and allowed other relatives and friends to push us down the hill. Someone had previously constructed a little hillock in the snow for everyone's coccyx-breaking pleasure; this permitted us to make two discoveries:

1. When you're trying to hit a big bump in the snow on purpose, you'll find the task quite difficult.
2. When you're hoping to miss the tallest part of the bump, you'll usually hit it dead-on.

Rick and I now hold the men's and women's solo altitude and hang-time records for the Sarah Shank Golf Course sled run in the over-45 division. We are now entertaining bids to endorse two different prescription anti-inflammatory drugs. Just wanted the big pharmaceutical companies to know we were available.

Time was, you could get at least a bit of airplay because your sound was new and different, and no one cared if your teeth were crooked and your hair fit no particular style and every time you approached the mike you warned it into submission with your very own brand of ocelot snarl. You could get loud. You could get angry. You could rock if you wanted to. You could even rock the Casbah if you had a mind to do it ....

We'll miss you, Joe Strummer.

I really don't like or enjoy Christmas and never did, not even as a child. I also have a strong suspicion that this is a majority opinion, although most people skirt this issue instead of coming out and admitting it.

It's not at all a matter of religious dogma. I don't personally believe in supernatural phenomena, but I have no philosophical quarrel with the idea of religious holidays; in fact, I'm at least somewhat religious in some Unitarian Universalist sense of the word. I also enjoy seeing members of my family (from both the birth side and the marriage side). There are no deeply buried childhood traumas involved; nothing Dickensian or Ortonian to mess up the holiday meme for life. I was an only child who always got too many Christmas presents and was indulged to the extent of my extended family's means. And, I'm all for the idea of taking time off to feast and enjoy life.

The thing I can't stand is the artificiality. The standard American Christmas ritual reminds me of weddings, which are occasions that I don't much like either. What weddings and Christmas have in common is that they're monuments to ridiculously unimportant "perfection" that no one can define but which causes all sorts of stressed-out misery when people can't somehow achieve it. The idea that perfection is an impossible human conceit that doesn't exist -- a supernatural idea in its own right -- never seems to occur to anyone. I've known people who threw five-figure weddings for their offspring (what college fund, Mom and Dad?) while none of the participants seemed to have given fifteen minutes of thought to what the actual marriage would mean. And I've seen people yell at their kids for unwrapping and enjoying their Christmas presents before someone could whip out a camera and nab the moment for the future without the bother of actually experiencing it.

Last night, though, we had the kind of celebration at our home that could make me actually enjoy holidays. About twenty friends came over -- most of them activists of the Green and peace-movement variety -- and we had a wonderful vegetarian potluck dinner. No one bought or exchanged gifts. No one swore at the decorations while trying to get them "just perfect" -- all we needed was a string of lights around the living-room picture window and a few red and green table decorations. The group included Christians, Unitarians, pagans, and atheists. Some of us (including myself) are omnivores, but by happy accident, no animals were killed for our dinner last night.
Nothing was ostentatious, and everything was fun. It was just twenty friends together, eating terrific homemade food off our variety of mismatched tableware, drinking wine and coffee and sparkling grape juice, and enjoying completely uncensored conversation. The guitars, keyboards, and percussion instruments eventually came out and were put to good use. There was no caroling, but one friend's blues-guitar talents provided a uniquely religious experience.

The youngest people there were in their early twenties. The oldest was eighty-three. Everyone had something good to say to and about everyone else. I think I'll actually be able to listen to Bob Rivers' "Twisted Christmas" and laugh instead of cringing with recognition now. :-)

That's it for now. (Congrats on your graduation, Gail, and on becoming a dad, Andy. Get well soon, Joyce.)