GGWoo

The Christmas Blur

Even though we put up a tree, our Christmas this year was, as most have been in the past, overtly Jewish in that since we had no plans to do anything nor any desire to cook nor much of anything food-wise in the cupboards. So we loaded up and found in the 100-mile radius around our back-woodsy, redneck part of Sullivan county, the one open all you can eat Chinese buffet (in which we were the only people there) and debated over the rapidly congealing Pecan Chicken and General Tso's. Inevitably, since we'd driven all that way, we went ahead and ate the stuff that appeared to be warmish/hot but stayed away from the sushi and then just had time to make a movie playing at the Cineplex next door. All in all, it was very much less like a Hallmark holiday card but because we were pretty much still in our pajama's sans underwear, it was divinely comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that we stayed in our underwear-less pajama state for pretty much the whole four days we were off. Now I beg anyone to argue with that.

Of course being home with nothing going on meant hours and hours knitting in front of the TV. I started a new, wide scarf for myself in hopes of finishing it before the season is out this year and with nothing on network TV, we literally watched anything on any satellite channel that just happened to be on, including 10 hours of the History Channel's religious specials spanning 'Heaven and Hell', 'The Bible Code', 'Banned From the Bible', 'Who Wrote The Bible', and 'Nostradamus: 500 Years Later'.

World Idol was on Christmas night and if we thought we weren’t pathetic enough to watch it, then someone was smoking crack. While I was going in full of Kelly Clarkson, it soon became apparent that Canada, Australia, and Norway had it going on in spades while Kelly's endless trilling had Mariah Carrey Eventual Breakdown written all over it.

In preparation for endless days spent on the couch not wearing underwear, I'd gone to Borders prior to leaving the city before holiday and stocked up on books including two tomes of gay short stories, one, Death Comes Easy, dealt with homos and murder which, after reading several of the shorts, prompted me to recommend it via e-mail to Max at lonebraincell.com. Needless to say I've only ever emailed him once before to ask for the passwords to read his erotica on his site yet felt compelled to send him the current books recommendation because, "I'd gotten the feeling from your writing that you have a certain interest in violence and forced submission." This isn't exactly something I'd even offer to mention to my best friend but then again, since I don't particularly have a best friend currently, why not offer it up to a complete stranger? The other book, The Music of Your Life, was somehow linked to another anthology of gay shorts I was looking for and which Borders happend to have on hand. Delightfully stereotypical in an inoffensive way, I thought and wished I had someone specific to recommend it to except no one I know is a flamboyant theater queen or wacko show-tunes lover (and while Bill is THE theater/show-tunes man of men, he's neither flamboyant nor wacko) so I just feel the need to recommend it to anyone who likes gay short stories set in either North Carolina and/or New York City.

And because it's Christmas time, I decided to cast off any of those nagging doubts about buying gifts for oneself and bought the first five items on my Amazon wish list. My new rule for the new year is keeping the list below 120 items which I violated last week thus prompting the purchases.

To sum up, going shower-less and without underwear for four days while doing nothing more strenuous than knitting, getting up to go to the bathroom, or turning a page is the best present to one's self you could possibly give.