Thursday, December 25, 2014
Merry Christmas!
Well, there’s really no way around it: my 2014 was pretty terrible, and not just because the Saved by the Bell Lifetime Movie turned out to be kind of underwhelming. My dad passed away unexpectedly and my mom got sick. Overnight I went from gossiping about whether Beth from accounting had lap band surgery and googling my own name to see if my undergrad had finally taken down my terrible haiku poetry to arguing with insurance companies about how many x-rays is too many x-rays and wondering whether “On Eagle’s Wings” has actually become mandatory for memorial services. I helped pick out cemetery plots, only later noticing their dangerous proximity to a tombstone bearing the image of two larger individuals riding a motorcycle, and tracked down back issues of The Utne Reader to take to hospital rooms. I realized yet again that I learned absolutely nothing of any practical use in law school.
None of which is to say that this year was entirely bad. My mom got better. And introduced me to the wonders of HGTV’s Love It or List It. I took in one of my parents’ dogs, a beagle/dachshund mix with the style and attitude of a mid-career Diana Ross, who enriched my life by gently nosing me awake each morning at four and rightly despising the many pirate and princess and cheerleader costumes I inexplicably purchased for her. I went to the Mall of America, where you can find that perfect mix of Old Navy Performance Fleece and indoor log flume rides run by glue-sniffing teenagers who may or may not have just broken up with their girlfriends, and the Minnesota State Fair, where you can experience cutting-edge art composed solely out of dairy products. I appeared in an educational video for traffic court defendants, because that is a thing. So yeah, bereavement is rough, but Midwestern mini-vacations and Canadian couples whose televised real estate misadventures have murder/suicide written all over them sort of make it bearable? Somehow I feel my wit and wisdom on this subject is unlikely to be gathered for an inspirational volume with a forward by Nancy Grace any time soon.
The holidays, of course, present a special conundrum. How can you focus on handcrafting all 197 characters from A Christmas Carol out of toilet paper tubes and twine in the face of such grievous loss? Under the circumstances, is it even right to spend time delivering a body block to a swarthy woman in a tube top over the last pair of clearance L.A. Gears at Shoe Carnival? And what, exactly, is the exact nature of the relationship between Lady Gaga and Kermit the Frog? It’s all very disturbing. But ultimately, we have to put these questions aside and just move forward, because, well, that’s what human beings do. There’s a reason we’re still here hardening our arteries with cheese fries and polluting the hell out of our environment in our Chrysler LeBarons while, say, the Malagasy Hippopotamus totally crapped out in 1000 A.D. We’re built to survive.
Well, there’s really no way around it: my 2014 was pretty terrible, and not just because the Saved by the Bell Lifetime Movie turned out to be kind of underwhelming. My dad passed away unexpectedly and my mom got sick. Overnight I went from gossiping about whether Beth from accounting had lap band surgery and googling my own name to see if my undergrad had finally taken down my terrible haiku poetry to arguing with insurance companies about how many x-rays is too many x-rays and wondering whether “On Eagle’s Wings” has actually become mandatory for memorial services. I helped pick out cemetery plots, only later noticing their dangerous proximity to a tombstone bearing the image of two larger individuals riding a motorcycle, and tracked down back issues of The Utne Reader to take to hospital rooms. I realized yet again that I learned absolutely nothing of any practical use in law school.
None of which is to say that this year was entirely bad. My mom got better. And introduced me to the wonders of HGTV’s Love It or List It. I took in one of my parents’ dogs, a beagle/dachshund mix with the style and attitude of a mid-career Diana Ross, who enriched my life by gently nosing me awake each morning at four and rightly despising the many pirate and princess and cheerleader costumes I inexplicably purchased for her. I went to the Mall of America, where you can find that perfect mix of Old Navy Performance Fleece and indoor log flume rides run by glue-sniffing teenagers who may or may not have just broken up with their girlfriends, and the Minnesota State Fair, where you can experience cutting-edge art composed solely out of dairy products. I appeared in an educational video for traffic court defendants, because that is a thing. So yeah, bereavement is rough, but Midwestern mini-vacations and Canadian couples whose televised real estate misadventures have murder/suicide written all over them sort of make it bearable? Somehow I feel my wit and wisdom on this subject is unlikely to be gathered for an inspirational volume with a forward by Nancy Grace any time soon.
The holidays, of course, present a special conundrum. How can you focus on handcrafting all 197 characters from A Christmas Carol out of toilet paper tubes and twine in the face of such grievous loss? Under the circumstances, is it even right to spend time delivering a body block to a swarthy woman in a tube top over the last pair of clearance L.A. Gears at Shoe Carnival? And what, exactly, is the exact nature of the relationship between Lady Gaga and Kermit the Frog? It’s all very disturbing. But ultimately, we have to put these questions aside and just move forward, because, well, that’s what human beings do. There’s a reason we’re still here hardening our arteries with cheese fries and polluting the hell out of our environment in our Chrysler LeBarons while, say, the Malagasy Hippopotamus totally crapped out in 1000 A.D. We’re built to survive.
