This is an old Christmas picture. 2007. The latest update's not even in it. Sorry Esther. Apparently, she was napping.

The Jungle of After Christmas Shopping

Today, I experienced the miracle of after-Christmas shopping at Target. If there are men out there who have never had the pleasure, this is similar to the ancient Indian practice of forcing victims to watch themselves slowly being skinned alive. Except I’m absolutely positive that shopping at Target takes longer. So you’re at a slight advantage if you happen to be captured by Indians on your way to shopping with your wife.

I was initially lured in by promising words and expressions like cheap and fifty percent off. These struck me as joyous words to be hearing. So the thought of coming along for whatever this was seemed positive and encouraging. Now, mind you, I have been shopping with my wife before and it was a bad memory. But I think it’s a bit like giving birth- for it’s own rehabilitation and survival, the mind has a tendency to suppress certain horrific experiences as though it’s never had them.

But it all came flooding back as I found myself buried neck deep in isle after isle of all these little red and green somethings and countless women rummaging through it all with perfect concentration on their faces. And all I could do was just stand there dodging carts trying to empty my head of any negative emotions that could be rising to the surface. All the time, my sister and mom and wife seemed like they were totally comfortable joining in with the dance of all these customers maneuvering around each other and pulling things off shelves to examine them. I always begin making the same promises to myself that I will never ever let myself go through this again; these are, of course, promises which I know I won't have the wisdom to keep in the future.

Richelle would come to me with a little red and green something every once and awhile and say, “Hey, what do you think of this?” All I could do was just nod my head and say, “Sure. Whatever sounds good to you.”

I had no ability to be thinking anything at that moment. The key to male survival at times like these is to totally shut down and flip on the autopilot. No thoughts are allowed in or out.

I think it was Christmas day that Richelle was mourning to me that every one else had sent out Christmas cards and that we hadn’t done that ourselves. I foolishly added that we could also include a Christmas letter and that I’d be more than glad to write that. I honestly don’t know what possessed me. I think it was the idea that Christmas was a year away and that was such a long time that quite possibly we may never arrive to that far-off date again. So tossing out empty promises was easy.

But it all came screeching into reality when Richelle started to bring me these packages of different types of Christmassy papers like snowflakes and reindeers and forcing me to give my opinion on what we should choose for our Christmas letter next year. I realized this was going to do more to make 365 days fly by than any other decision I could’ve made this year. These are little mistakes we young people make thinking the future will never come.

I picked the snowflakes for fear of having to be shown any of the rest of the options the store had to offer.

Anxiety

Spending’s become a little bit of an issue for me lately. Our budget has become extremely tight so that even the tiny purchases are starting to haunt me. We were going to a Christmas party tonight and Richelle sent me to the Filipino store to pick up egg rolls. I asked how much and she shouted the amount over the news and her hair dryer blasting.

“Fifty dollars plus tax,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. Many times, this is my response to things without having totally registered the answers. Autonomic answering. It sometimes takes a few seconds to replay the message in my head. Once I have processed the information, my mind goes into survival mode.

“Wait. You said, ‘Fifty?’”

My mind immediately began subdividing contingency plans. Okay. Okay. That’s no problem. We can do this. We just won’t eat for a week. We’ll cancel the electricity and tear out the floor boards for firewood. Sell our kidneys.

“No!” she said, “Fifteen! One five!”

More Boring Than Usual- Don't Read This Unless You Have Absolutely Nothing Else To Do With Your Life

I’m writing through a barrage of Christmas music that Richelle is demanding that we play every available free minute of the Christmas season. It’s times like these that I realize how I used to take silence for granted. It was a thing to avoid. Such a mistake. I could’ve used that time. I could’ve read books and written things endlessly! Now my thoughts are wading through pools of “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World”. I am learning to tune things out though. Ahhhh!! The CD just ended. Hoping she doesn’t notice.

Wishful thinking. She just announced that she’s going to finish watching the movie Hancock. She has a tendency to list to me the things she’s going to be doing in the next hour or so with frequent updates if changes ever need to be made.

“I’m going to watch finish the movie now while I’m folding the laundry, okay?”

I nod. Very good mum.

We got to clean today. The house was in shambles after the four months of neglect we sent it through while we faithfully applied ourselves to our teaching jobs. What are shambles? Does any one know? I’m assuming it’s not a good thing since people only use it in a negative context.

I even cleaned off my computer keyboard which had somehow collected a whole smorgasborg of sticky flavorful somethings; don’t ask me what. And I cleaned off the desk which had collected a massive pile of books and papers and bills. There are times when I think about just taking the entire pile of bills and just dumping them in the trash. See what'll happen.

Little Civil Wars

Richelle and I have opposing views of our Saturdays. She looks at Saturday as the perfect chance to get things done. I look at Saturday as a day to not get things done. You can see how this may lead to conflict.

I woke up this morning, very pleased with myself for having somehow miraculously made myself sleep till 11:00. Richelle was standing by my bedside like an Olympic track star after a steroid injection. I was hoping she would say something pleasant like “Good morning, you want some breakfast?” or “How did you sleep?”

“We need to go to Costco,” she said. She was serious. I knew what she meant, but already my mind was rejecting any thought of the type of day she was wanting to have.

“Don’t do that,” I said and she laughed. “I want coffee. That’s all I’m thinking about, right now.”

I wanted my day to be filled with little exciting accomplishments. Get out of bed. Put sweats on. Make coffee. Read the newspaper (okay- I never read the newspaper but it’s one of those cliché lazy things people always mention).

But she can’t help herself. For the last two hours, I’ve been enduring these verbal missiles of “Let’s go!” and “Hurry up! Get ready! We gotta’ goooooo!”

She was pleasant about it. She had the little girl sound to her voice which I was appreciating. It meant she wasn’t on the verge of attacking me with something heavy and metallic. But I could tell when the little girl started to dissipate and the sad, disappointed tone was starting to develop. I was the only one available to be the cause of this. The sound of her movements were slow and deliberate as though she was running out of things to accomplish in the house and she was in desperate need to broaden her horizons toward cleaning up other parts of the world.

“I guess I’ll just go then,” she said in a defeated tone.

What she wanted was for me to go with her. I, of course, was very willing to go with her but I was fighting at every level the idea of having to rush out of the door like we need as much time as possible to avoid confusion between the red and yellow wires while dismantling the bomb.

So she’s gone, but I no longer have any possibility of the peaceful Saturday feeling. Because she’s coming back. She’s going to accomplish three of the errands. Or maybe four. She listed them off for me, but I don’t know if I can name them exactly. I just got the message that those things were definitely needing to get done.

I’ll join her for round two. My brain is sending threatening messages to my body that it will need to be prematurely forcing my legs into jeans very soon. But, of course, my body is not taking the news well at all. In fact, not much progress has been made toward the jeans as of yet. It’s a bit of a civil war going on in here.

The Pain of Losing Something Meaningless

I had my planner stolen from me tonight. At least, I think I may have had my planner stolen from me tonight. It was a little bit confusing. My planner is full of information that’s only useful to myself- like dates and schedules and meaningless stuff.
So I didn’t feel that it was very necessary to guard it with my life.

I was at the freezer section in Walmart wanting to hunt down one single Stouffers Philly Cheese Steak and I realized walking with a cart was a little bit more laborious than I needed it to be at that moment; some people seem to have a professional gift at taking forever making their choice and standing in people’s way as they’re doing it. So I thought I’d just go solo for a couple minutes and see if I could complete my mission a lot faster that way- maybe fake left and roll right like a football play.

But when I got back to where my cart was, the whole thing was gone. I was speechless. I was a bit dumbfounded looking down every aisle as though I were a parent who had just lost a problematic child to kidnapping but wasn’t quite sure why any one would actually want that child.

This has nothing to do with the next blog. I just liked the picture. We're at the Will Roger's Estate in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Saturday Morning

Lazy mornings with nothing to do is the greatest. The house is a bit chilly but my body feels like it’s floating right at this moment. And I’m waiting for Che Che to wake up. She has somehow taught herself how to sleep through anything that makes a lot of noise including nuclear holocausts and angry lawn mowers.

I’m sitting with my back turned to the door leading to the backyard. I can feel Jack’s eyes staring at me through the snot-spotted glass. He seems to have mastered certain methods of Jedi mind control where all he has to do is just stare at me long enough and I’ll end up taking him on a walk. He’s really a brilliant dog.

I just got done cleaning up the lawn which he’s transformed into his personal bathroom. It’s been about a week and a half since I’ve picked anything up so I was having to tread very carefully as though I was working my way across a mine field. Jack just watched me from the patio wagging his tail and dancing around in circles knowing that the walk is somehow coming soon.

Basketball with My Students

Today, I played an exciting, little pickup game during homeroom between students and faculty. It was fun, despite the fact that it looked something like old people trying out for American Gladiators. Slaughter is not a strong enough word for what we went through.

I was running up and down the court gasping for breath eventually forgetting about the ball and simply trying to tackle the students that were shooting the best.

To add to our humiliation, the teachers somehow talked themselves into wearing shorts in order to be better prepared for the game. When they started to decide on this in yesterday’s meeting, I immediately objected saying it might not look good for all of the teachers to be wearing shorts to school like that. But what I was really thinking was that my legs haven’t actually seen sun for several months. They’ve been like two polar bears that I’ve been letting hibernate for the winter. I didn’t know how they would react to being ripped out of their caves and paraded around in front of four hundred slightly-insane teenagers.

But I did make one shot. It was from the three-point line and I had no one around me. I think most of the students assumed that the white guy with the frightened, confused look on his face didn’t really need to be defended all that closely. So I’m glad to prove them wrong even though I was probably more shocked than any one in the gym that the ball went in.