The Big "V.D."

I was dreading Valentine's Day this year, but now that's it's arrived, I find that I've come to a tentative peace with it. It's never fun to spend alone, but I can work past that. Today is supposed to be about celebrating the love you have with your significant other. Well, I don't have an S.O., but I have something even better. I have myself.

The thing is, we have to spend our whole lives with ourselves. If I had a dollar for every time I saw a person that hated him- or herself, I'd be a rich woman. Who cares about romance when the feelings you have towards yourself are fractured and tainted?

I have a healthy love for who I am, and that's what I'll be celebrating today. I bought myself a card, flowers, and a box of assorted chocolates; I'll be spending the evening eating pizza and watching bad TV; and I'll love every minute of it.

I hope that you have a very happy Valentine's Day.

I'm a Watered-Down Grinch

I feel obliged to write something on Christmas, 'cause that's sorta the thing to do, innit?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there are a lot of Christmas traditions I find aggravating -- like Christmas trees. Really, Germany? Was this necessary to bring with you? I get the symbolism and how it's all happy happy fun time to decorate it with your family and whatever, but I find it a waste of time, space, and energy. When I move into my own place, I'm going to replace a tree with a bowl of red and green jelly beans.

Not to mention, haven't any environment people come out against this?

. . .

Apparently, they have not, but when I searched "christmas tree cruel" I did find the darkly entertaining "Monkey 'kills cruel owner with coconut thrown from tree'" article, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.

I'm not one to get outraged over the commercialization of holidays, because I figure if you can trick millions of people into spending hundreds on your merchandise for no viable reason then props to you. I like giving and receiving as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend there's something magical about the season itself that is conducive to charity and good will. Well, people do drink more around Christmas, so I guess there's that. Alcohol does make some people much nicer. Point being, if we cared that much, we wouldn't wait until Christmas to express how much love we have bottled up inside of us as a society -- but I guess that's just the Valentine's Day argument all over again.

My parents told me that (*SPOILER ALERT!*) Santa wasn't real at a pretty young age (i.e. the first time I asked if he was real), so that was never a big aspect of the holiday for me. That's why I have no great love for Santa. Not that I dislike him, but as I grow older I begin to realize how patronizing it is to present this idea to children as reality. I don't buy into the whole "Santa encourages overeating/makes an easier time of it for pedophiles/will give your child Swine Flu/ad nauseum/etc.," but I do believe it sets kids of more delicate mental dispositions up for more than a few debilitating complexes later in life. Like, "Mommy and Daddy lied to me and so they don't love me" stuff on the lucky end and maniacal rages of incredulity and sadness that morph into felonious actions on the hardcore end. Also, may we stop putting grown men in tights at the mall photo places? I have glam rock galleries bookmarked on Internet Explorer; I don't need to get my fill of inappropriate male exposure through Rick the pre-med dropout elf, thanks.

And because I'm sure I haven't taken enough potshots at Christmas' Most Loved, I'm gonna throw in that I find decorating the outside of your house with lights and any other sort of seasonal paraphernalia is a tacky eyesore 95% of the time. I can't remember the last time we did anything of consequence to our house, and that sliver of amnesia couldn't make me happier. It's so hard to do right, I'm annually impressed and aggravated at my neighbor's continued attempts to project Christmas cheer through sprucing up their garage door.

When it comes down to it, though, I do enjoy Christmas. I like family and hot chocolate and staying up ridiculously late for mass and the opening of the first present. I like pulling up YouTube videos of snow, throwing on a scarf, and remarking to my bemused brother that it doesn't look deep enough to warrant shoveling the driveway yet. I like watching those campy claymation videos with their jerky movements and old-fashioned, all-too-naive songs. (Santa, here's lookin' at you and your little "a kiss a toy is the price you'll pay" ditty.) I like the food, the fires (fireplaces, not forests), and the all-around joy and contentment it seems to bring.

So whatever you're doing, or however you celebrate this time of year, have a Merry Kwanzmaskkah, drive safe, and drink at least eight cups of water per day.

In Which I Am a Stick in the Mud

Halloween is such an odd holiday to me. It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating it by slaughtering livestock for wintertime, right? We did this every year for whoknowshowlong, until one day it's like wha-bam! and we're hemming our gingham dresses up to out hoo-has.

I'd like to be a able to offer you a detailed, thoughtful analysis on what caused this shift in paradox, but that's not what I'm going to school for; because honestly, where can Holiday Studies 101 get me in life? And I'm too lazy to read the whole Wikipedia page.

I'd assume that somewhere down the line people realized it was sort of a BS endeavor to be wearing masks and lighting bonfires in an attempt to placate evil spirits that threatened the harvest. The specifics of this realization evolving into "so let's instead wear cheaply manufactured costumes that would fit my 12-year-old sister" I'm not sure. It might have something to do with the psychological need to embrace or acknowledge, and therefore release the fear of, one's "shadow aspect" -- those dark wants (e.g. to be OMG naughty) in our nature -- as Jung would say; or possibly as a way to gain control over others through shock, if someone felt she had very little power in her life. But I'm just taking a shot in the dark, here.

My point? Gorging on Twix, I love. Having Halloween being fashioned ever more surely into a holiday centered solely around skank wear, however, makes me cry a little in the dark. I miss the bed sheet ghosts and thrift store hobos of my childhood.

In Memoriam

I've tried, so far, to keep this blog generally light and funny -- to throw in humor among self-deprecation and deeper emotions. But I feel it would be irreverent not to remember in complete sincerity the events that occurred eight years ago today.

During the terrorist attacks of 9/11, innocent lives were lost: lives taken by force, and lives given in service. Lives destroyed by an act so horrific we can't begin to comprehend the strength of the hatred that fueled it. What could drive a man to forfeit his life just to end another's?

I don't think that, as a nation, we can ever allow this to be forgotten. I think it's something we need to pass down to our children, their children, and our children's children. More than just a terrifying episode in history, it represents the strength and courage of the American people. Our prayers will always be with the civilians who were killed in the attacks: our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, comrades in arms and companions at play -- may their souls rest in peace. But our proud remembrance will be with the men and women who lay down their lives for our country, who died so that we may live in freedom and security -- greater love has no one than this.

Things happen in this world -- terrible things -- that we often can't understand, nor do we want to. Most of us don't like to think back to that day, and with good reason: We don't want to be confronted with the grief and sadness it brings, that sick feeling that worms its way into our hearts saying, "How could someone do this?" And yet, as we all know, it's necessary. It's necessary to stand up once a year and say, "We won't forget you." Necessary to let people know that we are strong. Necessary to cry, to scream, to grieve, even as we pick up the stones to rebuild what was ruined. Necessary to lay aside the humor, to rip down the veils, to bring every dark thing about that day into the light, and vow to protect what's been left in our care.

God bless America.