Look, It’s My Blog

Yesterday, at our annual get together, I interviewed my dad about Hanukkah: an 8 day festival of lights where Jews everywhere get together and give and get cool gifts (and something about oil lasting 8 days when they only had enough oil for one night and Macabees or something). So what does the cheapest man alive think about the most commercial time of year? Here is what my dad had to say about giving gifts, what Hanukkah was like back in the olden days, and what happens when Discover card bill comes.

Are you excited about Hanukkah 2012?
I’m extremely excited to see what I’ve given to people.

What’s your favorite part of Hanukkah?
My favorite part is getting together with my family.

What was Hanukkah like when you were little?
They’ve made it into such a big deal. [Back then] it was a nice little gift. My father used to get us stuff for our electric trains. Aunt Gertie used to give us plaid shirts. She wanted us to know we [my twin brother and I] were not identical, so she would get us plaid shirts in different colors.

What makes a good gift now?
I like it to be thoughtful and frugal.

What do you hope to get this year?
I hope to get something useful and thoughtful and that didn’t put a
crimp in someone else’s budget.

What did you get for your son Adam and his girlfriend Carly?
Ask my wife.

What did you get for your son Eddie and his wife Rashmi?
Ask my wife.

What did you get your daughter Andrea and her boyfriend Tom?
Ask my wife.

Are you excited to see the looks on your children’s faces when they
open their gifts?
I’m even more excited to see the look on my own face.

What will you do when you realize how much money your wife has spent?
Mom made a realization a few years ago that she only wants to get
yelled at for spending a lot of money once. So she stopped telling me
when she bought things. It backfired though, because now I arranged
with Discover to alert me to when more than $200 dollars has been
spent. It tells the amount and location. So now we fight three times:
when alert comes, when the bill comes and then after the the gifts are
given.

Don’t you think it’s worth the money, seeing the joy on your children’s faces when they open their gifts?
Yes, but you see, you shouldn’t have to give a gift to see happiness
on other people’s faces.

Then why aren’t you a better person to be around?
Look who I am around.

Thank you.

Sometimes, you wake up after a full nights sleep feeling refreshed, stretch every muscle in your body, feel totally rejuvenated and then get up and get ready so your day goes as smooth as possible.
 
Last Thursday was not one of those days.
 
I woke up after only a few hours of sleeping in my actual bed since I spent most of the night on my gross and uncomfortable couch watching gross and uncomfortable TV. Since my roommates and I have gotten cable after a year and a half hiatus, I haven’t done much of anything but watch TV. And of course, you SAY “Oh, I miss knowing what’s going on in the world, I really would like to watch the Nightly News again”. But let’s be honest, that’s not why we get cable. It’s to watch Half Ton Killer on TLC, and Bridezillas on WE (gross and uncomfortable right?)
 
Anyway, so as I awoke, I looked at my clock and saw that it was 9:30am. I’m supposed to be at work at 8:30am. Great. Though I can usually convince myself that I can make my 35 minute commute in 3 minutes if I wake up at 8:27, this time I was totally, complelely, unmistakably late. I grabbed some clothes, grabbed some food (I dont even know what, a full bag of carrots and an apple) and then made my way outside.
 
Snow.

Yeah. Beginning of November and there was snow on my steps. Since I am 28 and have spent every single winter here in Massachusetts, I decided, fatefully, to just brave the steps because it was just snow. Just snow.
 
When I fell, I landed squarely on the middle of my back. The crack I heard was a nice touch too.
 
Your first thought when you do something like that is “do I have clean underwear if I need medical attention?” But the second thought is something with expletives. After swearing silently or outloud, I have no idea, I decided “if I can’t move, that means I broke something.” I got up as quickly as I could. Good news and bad, since it hurt, but not as much as I thought it would.
 
I ran to my front door (locked of course, with my keys lying in the snow a few stairs down) and then went into my house to call work with my dead cell phone (of course). After a few minutes of almost passing out and trying to figure out how to scratch out a will half dead on my living room floor, I finally got to a couch. I plugged in my phone to call work. As I was waiting for my phone to charge, I looked at the clock. It was 8:30. So how was it only 8:30 if I woke up at 9:30? Daylight savings clock changing procrastination strikes again. 
 
The salt in the wounds. If only I had that salt about 15 minutes earlier.

Voting is just a big, stupid waste of time. Everyone knows that it doesn’t really matter how you vote, because nothing really changes when the president does. I mean sure, the biggest healthcare reform in our countrys history was passed because our nation voted for Barack Obama, but our day to day life really hasn’t changed all that much. For example,  under both Bush AND Obama, I still got broken up with by guys I liked. So who cares who runs the country? Everything pretty much stays the same day to day here in America.  Let’s face it, they’re really just figure heads, like the Queen of England and Big Bird.

Secondly, everyone knows that it’s the loudest voices that are the ones that count. Going into that voting booth all by yourself, secretly connecting the arrow to who you like, then discreetly giving it to someone who won’t even look at it? What good does that do? Millions of people do that! You think YOUR voice will be heard? Everyone knows that the only way to really get your voice heard is to head over to Facebook and Twitter where people actually hear your opinion. There, you have hundreds of people who actually want to listen to you talk about all your opinions on abortion and how gays are going to hell because gay sex is gross. You think your local polling official cares what your opinion is on the liberal agenda with so called “global warming”? No way! They just want to get the ballots filled out and so they can get you out of their face!

Thirdly, politicians don’t care about you. I have voted in three elections and not ONE has helped me finance or achieve my goal of staying home, acting out Dawson’s Creek scenes and getting paid for it in Twizzlers. THAT is what I WANT, Obama and Romney. So I have to suffer while Lucky Lucy over there with a broken hip gets her medicare benefits to go to a rehab facility? And Fortunate Fatima over there gets to go to nursing school to feed her kids? Not fair. If I don’t get to benefit from the government, then NO ONE should.

Next of all, everyone in this country is dumb. Everyone knows that the average joe shmoe is really stupid. That’s why we have the electoral college. Do I want some dude in north carolina who voted for Romney because Obama is a Kenyan socialist? No! Or some whore in California who wants me to pay for her birth control because “seriously, you should have seen him he was sooooo cute and I have like, no self control”? NO! Their votes shouldn’t matter, and neither should mine, because my vote usually goes to someone for the wrong reasons. Think about it. I’m sure there’s some really dumb reason that you’re planning to vote for who you’re voting for (I mean, Obama is a hottie, am I right?!)

Voting doesn’t even mean the best person wins. Must I remind you, America, of the worst miscarriage of justice in the history in American voting when Taylor Hicks won American Idol’s fifth season while Chris Daughtry was sent home? Taylor Hicks, America? REALLY? He doesn’t even have a record label anymore. Really? And I want you picking my PRESIDENT? No thanks America, stay home. 

Lastly, encouraging politicians only makes them keep doing what they are doing. Take the case of my parents cat, Emily Rose. Emily was using her litter box and everything was well and good until my mom started finding piss all over the house. Did she ignore it and tell the cat to keep doing what she was doing? No! She showed the cat what she did wrong and that she was displeased with having cat piss all over the house by rubbing the cats nose in it. And the problem stopped. Sick of political attack ads? Voting only encourages them to keep it up! Let’s rub their figurative noses in their figurative piss by (literally) not voting, and then they’re sure to stop, right? 

So stay home. Don’t vote. America is counting on you.

PS: Clearly I’m your average Joe Shmoe, so don’t listen to me. Go vote.

Anonymous asked: Hey:) I've just read your writtings for the first time and I really liked it:) The little problem is that I can't really speak english very well. So, my question is connected to that issue... Can you speak other languages, too?:)

¡Hola! Yo estudié español para siete años pero no recuerdo nada. Pues, un pocito. ¡Lo siento!

It was good.

I like to write.

I always found it funny that I wanted to be a writer, because I really don’t have a whole lot of strong feelings on issues, and hate conflict so I have no opinions on anything (unless you want me to…). For some reason though, I’ve always come back to writing. I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the fact that like all writers, I feel like my parents never loved me.

When I first moved to Cambridge, my sister-in-law told me about something called National Novel Writing Month. For those of you who didn’t know me the past two Novembers (and here is a heartfelt apology for those who did), NaNoWriMo an event designed to make you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (the month of November)

 If you’re not a writer, the idea of writing a 50,000 word novel (roughly 110 pages the last few times I did it) sounds absolutely nuts; it sounds like something someone would NEVER want to do. If you ARE a writer it’s actually worse, because you know what it’s like to sit in front of a blank page, feeling like you’re trying to get blood from a stone, feeling like you’re the most uncreative person in the world (like death for writers). To put yourself through that willingly for 30 days? Crazy. Certifiable. Basket making, “hug yourself” jacket crazy.

So will I do it for the 3rd year in a row? Yes. Even though it ruined my life last year and I am still adjusting my sleep schedule get it back to normal, I can’t bear to skip out. Because NaNo is a no excuse excuse to be selfish and spend ungodly amounts of hours doing something you enjoy (then hate…then enjoy again). Because it’s hard and what’s hard is good. Because I met some of the best people I know and will ever know through it. 

And because maybe it will make my parents love me.

It is Halloween night, at about 11:30, and I drive down the dark streets of my hometown as a light rain mist around me. It’s unseasonably warm, probably mid 60’s, although I have a sweatshirt on because it’s October 31^st and my mind won’t let me get away with anything less. 

I drive past my old street, the street I grew up on until I was about 6. A strange nostalgic feeling passes over me, even though I have no real vivid memories from living in that house. I know that on this day, for the first 6 years of my life, I dressed up and engaged in a tradition that was new to me, but all the neighborhood kids seemed to love. I learned to love it too. My brothers and I would get dressed up by my mom, and she would take us to the seemingly endless stream of houses in the development that were ready, willing and just waiting to give us tasty treats. We ended up with a large bucket full of candy for just a few hours work. And of course, the trading. Anything with peanut butter was a free pass. 

As I turn on to the street, Everybody Wang Chung Tonight is playing on the radio, keeping me stuck in the era that this few acres of land will always bring me back to: the 80’s. I will always be reminded of George Bush SR., my grandfather’s old blue canvas Cadillac, tiffany lamps, bulky wood sided recording equipment, and being so young I couldn’t see that these things were not permanent in life, just the product of innovation up to that point in time; an expression of who my parents (and their parents) generation were.

I pull myself out of the memories, long enough to think that I haven’t been back down this street on this day since I moved out of this town. It is bittersweet to think about the fact that we grow up; that a night of getting candy will never be as fun, simple and sometimes overwhelming in the same way ever again. But surprisingly, for maybe the first time, I don’t yearn to go back to that time. I know that all things end. That things change, move, and grow. And it is nice to have something warm to look back on.

I drive up the street, and drive slow enough to be able to see into some of the windows of some of the houses. I am half expecting to see bright orange 80’s walls, dark wood, and oversized grey and fake wood TV’s.  But that’s not the case. Lights shine brightly on pale walls. Large flat TVs hang from the walls. I look at the house I grew up in, and compare notes in my head of how small everything looks now, compared to how I remember it.  I think back to how 22 years ago I was roaming these streets, with my brothers and neighbors, following along what they all were doing, looking for candy. And I can almost see all of us, running around, calling out, looking down at our big sacks of candy, surprised, pleased and a little overwhelmed by our large bounty. I smile, turn my blinker on to head toward the highway and leave all of us kids on my old street on Halloween where we belong.

Hello, Tumblr readers!! Some of you who are blessed to have known me back in the day might remember I used to do a semi-annual “things I hate” edition of my Livejournal. You didn’t think just because I’m a fairly well adjusted adult with a job and place to live all that rage was gone, did you?

Yes, Things I Hate is back! So read, enjoy, and feel free to raise your fist and shake it:

1. British “American” actors. It always kind of puts me off when I find out someone on tv, playing an American is actually British. Or worse, Canadian. It’s always the real American guys, too. Fraiser’s dad? British. How can he be British? He speaks better “American” than I do. The father on Still Standing? British! I thought he was as American as Apple Pie, and it turns out he’s as American as Steak and Kidney pie; not very American at all! I don’t get it. And Eric McCormack! He used to bash bad Americans and American policy better than anyone on television, and then I find out he’s not even American, he’s Canadian! You can’t touch the Republican Party, they’re OUR fascist assholes, eh! Go back to Canada! 

2. Reporting junk e-mail. I reaaaally hate this. You know why? Because it’s the most pointless thing since the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. When the little thing pops up that asks if you want to report the junk mail, you want to think of yourself as a crusader. Someone who is heroically helping to keep bad mail out of mailboxes. At the very least, you want to think that there will be less bad mail in YOUR mailbox. But the next time you go to your e-mail, there’s just as much, if not more junk e-mail. But I reported it! You think. How can there be MORE?!?!?! Because they’re always more. For every good e-mail, there are a million christy@christycream.com asking if you want to see some ‘Barnalious’ photos. (I wish I was kidding about that one.)

3. I really hate The Aftershow, on MTV. Not particularly that, but just how much effort it takes to have a hobby nowadays. I mean, in the old days, you could like a television show, and watch it every week. And that was it. Now, there’s all this extra SHIT you need to keep up on. It makes you feel like you’re missing out on something if you DON’T go and look up the other stuff. YEAH, I want to see exclusive behind-the-scenes Jersey Shore house tours and chats. But I’m too lazy to go to my computer, go find it, wait for my computer to load it up, and watch it. Even reading. In the Boston Globe Magazine, I was reading this article, and it was like “For more information on this subject, go to this website.” NO! I’ve got a life! And I’ve already wasted too much of it on Summer Fruit recipes!”

4. Reading obituaries. You spend time reading this nice little story, getting to know someone and all the wonderful things they did, and then you remember “Oh yeah, they’re dead.”

5. Andy Rooney’s eyebrows. I enjoy a witty commentary on today’s society. But not when it is coming from two unkempt eyebrows. Seriously, whenever I watch him, I have to hide my face and just listen because they are so gross. It’s not even a matter of plucking. It’s a matter of cutting. He should cut it all off and give it to locks for love. Seriously, how do eyebrows even GROW that long? Screw stem cell research, figure out if this freak of nature thing happens a lot. I don’t want my kids growing up with something like that. (Sidenote: I decided to google search “Andy Rooney’s eyebrows” and there’s a lot of things that come up, even his like “official page” on CBS news. And thankfully when I did a picture search, none of the pictures really did them justice.) I guess I can’t really make fun of him too much though. He kind of invented the concept of Things I Hate.

6. Pluto. When I was in grade school, I had to do a research project on the 9th “planet”. Now that it’s not a planet, I want the hours and hours I spent doing that research back. And that was back when you had to go to the library too. No Wikipedia back then! You had to go find real FACTS from real BOOKS! I hate you Pluto… if that even IS your real name. (Speaking of bad projects: during Black History Month in 5th or 6th grade, we had to do a project on an influential black person. Either I wanted to be ‘creative’ or all the really famous people were taken, so I picked Barbara Jordan a senator from Texas. That sucked so bad. There was NOTHING to write on her. I think I repeated that she had a glass eye like 8 times). 

7. Eating soup. I actually like a good bowl of soup, but there’s something really really lonely about eating soup. All hunched over, sipping a little spoonful of soup, from their little bowl full of a serving size just for one. Even the concept of soup (that it makes you feel better and warm inside) is sad; like you need some healing. Even if you were sipping soup with your hundred closest friends that included Mi Michelle Obama and Katy Perry, it’s still so lonely. It makes me a little sad to see someone eating soup. Especially alone. So next time you see someone eating soup, give them a hug. Even if they look like they don’t need it. 

So…what makes you so mad you just have to blog about it?