It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard’s pear tree. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
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A belated Happy Winter Solstice to all. And to my fellow yogis, if this tradition is in your practice, I hope you had a memorable 108 Sun Salutations.
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Department Of Year End Lists
As seems to be the plague custom at this time of every year, The Posting Of the Lists ® is in full swing. From movies to concerts to podcast episodes to soup recipes, the critics and pundits scurry to list their best (or worst) _____ of the year.
Moiself has but one entry to contribute in the best of ____category. Unfortunately, I’d love to give attribution but can’t recall where I saw this. So, to whomever came up with this phrase [2] to define social media’s power to make users feel left out, [3] I nominate you for Best Description of The Downside Tech’s Effect on Our Collective Psyches – a very competitive category this year:
“Inventing a new way to feel miserable.”
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Department Of But If You Do Have To Read At Least One
Best Of/Worst Of List….
…It might as well be the one excerpted here:
“If you are on the Internet long enough, there comes a year when you will be forced to rank something. Now it is my time. So I am taking the liberty of going through the 100 holiday songs being foisted upon us everywhere and ranking them from Most Especially Heinous to Best….
100. ‘Little Drummer Boy.’ My hatred for this song is well-documented. I think it is because the song takes approximately 18 years to sing and does not rhyme. The concept of the song is bad. The execution of the song is bad. There is not even an actual drum in the dang song, there is just someone saying PA-RUM-PA-PUM-PUM, which, frankly, is not a good onomatopoeia and probably is an insult to those fluent in Drum. I cannot stand it. Nothing will fix it, even the application of David Bowie to it. Every year I say, ‘I hate this song,’ and every year people say, ‘Have you heard David Bowie’s version?’ Yes. Yes, I have. It is still an abomination.
101. ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ A better name for this song would be ‘I Assume You Cannot Hear Anything I Am Saying and so I Am Going to Repeat All the Words Twice.’ This contains things that in another, better song, would be welcome: A star! A star! A shepherd boy! Rhetorical questions! But the problem with this song is the problem that arises any time you are forced to repeat something you said because someone didn’t hear it properly: namely, that you didn’t phrase the thing very well in the first place and having to say it again just makes you more painfully aware of how awkward your wording was. “WITH A VOICE AS BIG AS THE SEA.” What? “WITH A VOICE AS BIG AS THE SEA,” you shout, regretting that you ever thought it was a good idea to introduce a simile here.
( A ranking of 100 — yes, 100 — Christmas songs, Alexandra Petri,
Washington Post, 12-24-24 )
Whaddya waiting for – follow the link for just 98 more.
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Department Of This In Between Time
This week, the one between Christmas and New Year’s, is one of moiself’s favorite weeks of the year. I thought it should have its own name, and as it turns out, others thought the same:
“ ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings,’ says Zuzu Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. But that incessant chiming you hear might also be the ping of emails bouncing back with out-of-office notifications as the year — and our motivation to work — grinds to a halt. Welcome to Twixmas, aka Dead Week, or Feral Week: that stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when we get the urge to take off and tune out, and our outstanding projects, deadlines and other responsibilities become 2025 You’s problem. Whether they’ve actually gone on vacation or have just mentally checked out, many people see it as a time to (hopefully) rest and do less.”
( excerpt from “Some call it Twixmas. Others call it Feral Week. The period between
Christmas and New Year’s Eve is the perfect time to do nothing — and experts say we need it.”
yahoolife.com )
That article, and the Dead/Feral Week moniker, is mostly about what happens in and to one’s business life, or work life, during this in-between week. I prefer the Twixmas label. The effects of this week, whether positive or negative – or a combination of both or just plain…weird – are arguably most acute outside of the workplace.
Twixmas feels both charmed and bizarre for several reasons, some if not most of which can be attributed to the simple disruption of routine, as you take a break from your regular schedule (many people travel or take vacation days; kids are out of school; some businesses close). Other reasons include the fact that no matter how much you may anticipate the holidays, the genuine positive feelings they can bring exist alongside the cultural pressure to celebrate, feel joyful and grateful, or reflect upon the past year and anticipate resolutions for the coming year…. And then there is the letdown, when the great buildup seems to be all over. Or, you may feel guilty when you don’t feel like celebrating with your family, or you may experience buyers and eaters remorse ( Yikes, I overspent on gifts/over-indulged on all the sugar treats).
But, if you can manage it, Twixmas can be a wonderful and even rejuvenating limbo time. Get yourself to set aside the what-ifs and what-is-to-comes: relax in the Now, and treat yourself to whatever twinkles *your* star, or just take a walk around the block to enjoy (read: make fun of) your neighbor’s holiday light displays.
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Department Of One More Thing About Lists
One of these days I’ll get around to sharing my list of Best Advice Given And/Or Received. [4]
When it comes to giving advice, those most in need of such guidance are often the least likely to heed it (and certainly are not prone to soliciting it). Nevertheless, moiself shall fling this into the ether, with best hopes for even a shred of enlightenment for the kind of Young Men Working With The Public Who Either Have An Ocular Impediment Which Renders Them Unable To See Women Over The Age of Forty Or Whose Attitude Makes Them Treat Such Women As If They Were Invisible. ®
Specifically, this advice goes out to a certain morose, indifferent, drug store clerk:
Do not pivot from ignoring to flirting with the middle-aged woman
in your checkout line after you notice she’s buying a personal lubricant.
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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [5]
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Freethinkers’ Thought To Hold For The New Year
“The best explanation for ‘the good old days’ is a bad memory.
When we take an objective look at how the country is doing and which way it has been going, we see that American life is not a hellscape of carnage and decline. What stands out is a resilient democracy that tends to recover from setbacks and make halting progress.”
( Harvard professor, author, and FFRF honorary President Steven Pinker, in his column,
“Trump says the country is ‘dying.’ The data says otherwise” )
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May you have fun composing your own year-end lists;
May you stop inventing ways to make yourself miserable;
May you have an enjoyable Twixmas;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago
[2] I’m thinking, a writer for The Atlantic?
[3] As in running across pictures of/reading about family/friend/neighbor/coworker activities that didn’t include us.
[4] Which means that one of these days I’ll have to do a better job of compiling that list.
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
