Okay, folks, just got back from my last minute errand to Euro-swank shop, where I purchased a bar of Vosges' Bacon Chocolate.  Unfortunately, since I'm getting ready to fly out, I'm not going to try it right now.  It seems like I ought to allow myself some time to really experience it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

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Since when did Ziploc become a wing of the Homeland Security Department?

Meets_stupid_guidelines

That I will somehow fail to properly portion and bag my effing toiletries.  I can take my sharp bamboo knitting needles on the plane, but somehow more than 3 ounces of my bizarre home-made shampoo is a threat?  That's the thing of course that chafes me.  I'm allergic to pretty much every kind of commercially available shampoo, lotion, deodorant, etc.  So nearly everything I use is either home-made or made locally by hippies.  It's not like I can just fly somewhere and drop into the nearest Walgreens to buy some shampoo. 

For all this trouble, there had better be some terrorists plotting to bring down a 747 with an 8-ounce bottle of Suave Conditioner.

At any rate, I head out today, and do not know whether I will blog from my Xmas adventure or not.  If not, take care, travel safely, stay away from the fruit cake, and try not to give any dud presents. 

For those of you celebrating it, I wish you a joyous Cinemas with plenty of popcorn and Junior Mints.  May all the tall people sit behind you.

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Went for a visit to the dentist today.  She's a nice little woman.  Laotian.  It's official.  My teeth and gums are in excellent shape...oh, except for those old amalgam metal fillings.  You know, the ones leaking mercury and shit into me. I've had them for 25 years at this stage, I know they have to come out, and I've had two replaced already.

Crazy Laotian Dentist wanted to replace them today.  She said, "Oh, let's do these two today. I have two open appointments right after yours.  It won't take long.

I said, "I'm getting on a plane tomorrow.  I don't want to have two new fillings."

"Oh, it's no problem.  We can just replace those right now and it won't bother you."

"You think it won't bother me."  (Last time it was weeks before those new fillings stopped hurting me.)

"But then you'd have it taken care of.  I have two open appointments."

The whole time, I'm lying there, with the light in my eyes, my head tilted back, and she's only taking the implements out of my mouth occasionally to let me answer.  I was waiting for her to whip out some plastic wrap and a bucket of water.  Nothing like a little waterboarding to bring around a recalcitrant patient.

Finally, I said, "I get it, you're slow today, looking for something to do, but it's not going to be on me, okay?"

Yeesh.

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Here's my first official office Christmas present:

cookie_candle

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A little taste of our ice storm.  Not as tasty as an ice cream cone, but it makes a cool banner if you want it.

Ice_cone_banner

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Those of you with long hair know what I'm talking about...the inevitability of the clogged drain.  No matter your best intentions, your best efforts, those sneaky devil bastard hairs gathering in the drain, conspiring to clog your pipes. 

Making the inevitable sink monkey even worse is my pledge as a responsible adult to stop using drain-cleaning chemicals.  Back in my reckless youth, I used to just dump a bunch of Draino down there whenever things got bad.  Now, of course, I know that shit is evil and I also know it's uncalled for.  If you know the source of your cloggage is a drain wookie, you know what you have to do to fix it.

You just skip dinner, put on some rubber gloves, get a bucket, some channel locks and a wire coat hanger.  (I know...sounds like all the same tools in the Do It Yourself Home Abortion Kit, right?)  Then you go in the bathroom, crawl under the sink and [gag~shudder] open the p-trap under the drain.

It was bad, my people.  Really bad.  So bad I'm starting to regret I decided to blog about it, because I think I'm having a flashback.  I have Post-Traumatic-Clog Disorder.

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Remember?  Buttercup is soon to marry Prince Humperdink, and she begins having nightmares about her betrayal of Wesley?  The old woman screaming, "Bow down to the Queen of Refuse!  The Queen of Garbage!  Bow down!"  Yeah, you remember.

Mine are more like daymares, and they mostly center around this one key fact: I, the unbeliever who hates Christmas, am going to spend Christmas with my Christian in-laws. It's been ten years since I had to do anything that vaguely resembled a family Christmas, and there's a good reason.  It makes my flesh crawl.  I hate Christmas.  I hate gifts. I hate Christmas gifts.  I hate Christmas music.  Instead, Hubbicula and I celebrate the joy of Cinemas.

And these aren't just any kind of Christians.  Oh, yes, my sister-in-law and spouse are fairly regular Christian types.  I think they go to church and claim to love Jesus.  My father-in-law is also a fairly calm Christian, although he's a substance abuse counselor and he's really into the psychology of letting go and letting God.  (I still don't have that one figured out.)  So with him, it's like The Twelve Steps of Christmas.  These two in-laws only frighten me a little.  They'll just be looking for some Christmas-y action--gifts, carols, tree, creche, maybe a late-night trip to church.

My brother-in-law, however, belongs to a cult.  As do his wife, son, and daughter.  He is a Crazy Superbad Mofo Christian.  He's the guy who responds to discussions of climate change with, "Well, with the End Times coming, I'm not worried about global warming."  Yeah...that kind of crazy.  You know, the kind of crazy that actually begins to think and do the opposite of what their Bible tells them.  Screw stewardship, the End Times are coming!  Judge not?  Turn the other cheek?  Fuck that shit.

So, let's do the tally for my holidays here:
4+ hours flying, which I hate
4+ hours in an airport, which I hate
20+ hours driving cross country in the winter, which I hate
3 days celebrating Christmas, which I hate
1 gift exchange, which I hate

If you ever need proof that I love you, Hubbicula, please refer to this list.  I'm doing it all to get to spend a few days with you.

Now, to balance out the horror of all this, I've made a few deals with myself.

• I will be pleasant and gracious, no matter what gifts I receive BUT I reserve the right to turn right around and donate said gifts to the nearest thrift store.
• I will not wail or scream if forced to listen to Christmas music BUT I will not sing along or pretend to enjoy it.
• I will bow my head if/when prayers are said BUT I will not pray along or lead any prayers.
• I will seek a neutral way out of going to church BUT failing that I will put my foot down.

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Fall_of_western_civilization

Look at it.  Fucking look at it and weep.  It's a bacon chocolate bar.  A bacon fucking chocolate fucking bar, my people.  Think about that.  Two of the world's most magical foods together in a single food experience.

Other people have trinities--Daddio, Laddio and the Big Spook.  My trinity looks like this: the foundation is bacon and tomato with a crown of Lindt Milk Chocolate.  The thing is--Vosges makes some amazing chocolate.  If they made a plain milk chocolate bar, I would probably be addicted to it in the same way I'm addicted to Lindt milk chocolate bars. Vosges, however, doesn't do "plain."  All of their chocolate is exotic, but most of it doesn't appeal to me--chili pepper and other weird shit isn't my idea of a chocolate flavoring.  Now...bacon, though.  Bacon.

The first time I saw one of these bars, I was supposed to just be dashing in to purchase some Lindt while Hubbicula waited for me.  Instead, I stood paralyzed for a good ten minutes, staring at the bacon bar, trying to figure out what to do.  My gut instinct was to buy one, $8 price tag be damned.  As I reached for it, though, I thought, "Oh, crap, what am I doing?"  Think about it: two of best foods in the world are bacon and chocolate.  Put them together and you have potentially an addictive substance that makes cocaine look like Lik-M-Aid.  This is like what happened to Rome.  Everything was going along fine, innovation, democracy, indoor plumbing, and then whammo!  Something pushed them over the edge.  I'm not saying it was a bacon chocolate bar, but perhaps the Roman equivalent of it.

I thought, "If I buy that chocolate bar and it turns out to be amazing, I'll be hooked, buying $8 chocolate bars like a goddamned crack whore.  I'll be out back in the alley behind the Euro-swanky boutique shop where they sell it, trying to give blow jobs to 70-year old professors of Renaissance Italian Poetry, just to get my next fix."

Do you know how hard it is to suck off a 70-year old professor of Renaissance Italian Poetry?  I'm not saying you do, I was just curious.

So, throwing caution to the winds, I went into Euro-swank last night with the full intention of buying a bar of it.  They were sold out.  The little pusher behind the counter--a deceptively pleasant looking young woman--said, "Oh, yeah, people have been buying it like crazy."  To which I answered, "Of course they have.  Everybody wants to taste the candy that's going to destroy civilization as we know it."  So much for not wearing my weird on my sleeve. 

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I would have been more surprised if it turned out that Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Juan Gonzalez, Mo Vaughn, Miguel Tejada, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmiero, and Andy Pettitte weren't implicated in George Mitchell's report on drug use in American baseball.  Surprised?  Oh, hell, I would have been shocked as shit if those guys hadn't been using performance-enhancing drugs.

I don't care about baseball--not for cultural reasons or patriotic reasons.  I don't feel let down.  I don't feel betrayed.  The only curiosity for me is how it will all play out.  There are going to be people eager to point the finger at the players.  They're supposed to be role models.  They're setting a bad example for kids.  There will be people eager to blame the baseball commission itself.  They should have done something meaningful to stop this.

There may even be a few folks who point the blame at baseball fans or American attitudes towards athletes.  They're never satisfied.  They always want bigger, better, faster, more powerful.  They want records broken and incredible wins. 

It's probably all true.  The baseball commission is willfully impotent.  The athletes are reckless.  Fans demand more and encourage their kids to idolize athletes.  The trickle down effect works in sports in a way it never does in economics.  As professional athletes become more powerful, there is more pressure on college athletes to develop themselves quickly, in order to reach professional level.  As college athletics ramps up, high school athletes push themselves to reach college level abilities and strength.  As high school sports bump up demands...

In my mind, the only sports still worth watching are high school games and even that is probably fading.  The last time I laughed out loud in amazement at a touchdown pass was a high school football game.  It was beautiful--a mix of skill, grace, luck, daring and serendipity.  The last time I stood up and gasped over a home run was a high school game in Japan.  A once in a season miracle for that player--a kid I knew.  I wouldn't go to a professional sporting event if you gave me free tickets.

It's all de rigueur in professional sports now.  We're jaded.  Fattened on miraculous plays.  Disconnected from the things that make athletics amazing.  Indifferent to the pressures that turn athletes into hors de combat.

Remember these guys?

FourHorsemen

It's something to think about.  If you go into every experience expecting to be thrilled and amazed, you're bound to be disappointed.  You have to be willing to let it come to you.

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or least favorite Republican, depending on how you look at it.   (As I am technically registered as a Republican, perhaps I am your favorite.)

The Brotherhood of the Disappearing Pants: A Field Guide to Conservative Sex Scandals

Joseph Minton Amann

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