Christmas 2019, Part IV

(written piecemeal between December 28 - January 12, all in the aftermath)

Hi all.

The past few days have been very tiring and I wanted to be able to sit down here and tell the story of Christmas once I had time to do so. Even in the downtime after the holiday, however, it's been difficult to do that since we've still been running around quite a bit. So, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to tell the story from where I left off, in as much or as little detail as I deem necessary.  So let's begin.

Daisy woke up around 7:30 on Christmas morning, and after getting a little coffee in my system, we got dressed and drove over to the parents' house, where we were informed by our oldest nephew that they'd already started opening presents. This, despite the fact that everyone was supposed to wait until we were there and all of the presents were there (we were bringing everything for the kids and the family with us, as we hadn't done that the night before).

What followed was close to two hours of present-opening. Here's what we got for the family:

• For the parents: two wood plaques I'd woodburned designs on, stained, and coated/sealed in polyurethane to protect them, nuts, candies, a display-hood-ornament looking thing for Mom, and some other odds and ends that Daisy picked up. This is the first time in years that aside from the plaques, I was not involved in what Daisy got for the parents -- she generally has much better taste than I do for them, and I know there's some stuff I'm missing here.
• For the sister and brother-in-law: a wood plaque done in much the same way as the others, but from olive wood and not burned or stained, but drawn with their family name and also coated in polyurethane, a candle, Cocomels, and some other odds and ends that Daisy found.
• For the boys: a drone (for the middle kid), close to 50 foam glider airplanes (for all of the kids), a robot hand building kit (for the oldest kid), and a toy dump truck with a little man inside (for the youngest kid that's not the infant) -- plus stocking stuffer things like bouncing putty, sticker books, crayon sets, etc etc, whatever Daisy was able to find for them that was stocking-stuffery.
• BONUS: for my brother-in-law as well as the boys, I got them a plug and play HDMI dongle Centipede game, which had 20 old Atari games already installed on it. I'd won a prize in the gift drawing at work, and I used said prize voucher to get this for them.

I was particularly proud of the wood plaques, as I'd planned to make them for several months in advance, had to get the tools and materials myself, and spent several weeks making all of them. They took time and energy to create and weren't something that was just picked off a shelf. The gifts we spend time creating are the ones we're most proud of, I think. I made one for Daisy as well, but as we had not opened our own gifts at home yet, she had this one ruined for her when I gave the same things to everyone else. This is fine, though; she had an inkling that's what I was doing anyway, as I'm sure the smell of burning wood and wood stain coming from my room about a month ago all but gave it away anyhow.

Anyway, here's what we got:

• From the parents: a brand new, very large and intricate quilt for our bed in a bee/honeycomb/flower motif -- this is the big gift that both Daisy and I knew about, and is the first quilt Mom has made for us since our wedding quilt five years ago. The sister and brother-in-law got one as well, and Mom also made me a smaller, rainbow quilt with rainbow animals on it since I'd worn out Daisy's other rainbow animal quilt since we've been together. Mom also got Daisy a new nightgown, which she loves, amongst some other little odds and ends.
• From the family: a gift box full of three different kinds of popcorn kernels, two mugs, a popcorn bowl/holder thing, and a $25 gift card to the AMC theaters (which is where we go). 
• From the grandparents in Nova Scotia: a beautiful hand-knitted/quilted holiday placemat set -- with a note apologizing that there were no wool socks ready yet (this is hilarious because, several years back, Daisy's grandmother sent us a pair of wool socks that I love and wear all the time, and she knows it). 

After all of the presents were finished and the living room was at least partially cleaned up, we had breakfast -- Daisy had made several batches of blueberry mini-muffins, which were quite good, and I ate probably ten of them, washing them down with the last of the coffee in the coffee pot. We had a video call with Daisy's other sister (who lives in Alberta, so she didn't make it to town for the holidays) and got to talk to a few of her kids as well, briefly.

The weather was, as mentioned before, gorgeous on Christmas Day -- it was over 40 when we left the house in the morning, and by the afternoon it had reached nearly 60 -- which is good, since the drone I'd gotten the kids needed to be played with outside, and we did so, two different times, for as long as the battery would last each time. I'd worn shorts and a hoodie, but was even getting too warm for comfort in the hoodie at times (plus, having the long sleeves made it hard to keep my tattoo moisturized and made it itch).

For a large chunk of the day, while the other adults took care of the older kids as well as getting dinner prepared, I spent my time on "baby duty" with my almost five-month old nephew. I held, talked to, and kept that adorable baby boy occupied for hours, and truthfully it was my favorite part of the Christmas experience. I also did what I could to help keep an eye on the other boys to keep them settled down and out of trouble as much as possible, because I could tell that their parents as well as Daisy's parents were becoming more frazzled by the hour. It was a lot for me as well; I was getting overwhelmed with all the noise and rambunctiousness of those children, and holding the baby and lavishing attention on him kept me centered. To help calm them down and keep them occupied while the food was being cooked, the boys watched the new Grinch movie on Netflix, during which I, yes, held the baby and talked to him and generally acted as a nanny, even when he farted on me twice. Hard. And loudly. 

In the late afternoon hours, we had dinner. I don't exactly remember when, but I know it was starting to get dark, so....around that time. The temperature was dropping as the sun went down almost so quickly that you could watch and gauge it in realtime. Dinner was very good, though a rather minimalist affair for a ten-person Christmas dinner -- the parents made a turkey (which obviously Daisy and I ate none of) and Daisy made corn, stuffing, green beans, her famous mashed potatoes, etc. We didn't have bread or rolls, and Mom had made pickles and cranberry sauce (not together, because that would be weird). 

I should also mention at this point that Mom had become sick between the 23rd or so and Christmas Day, and was continually getting worse. On Christmas Day she was fighting through it for the sake of all of us and the kids, and we were all trying to help her as much as possible. Sometimes, however, that is easier said than done, and when you're miserable, you're miserable. She has spent the time since Christmas more or less confined to her bed because she's felt so awful. Daisy herself has begun to get sick as well, and has been fighting it off as much as possible since Christmas night. Me? So far, I'm fine. Apparently my flu shot kicked in just in time for the kids and family to arrive in town, and I've been kept immune thus far. That doesn't mean that I won't eventually start feeling bad, but three days out I think I'm okay.

[EDIT: Daisy is not okay, and got dreadfully sick for a week and change.]

Anyway, as the night wound down and the parents retreated upstairs, we had homemade pie with the sister and brother-in-law and I tried very hard to decompress in the now mostly quiet house...when our oldest nephew tripped over the base of Mom's swing chair in the living room and nearly broke his toe. I didn't know this; I was sitting in the chair in the corner downstairs, enjoying a bit of relative (pardon the pun) silence.

"[Nephew] may have dislocated or broken his toe," Daisy texted me from upstairs. "He may need to go to the hospital and if so we will need to watch the boys."

"Okay," I texted in reply.

No arguments, I wasn't frustrated or upset, nothing like that -- family comes first. Duty in the face of exhaustion, every man stays at his post, etc. 

This is a big step for me. The old Brandon, even though he still had the family first mentality, would've been pissed off and angry at the kid after having spent twelve hours outside of the house on Christmas Day, and having not even had his own Christmas yet. The older, wiser, more mature Brandon has more patience and understanding of such things, and just wants to help out where he can. Again, as I mentioned in my previous post, Christmas is for the kids, and I am now the older generation -- while I'm not a parent myself, I am a hell of a good uncle. I also have the foresight to realize that I still had three more days off work after Christmas and therefore had far more time than usual to decompress and enjoy the holidays in my own way.

About half an hour later, the kid came downstairs, morose and in some pain, but okay. Once we were sure he was fine, Daisy and I began to pack up the stuff for the night, and then shortly thereafter left the house.

I will say that I was indeed sort of frazzled and tired, and I had a headache -- it was after 8PM and we'd spent a full twelve hours being inundated with children and Christmas. Daisy put on Christmas music in the car on the way home, on purpose, and it took all of my willpower not to punch the stereo simply out of reflex. I was Christmas'd out. 

But, we still had our own Christmas to have, since we'd rolled out of bed and practically ran out the door that morning. All of our own presents for one another were yet to be opened. So, once we'd brought everything in and I was able to feed the cats and change out of the kid-germ-covered clothing I'd been wearing all day, Daisy and I collapsed on the couch with our respective piles of presents.

Here's what I got Daisy, which is the most important list anyhow:

• A case of Cocomels
• Two water guns for the cats
• The aforementioned wood plaque
• A case of 60 white washcloths
• A giant, two-plus-pound bag of Blue Diamond almonds
• A raised cake stand (her request)
• Chelsea Clinton's She Persisted book (also her request)
• A six-pack of her favorite pine tar soap
• A 250-gram box of nag champa incense

And the kicker, the big gift...

• Two custom-made, sherpa-lined fleece blankets with two different pictures of us from our wedding printed on them.

The blankets were one of the first things I'd done for her, actually -- I knew they would take some time to process, create, and ship, so I ordered them up in early November. They arrived shortly before Thanksgiving, and I had them printed by Shutterfly -- the company who I have make our custom Christmas cards every year. Because of the size I'd ordered and the custom printing involved, they were not cheap by any means, and more than a third of my gift budget went to them.

Also of note: in the days after Christmas, Daisy would return the cake stand (she thought the one she'd put on her wish list was glass; it was not, it was plastic) and the washcloths -- which I'd specifically gotten so we could get rid of the old ratty ones we had around the house (she didn't like the new ones), so I actually spent less on Daisy this year overall than I have in most previous years. 

The blankets almost immediately went on the bed (after a wash, of course) where they currently remain, even after another wash, today. 

Here's what Daisy got for me -- trying to remember the best I can now over two weeks later:

• Two straightening/detangling hairbrushes
• Good Omens in paperback
• The latest Uncle John's Bathroom Reader
• Vegan sausage sticks
• Louisville Vegan Jerky "Buffalo Dill"
• A six-pack of my favorite thermal socks

And the big gift...

• A Nintendo Switch Lite, in turquoise, with Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee and Pokemon Sword.

I'm sure there are other small things I'm forgetting too, as it's been some time, but the Switch and those games have dominated most of my free time ever since.

"Good," I told her -- "...now I can put the silicone case for the Switch on it. The case that I ordered and that arrived last week."

So sure was I that she'd gotten me the Switch that I had already ordered the case for it. Even if she'd not actually gotten me one, I would've saved the case as I was planning on purchasing a Switch within the next several weeks/months anyhow once we got our tax refunds. I have not skipped over or "missed" a new generation of Pokemon games in almost twenty years, and I'm not about to start now. 

After we put everything away, she came upstairs to shower and I sat down in my chair (after plugging in the Switch to charge, of course). I was passed out in my chair before she even got out of the shower; I woke up five hours later to her in bed and me wide-awake -- she had to work the 26th, while I did not. 

***

In the days since, both of us have gone back to work as per the usual, as the holidays are done, and we have rejoined the cycle of the daily grind. For the New Year, I had taken New Year's Eve off in advance, but volunteered to work New Year's Day (the overnight shift as per the usual). We normally do a big New Year's Eve with the parents, but Mama was dreadfully sick and wanted to cancel, and Daisy was getting rather sick at that point as well -- she didn't really shake it until this past week -- so we stayed home, watched the ball drop at 11 (remember, we're central time) and then shortly after actual midnight went to bed.

So there you have it, that was Christmas in a nutshell (and a few posts).

Onward into 2020, helmets on.

No Flying Cars

Imagine, if you will, if you had the opportunity to go back in time (in a realistic fashion, of course) to the year 2000 -- twenty years ago now -- to talk to your younger self for one, and only one, conversation. What would you say? What would your younger self ask you about the future? Would you give your younger self hope, or would they be extremely frightened of and/or disappointed in you as a person? How would they react to stories about today's society, technology, pop culture, or anything else?

In the truly hypothetical conversation below -- no, I don't actually have a time machine -- you're about to see how I would imagine a conversation with 17-year-old me would go.

***

Me: Hi. I'm you from twenty years in the future, from the super-technologically-advanced world of...2020.

2000: Holy shit, they have time machines in the future? Is that how you got here?

Me: No. Stay with me here, kid, don't break the fourth wall.

2000: Then how did you get here?

Me: I said knock it off, it's not important.

2000: Also, I'm not a kid, I'm seventeen. I'll be eighteen this year. Like the Alice Cooper song.

Me: Trust me, you are 100% still a kid, and I would know. Act like you have some sense, this is important. I'm here to tell you about the future.

2000: Are there flying cars?

Me: ...no.

2000: Shitty future then if you ask me.

Me: I'm inclined to agree with you there.

2000: Are they at least close to flying cars? I mean it's 2020 where you're from, what the fuck, America?

Me: Also no. But a large chunk of the population does own little helicopters that they can fly pretty much anywhere and do anything they want with.

2000: Like, inside them?

Me: No. Like remote controlled. They're called "drones."

2000: Can you like, shoot and bomb people with them and stuff?

Me: ...no. Well, wait, yes, the military does that with much bigger ones that aren't helicopters, but--

2000: So no flying cars, but a bunch of little remote control helicopters. We have remote control helicopters now, you know...

Me: It's a bit more complicated than that in 2020. Amazon wants to use them to deliver packages eventually, and some of them are so complex and large that you have to get licenses to fly them--

2000: Licenses to fly remote control helicopters?

Me: I feel like we're spending too much time on this subject.

2000: What's Amazon?

Me: Oh hell. Well, um, think of a massive internet store that you can buy anything from, run by the richest man in the world--

2000: Bill Gates?

Me: No. Anyway, it's that. You want something, you can get it there, and it gets to your house in like, a day or two.

2000: Giant online Walmart. Gotcha.

Me: You can also watch movies and TV shows on their website or on your TV through their company.

2000: Porn?

Me: What?

2000: Can you watch porn on it?

Me: Surprisingly, no.

2000: Meh, it won't last then.

Me: You'd be surprised.

2000: Okay, so no flying cars. Are there at least cool things like blasters? Lightsabers? Phasers? Oh oh, what about teleporters? Rocket packs? Proton Packs?

Me: Also no. You're gonna be really disappointed in the actual future if that's the stuff you're focusing on, man. Technologically speaking, 2020 isn't that much more advanced than it is in 2000...it's more of a...slow natural progression of things, really. Some things, anyway.

2000: So there are none of those things?

Me: No. Well, sort of. There are a couple of guys with rocket packs, but they're not like the ones in The Rocketeer or anything like that. And the military was trying to develop a ray gun weapon a few years back, but I never heard anything else about it after I was out of college.

2000: College? No, nevermind, we'll come back to that. Are we at least going to the moon on a regular basis, is there a base on Mars or Venus or something like that?

Me: Actually, we pretty much shut down the space program a few years back when they retired the remaining shuttles--

2000: Remaining shuttles?

Me: Yeah. Wait, it's 2000, you don't know this yet -- okay, so another one blows up in a few years, it's tragic. After that, they cut back the space program a lot and eventually mothball the shuttle fleet. They're in museums now. But there is an international space station in orbit around the planet, and there is a new branch of the military called the Space Force--

2000: SPACE FORCE!

Me: Yeah, it's not as cool as you think. And it's just getting started. No kid, we're stuck on this rock for a while yet. My advice is to make the best of it. The 2000s are gonna be weird.

2000: But you--I--do go to college?

Me: You do. For two different degrees, from two different schools. For seven years total.

2000: To do what?

Me: I'm not telling you that for fear that it'll irrevocably alter the timeline and create some sort of Flashpoint-like scenario.

2000: What?

Me: Nevermind; you'll figure it out in a few years.

2000: So after two degrees and seven years that must mean I get super rich and powerful you are clearly coming back in time to tell me how to get there, right?

Me: ...

2000: Well?

Me: Not exactly, but I will say that you're mostly okay with your life choices.

2000: I feel that you're being purposely vague.

Me: I am.

2000: Okay, so you're twenty years older and you're mostly doing what you want to do with your life, so--

Me: Not even remotely, kid.

2000: ...well...what do you do?

Me: Mostly get yelled at by idiots who should never be allowed near a phone or computer system until they gain enough brain cells to operate one correctly.

2000: Oh. Okay...like....tech support? Jesus.

Me: I work for [redacted] as a contractor through [also redacted] where I run a team of people who help get business customers' internet and phone services restored when they go down.

2000: So...like tech support then.

Me: No, goddammit...okay, look. It is in the same vein but that's not what it is.

2000: Sure what it sounds like to me. And this is what I end up going to school for? Fuck my life, man...do you at least get paid well for it?

Me: Nowhere near what I'm worth. But I can tell you that it's a living and I'm currently making more money doing it than you'd think.

2000: Wait, so you didn't go to school for it, and you don't get paid well for it, so...why are you doing it?

Me: penny for every time I've asked myself that question...

2000: What? I didn't hear you.

Me: Nothing, nevermind. No, I went to school for something completely different and ended up falling into this career when I needed to pay the bills and put gas in the car.

2000: Oh good, you have a car.

Me: ....

2000: ...you don't have a car?

Me: ...not at the moment. Look, if you keep asking questions like this it's gonna make me sound like I'm a real asshole waste of skin, alright?

2000: ....

Me: ...I had a car, it was a good car, it was my baby, and then some assholes broke into it and destroyed it while I was at work one night. They were trying to steal it, and completely tore out the ignition and starter and....yeah. I had to get it towed back to my apartment to sell it for scrap, okay? But it was mine, I owned it outright, I took care of it -- it was a piece of me.

2000: Jesus, okay man, you don't have to start crying about it or anything, I get it.

Me: Invest in a good auto security system. That's all I'm gonna say.

2000: ...okay then.

Me: It was a sports car, at least. Sort of. Ish. I've got that going for me, right? One day you'll own a sports car that you'll be able to drive really fast and recklessly in, and it'll feel amazing. You'll write poetry about it.

2000: This took a really sad turn. It's okay man, you'll get another car.

Me: Oh, I did. It was a truck, actually. I had a truck for a while. I got it for free.

2000: Someone gave you a free truck?

Me: Yes, actually.

2000: And you don't have it anymore?

Me: I sold it for about $850 when the wife and I bought our house. There wasn't any room for it and it was falling apart, but yeah, I owned it for several ye--

2000: A wife! And a house!

Me: Hahah, yes, well, you didn't ask about those things before--

2000: Is it Becca? Do you have kids? How many kids do you have?

Me: What? Oh, no kid, not her. She's an awesome person, but she's not the one. I feel like telling you that even is gonna fuck up the timeline.

2000: ...oh.

Me: Look, man, it's fine. It's okay. It just wasn't meant to be with her, you know? I know that's rough for you to hear now, and I know people say that sort of thing a lot, but they say it because it's true. Trust me. There will be others. Ahem, several others.

2000: Other wives?

Me: No, no, just the one. And you've got some time before you meet her, so, y'know, loosen up a bit.

2000: Kids?

Me: No, no kids. At least none that I'm aware of. No, we're taking our time on that; maybe there will be kids, maybe there won't be.

2000: How long?

Me: Before kids?

2000: No, how long have you been married?

Me: Oh. Going on six years.

2000: ...only six years?

Me: Trust me man, she's worth the wait. If there's anything I can impart on you during this conversation, it's that you seriously need to learn some fuckin' patience. Shit isn't going to happen to you overnight. It's going to take time and work and effort in many, many cases.

2000: Says the man who was given a free truck.

Me: ...coming from the kid whose mother gives him a free car in a few years that he never uses more than five times. 

2000: Mom's buying me a new car?!

Me: ...no. You know our mother, do you ever think that would reasonably happen?

2000: Well, I always thought that if I kept doing well in school, I mean, I got my permit a few weeks ago, and I need a car for college--

Me: Hahah, no.

2000: Come on, man! Aren't you going to tell me any good news?

Me: I legit just told you that you get married to a wonderful woman, make a decent living, and you own a house.

2000: Yeah, when I'm thirty-seven! Doesn't anything good happen to me before that?

Me: not a whole hell of a lot, actually...

2000: What? I couldn't hear you.

Me: Nothing, I was clearing my throat.

2000: Oh.

Me: There are twelve Star Wars movies in 2020.

2000: Now that is what I'm talking about!

Me: Only eight of them are any good.

2000: ...so it's like the Star Trek movies then?

Me: By 2020 there are thirteen of those. I think, I may have lost count. With only about eight or nine of them worth watching, and a few of those only worth watching once. So...yes?

2000: There's an X-Men movie supposed to come out this year too.

Me: Oh good lord, don't get me started on comic book movies.

2000: Why?

Me: I've seriously lost count of how many there are at this point and I've only seen about half of them.

2000: Seriously?

Me: Just you wait.

2000: They've made a bunch of comic book movies and you haven't seen all of them multiple times?

Me: I feel that you'll understand why a lot more as time progresses.

2000: Why, are they bad?

Me: Some of them are...

2000: And some of them are good?

Me: Some of them are very good. Some of them redefine what comics are and can be. Hell, some of them redefine cinema.

2000: Okay, well, the future has that going for it at least.

Me: That it does. You have no idea.

2000: What's the best one?

Me: ...don't you want to know more about yourself? Your wife and home? The future in general?

2000: Well, I mean, yes.

Me: Okay then.

2000: I take it you haven't hit the lottery yet.

Me: ...no.

2000: And I see that you're still fat.

Me: Hey now, fucker!

2000: Well, you are. Am I lying?

Me: I have a gym membership!

2000: Seems like a waste of money to me, since you don't appear to use it.

Me: I use it!

2000: You're going bald and gray too. Fuck, I'm gonna go bald and gray?

Me: Look man, genetics are genetics. And I'm old.

2000: You're thirty-seven! That's not that old!

Me: Well, let me clue you in on something. You will feel old at thirty-seven. Sometimes you will feel really old. As for looks and weight, it comes and goes. There are times you'll have hair halfway to your ass and a full beard and people will call you the wolfman, and there are times you'll be clean-shaven and have really short hair. You'll even give yourself a punk rock mohawk-looking hairstyle at one point in the teens.

2000: ...the wolfman?

Me: Yes, and you'll have a theme song too.

2000: Uh...huh.

Me: Anyway. Yes, you'll lose a bunch of weight, then you'll gain some back, lose some more, gain a lot more when you quit smoking, and then lose most of that weight again. You will never feel or be thin. It's not in your genetics. But you can and will be much healthier than you are now.

2000: That sounds....tiring.

Me: It IS.

2000: You wear glasses.

Me: I do. Your eyesight will go to shit soon enough, it'll start with a pineapple...

2000: A pineapple?

Me: Long story. Anyway, yes. You'll need glasses. You'll need glasses and you'll be fat and hairy your whole life and your dick isn't gonna get any bigger than it is now and these are all things you'll just have to deal with, man. 

2000: Sounds like a delightful future. You're not instilling me with a lot of hope here.

Me: But you should be hopeful. There's a lot you're going to do with your life that you never would've guessed you'd do.

2000: You can start by telling me about some of that...

Me: Well, for one, you get the fuck out of West Virginia and don't look back.

2000: Good, that's good, please tell me I'm living somewhere on the beach, not somewhere boring like...oh, Kansas or Nebr--

Me: Nebraska.

2000: Son of a bitch!

Me: You live in Kansas for five years, too.

2000: Fuck me, man, what did you do with my life? Couldn't you at least put me in or around a city, someplace with people and technology?

Me: Hey now, Omaha is actually a pretty nice place. You've lived in far worse places before.

2000: Like Kansas?

Me: ...well, okay, not gonna lie, Kansas mostly sucked. But it was quiet.

2000: I've lived around quiet all my life; I need something with some spirit, some people, something to do.

Me: Believe me, the older you get, the more you will appreciate the quiet.

2000: Okay, so, let's recap. In 2020 you're married, you own a house, you don't have a car, you hate your job, you went to college for seven years, you didn't win the lottery, I'm still fat, and of all places...Nebraska.

Me: Well, if you gloss over everything like that...

2000: Tell me something fun. Tell me you started a punk rock band or stabbed a guy in a bar fight or have a bunch of tattoos nobody knows about until you take off your clothes. Anything, man.

Me: Only one tattoo, on my arm.

2000: Let me see.

Me: ...

2000: The Star Trek emblem? Really?

Me: There's a bit more to it than that.

2000: Is there now? Because to me it looks like you just decided to tell the whole world that I'm a fucking nerd.

Me: In 2020 that's not nearly as looked down upon as it is now, trust me.

2000: What's next, you gonna get a Star Wars tattoo too?

Me: ...actually...

2000: Oh for fuck's sake, dude.

Me: I'm telling you, stuff's different in the future. The internet is everywhere. Nerd culture is a huge thing. We carry everything with us everywhere we go on mobile devices.

2000: Mobile devices?

Me: Oh yeah, that's not really a thing yet. You have a ce...no you don't, you don't have a cell phone yet. Okay. Well, twenty years from now, everyone has a cell phone, and everyone uses them for everything. They're like miniature pocket computers.

2000: ...okay, that's cool.

Me: It is. Hit a few buttons and you can watch a movie, listen to literally any album or song ever made, call a friend with video, or check to see what all of your friends are doing in real time on Facebook.

2000: Facebook?

Me: Right. Not a thing yet. You'll see in a few years.

2000: And all of this has made the world a better place?

Me: That's very, very debatable.

2000: What else is going on in 2020? Is there alien life? Are we at war with anyone? Did they bring back the draft? What is television and music like?

Me: Whoa, slow down a bit.

2000: Sorry, got a little excited there.

Me: No, there is no alien life we know of yet. As for war...well, that's sort of debatable as well. No draft. Yet. And television and music...hoo boy.

2000: "Hoo boy"?

Me: You're not gonna like a lot of it. What you do like you'll keep coming back to over and over for years on end, at least on the music side. Music basically goes off the rails into pure shit in about five or six years and never really recovers. As for television, the best of it now is all online -- TV-based-TV is, well, not that great anymore.

2000: So what I'm hearing is that the internet sort of takes over everything. Like Skynet.

Me: You're not too far off.

2000: So I guess here's the big question -- who's alive and who's dead in 2020?

Me: That's a really loaded question. Like celebrities or people we know?

2000: Both. Family first.

Me: We're all still alive. Mostly.

2000: Mostly? I assume Grammy is dead in 2020?

Me: She is, but she almost made it that long. It was close.

2000: Other family dead?

Me: A few. Nobody you were super close to in your adult life, but I mean, they're obviously gonna happen here and there. None were incredibly surprising. Okay, well, one of them is surprising.

2000: Friends?

Me: What, like friends who have died? There's a, um, fair number of them actually. They're all...bad. Far more friends than family.

2000: Close friends?

Me: Yeah. Yeah, a couple of them.

2000: ...anyone you fucked?

Me: Jesus dude, no. And before you ask, you've got a few more years of waiting on that, too, so again, be patient.

2000: Fiiiiiine. No celebrities of any importance?

Me: ...yes, a ton of them.

2000: Harrison Ford?

Me: Harrison Ford is still alive. He's older than dirt, but he's still alive.

2000: Harrison Ford is my touchstone celebrity death, you know. When he goes, I'll know I'm old.

Me: I know.

2000: Stan Lee?

Me: ...dead. Yes.

2000: Fuck!

Me: It was really sad, too. I cried.

2000: George Lucas? Steven Spielberg?

Me: Both still kickin'.

2000: Keith Richards? Willie Nelson? Um...Bob Dylan?

Me: Remarkably, all still alive and all still making music.

2000: Holy hell, they must be ancient.

Me: They are.

2000: Um...who else? I'm sure there are other people I could think of...

Me: There are a few huge ones you'll never see coming, and I don't want to spoil their macabre surprises.

2000: Betty White?

Me: Still alive, and still acting -- defying almost all laws of aging.

2000: Wow, man.

Me: My time is almost up here, kid. Anything else you want to know before I have to return to the future?

2000: Okay, so, government and politics? Who's our president in 2020?

Me: Nope. I am not even going to attempt to open that box.

2000: Why?

Me: You don't want to know, kid...you don't want to know...

Christmas 2019, Part III

(written Christmas Day)

Christmas morning. 5:58 AM.

It is unseasonably warm and very quiet outside. The pavement is damp, probably from leaching groundwater, and there's no movement outside our large picture window in front of our dining room, where I stood and looked out at the world. Not a breeze, no cars driving by, just pure peace.

I'm sure there are many other mornings where this is the case as well, but they don't feel the same as Christmas morning does.

It is not unusual for me to be awake very early on Christmas morning, whether I want to be or not; this is part of who I am, and I can count on maybe one hand the number of times I can recall not being awake this early on Christmas morning, from childhood to now.

Over the past several years, though, I have begun to slowly realize that this holiday is less and less something for me every year, and more for the generation after me. As a child, everything revolved around Christmas; it was the best day of the year, with lots of food and presents and endless hours of TV. I would look forward to it for weeks on end, and I remember being so incredibly excited for it that I couldn't stand the anticipation.

But, as an adult, I feel more adult-y and removed from it more by the year. This morning, as I looked out the window, I felt my age. I looked down at my ratty bathrobe, the tattoo on my arm, and ran my fingers through the gray in my beard, of which there is a lot. I am slowly becoming Santa Claus. Which is, I think, the way it's supposed to be -- the older hand down the reins (no pun intended) to the younger generation, the same as it has been for many generations before my own.

I feed the cats, go to the bathroom, and return upstairs to take allergy pills and prepare for the day. I rub some Hustle Butter onto my tattoo. The Weather Channel tells me it's supposed to be sixty degrees today, so I mentally prepare the outfit I'll be wearing and make a note to grab the clothing out of the closet once Daisy is awake -- she was up late, really late, doing gift-wrapping and taking care of other last-minute Christmas stuff, and deserves to sleep as long as she can.

Sitting at my desk typing this, I hear the world begin waking up outside my open window -- cars going by on the street, the occasional honk of a horn or distant police/ambulance siren -- the beginnings of Christmas morning for the rest of Omaha.

Behind me, against the wall next to my door, is the pile of presents I wrapped a few days ago -- both for Daisy as well as our nephews, family, and parents. I am blessed to be married to Daisy, married into such a wonderful, caring, loving family. It is something I've never taken for granted, because there have been many years of my life where this wasn't the case, where I woke up alone or in a relative's/significant other's relative's house (or, occasionally while traveling, a hotel) on Christmas morning and didn't necessarily feel the peace and blessings I feel this morning. My life is a good life. I've made it a good life with what I've been given and what I've made of it. I could've just as easily become a withdrawn, morose, miserable person forever, locking myself away in a rundown rented house or apartment, smoking and drinking my life away. There were times where I feared that is all I would ever be.

But I didn't. I opened my heart, I opened my life to this wonderful woman and this wonderful family, and it is they who have made me whole. I am a better person for it and because of them, and so my goal at Christmas is to do everything for them that I can. If I don't, I feel like I've let them down.


***


The Christmas Eve service at church yesterday was one of the strangest, briefest affairs I've ever been part of.

Daisy and I confirmed the time with the parents (4pm) and arrived at the church around 3:50 to find the parking lot about 85% full and neither the parents nor the rest of the family in sight.

"Are you here yet?" Daisy texted the parents.

Mama responded with "Almost."

"It's fine, babe," I said. "They'll get here, there's handicapped parking, it'll be fine."

"I wonder if they're just taking the one car," Daisy said.

"There are eight of them, there's no way they're fitting all eight of them into [sister's] SUV."

Mind you, they've fit all of us and all four boys into said SUV before, but Mama has a walker and isn't as limber as Daisy and I are.

We saw the family pull in a few minutes later; no sign of the parents.

We then receive a text message from Mama: "we're sitting in the church."

"Would've been nice to know that," I said, slightly annoyed. It quickly passed. Everyone is fighting their own battles, and it was a particularly hard day for Daisy's mother to get out and about, as she is slowly getting sick.

We came through the door as two of the last few people coming in, and were handed our "candles" -- battery-powered tealights -- and programs.

"Oooh, electronic ones this year," I said to the pastor, grinning.

"Yeah," he said, smiling widely and obviously recognizing me and Daisy from previous years. "It's much easier. How are you? It's good to see you! I love that tattoo!"

That's just the environment that church creates. It is also part of why, even as someone with no religion, I enjoy going to the service. You don't have to have religion to be a good person or feel welcomed by a community, and that's part of why I'm so excited (yes, excited) every year to participate. None of these people know I'm an atheist, and I'm not sure any of them would really care if they did know.

It was 4:01 PM. Everyone was inside and sitting in the back row pew of the church, taking up the entire pew. Daisy and I sat in an empty spot on the opposite side of the aisle.

At 4:19 PM, after a few hymns (which the gathered congregation sang only half-assedly...with the exception of my brother-in-law, who belted it out like he was an opera performer) and a little video/children's ceremony, the service was over and we were dismissed.

I blinked a few times.

"That was the shortest Christmas Eve service we've ever been to here," I said to my brother-in-law, who seemed sort of surprised as well. "Usually it's about an hour, they have a few speakers, last year they told us about this multi-ethnicity, multi-religion school they were putting together in Jerusalem, etc." I was stunned.

"It's the kids' service," Daisy said, shrugging. "It's generally shorter."

While that may be true, we've never been in and out of there in less than twenty minutes before.

We got a few family photos taken by some of the kinder members of the congregation who offered to take them for us, and then made our way back to the house for snacks/dinner, which was a very...hectic and stressful affair, to say the least.

Everyone's rundown and burnt out. Mama is getting sick. Daisy has been running almost nonstop for days trying to get everything situated and taken care of, and is exhausted. Dad is as tired and worn down by four boys being in the house as he normally is, and our sister and brother-in-law are really tired, you can see it in their eyes and their slow movements -- and are both short-tempered at this point. Me? I had been fighting off allergy attacks because of the really warm weather and had been awake since 4AM. So, while I wasn't punchy or anything like that, I wasn't feeling at my best myself.

We finally came home around 8PM, as the boys were readying for bed and the family was winding down, and within two hours I was passed out in my chair. I got up around 12:30 or so (while I could still hear Daisy wrapping presents downstairs) and moved to the bed, where I slept until after 5AM. I wouldn't find out until after I woke up that she'd not gone to sleep until after 3, as she'd messaged the parents in our group chat to let her know when everyone was up.

When Mama responded at 6:56 saying she was up, I knew the day had already begun and she'd probably been up for some time. I told her that I'd let Daisy sleep for a bit and then get her up and give a timeframe of when we'd be over. Kids are kids, they're not gonna wait for presents any longer than they have to, and I can't say I blame them -- I was the same way when I was their age. Daisy and I could put aside our own festivities and presents for each other until the evening; as I mentioned above, Christmas is all about the kids.

So that's our plans for the day, folks...let's see how they pan out.

Christmas 2019, Part II

(written December 24, 2019)

I've been off work for five days now, but truthfully it feels like it's only been half that amount of time.

The holidays are and always have been a rather hectic time for Daisy and me -- she generally has to work some of the days I'm off, I generally try to take care of as much in-the-background stuff around the house as I can when I'm off as well, and neither of us sleep a whole lot. I've been plunging in and out of sleep for the past four days, getting some rest here and there when I can, and have been working on all sorts of stuff when I can't.

To those ends, I have wrapped every present for Daisy, her parents, and the family save for two last difficult-to-wrap ones, I have done all of the laundry in the house, I have washed the blankets, bedsheets, bathroom mats, and shower curtains, and even had enough time to cook a breakfast and watch a movie this morning -- after running the dishwasher first, of course.

How do I have the time and energy to take care of all this stuff? Copious amounts of caffeine, mostly. If I don't do the stuff that needs to be done while I can, not only do I feel like a waste of skin, but it feels like my time off just quickly disappears, melting away to nothing with nothing to show for it. Truth be told, Daisy has a lot to do over the course of the next day or so that I can't help her with, including wrapping her own presents for me and her parents, and preparing large parts of the Christmas Eve snacks and Christmas Day dinner for us and the family. Because of this, as her partner, I try as I can to take care of as much of the ancillary stuff as I can.

Now, normally -- as it's December -- this time of year is marred by some awful weather, and we have to fight through it to get stuff done, errands ran, and more often than not it affects our travel anywhere we go (or don't go) during that time. Christmas 2014 -- the year Daisy and I got married -- we got a snowstorm on Christmas Eve that was supposed to be a dusting, but gave us nine inches. We've had to fight through some nasty snow/ice a few times over the years at Christmas, actually.

But this year? It was 55 degrees in Omaha yesterday. Today it's supposed to be 53. On Christmas Day it's supposed to hit 57, and may breach 60 -- breaking records for the area for Christmas temperatures. I'm not complaining about any of this -- we already had a pretty strong cold snap last from about Thanksgiving up until a few days ago, and the thought of wearing shorts and a t-shirt to family Christmas dinner is, needless to say, thrilling to me. We're gradually supposed to get back to more normal temperatures next week, but for now I've got the windows open and I'm going to enjoy all of this while I can.

In other news, the family has now arrived in town; we spent the evening with them Sunday night for my "birthday dinner" of fries and gravy (no cheese was involved, so it can't be called poutine) and a lemon cake that Daisy made. It was a very subdued affair; I was tired and my stomach was bothering me for a good chunk of the night, and while I love my nephews, sometimes my psyche can only take them in small doses. I was irritable for a good chunk of the day and evening due to lack of sleep, and I tried to be social as best I could, mostly succeeding. I really appreciate the family; they are wonderful people and even if I'm not feeling great I always attempt to be the best person I can be for them.

For my birthday, the parents got me an Ancestry.com DNA testing kit, something that I'd been extremely interested in for some time. They actually gave it to me on Friday shortly after I got my tattoo (before the family was in town) and got Daisy one as well.

I've always been low-key obsessed with my origins and family history/bloodline; my mother only knows a limited history of where our family originated from, and my actual father I have not spoken to in over 25 years -- and both of his parents were long dead before I was born. What I do know is that my mother's side of the family came to the states from England, and my father's side can be traced back to a mashup of all of the UK isles, primarily Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. My father's brother once pulled me aside in the early-to-mid-90s and told me he'd done a lot of research that had shown that our bloodline came from a village of actual dwarves in Scotland, I believe. I wasn't sure how much stock to put in that and am still not.

Over the past year or so I've done some research of my own, and traced my family origins back to the mid-eighteenth (1758 was the farthest back I could find) and early nineteenth centuries. It reads much like the Bible -- A begat B, who begat C, D, and E; C died, D and E married F and G and begat H, I, J, K, L....etc. The earliest I could go back on one side of the family tree was a preacher in early 1800s London; before his parents, records are unknown. I have family that originated in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio -- lots of Ohio, actually, on my father's side -- as well as some in Missouri. All were sons or daughters of western European immigrants, and some immigrants themselves. Some tree branches on both sides of my family showed Revolutionary War soldiers, soldiers in the War of 1812, as well as a scattering of Spanish-American War veterans. Interestingly enough, I didn't find a whole lot of Civil War soldiers in my lineage. There are one or two I noticed, but living on the Mason-Dixon line I would've expected a LOT more.

The depressing side of it all was that looking back through my mother's side of the family history, I noticed something very poignant -- once they came to the states, and settled in West Virginia, none of them ever really left ever again. I found pages upon pages of people who were born, lived, died, and were buried within 20 miles of my hometown. Generations of people, over the span of close to 200 years. Two different cemeteries on the western end of the county where my grandmother lived are literally filled with my ancestors. As a kid I would pass by those cemeteries almost every day and never knew. There are a few cemeteries around the Morgantown area that hold a lot of my family as well. Nobody had ever told me. There's even a family cemetery that I didn't know about until this year. My family never seemed to hold ancestry or family history in any high regard. Some of them actively disliked talking about it or even said they didn't remember anything because they themselves never really knew about family history.

It bothered me on multiple levels for years. I asked my father once, and only once, about his parents -- he told me his father committed suicide in the early 70s, and his mother died before that. Before that, one of his brothers drowned, and he did not seem to want to talk about any of it, so I let it be. The only real information from my father's side of the family is what I've found on Findagrave.com as well as word of mouth from some older relatives I'm still in contact with. I know virtually nothing other than that, aside from the dwarves thing.

So really, the Ancestry DNA test will give me something to latch onto, genetically, to see who I am and where I really come from. It'll also show me some relatively close genetic matches and the like, people I may have never even met or heard of. But, more than anything else, I'm down for the statistics of it. Percentages. X percent from the British isles, X percent from other places, X percent extraterrestrial, etc, whatever it is.

Anyway. Onward.

The tattoo is healing fine; we've now entered the stage where the top layer of skin on the design dries out and begins to peel off, akin to scabs. Larger tattoos, I've read, will have actual scabs form on them and flake off. On mine the skin is just dry and lifting off around the design, which is normal. I've been using the Hustle Butter on it to keep it moisturized, but otherwise I'm letting it do its thing (as you're supposed to). It isn't itchy, it doesn't hurt, it's just my arm. My arm that sort of feels weird to have a layer of butter-moisturizer-lotion on it at almost all times. But meh, it is what it is. I don't have to do it forever, just for a few weeks.

I told Daisy I wanted to go get the Rebel tattoo on Friday, as she has the day off and we're doing eye appointments to use the last of our FSA account stuff before we lose it at the end of the year -- I need my prescription re-upped anyhow -- but the tattoo shop posted that they are closed between now and January 2, so that's sadly off the table. I'll go get it done eventually, I just don't know when. It's a high priority for me on my to-do list. I want that ink soon.

We have not yet seen The Rise of Skywalker, and I'm guessing that will be a Thursday evening/Friday activity as well, depending on our plans. I would not be opposed to going to see it tomorrow, on Christmas Day, but we'll have to see how things pan out at and with the family. When a new Star Wars movie comes out around the holidays, if the family is in town, my brother-in-law and I go see it together. This is sort of a tradition since almost as long as Daisy and I have been married. On the years we don't go (or the years when there's not a new movie out at Christmastime) we generally get each other something Star Wars-related for Christmas -- a mug, socks, etc. Something small. We've learned at this point that we're just nerds and have grown to accept that in one another.

I mentioned earlier that all of the gifts are wrapped now (except for the ones Daisy needs to wrap for me, the family, and the kids), and I do have a list of them -- however, I'm not going to write about them here until after tomorrow when everyone has already opened them and knows what they have. I also plan to do a breakdown of my own gifts, similar to what I've done here in the past, just for the sake of analysis. I have no clue what anyone got me but the parents -- I've known what Daisy's parents got for us for over a month, as does Daisy -- but I'm not going to write about it here until everything's all said and done. I know our nephews are going to love the stuff we got for them, and this year part of my stuff for the parents (as well as for the wife) was handmade and took time and energy to do.

Still, fatigue plagues me at every turn. I slept a good bit yesterday, but the time spent asleep versus awake, the times of the day or night I've done it, and my ratio of hours spent asleep versus wakefulness are all really, really off-kilter. I'm attempting to reset those hours tonight by not taking a nap today, even though I want one, and instead just powering through everything until I can sleep normally tonight in the overnight with the wife. It is my hope that this will wake me up early enough in the morning, and well-rested enough, to take on the day with vigor -- as it is going to be a really long day.

This afternoon is the Christmas Eve church service that all of us will attend, in about four hours; in total, ten of us will be in attendance -- the parents, brother and sister in law, the four boys, and us. Afterwards we'll return to the parents' home to do Christmas Eve dinner/snacks (Daisy is making vegan fondue, for example) and then will return home to go to bed -- or, at least, return home to wind down and let Daisy wrap the rest of the gifts she needs to wrap and cook whatever part of the Christmas dinner stuff she wants to start tonight, anyway.

Truth be told, Daisy and I have been operating on differing schedules all week, despite the fact that we have more time together this week than we've had in months. It's all been spent running back and forth, doing errands, doing family stuff, taking care of Christmas-related tasks, and in the midst of it all it's been punctuated, for her, with going to and from work this week. She has a half-day today, as mentioned before, but she worked normally all day yesterday and will work all day normally on Thursday as well. It's a lot of stress and a lot of up-down, up-down for her that won't really end until after the new year...when none of us have anything else to look forward to but the cold, cold months of winter until spring starts in March.

Aside from the chores around the house, my downtime has been rather boring; I've listened to about forty (yes, forty) episodes of one of my favorite podcasts, and I've idly played some computer or phone games or read a comic here or there to pass the time. Like I said, what I can help Daisy with, I have done so and continue to do so...but a lot of the holiday work is her and her alone, and all I can do is occasionally offer assistance if and when she needs it. It does, at times, make me feel a bit useless. I really just long for everything to be done so that she can sit on the couch and cuddle with me or we can curl up in bed together and just sleep. I'm hoping we can do one or both tonight.

The Tattoo Story

I'd like to begin this story by stating that I have never before gotten a tattoo.

I am 37 years old, married, in a fairly stable job in a two-income-no-kids, one-car household, and the wife and I own our home. Our salaries put us square in the middle class -- not rich, but not destitute -- and I acknowledge that Daisy and I are far more privileged than many others in this town, in this world, even in our own (slowly getting smaller) group of friends.

However, it took a long time for both of us to get where we are. Daisy and I both grew up dirt poor in different parts of the country on different tracks in life. Both of us had our parents sacrifice many things -- time, energy, money, and probably some hopes and dreams along the way -- to take care of us and raise us. Both of our lives could have taken much darker paths than they did, and both of us are grateful that they did not.

What does this have to do with getting a tattoo? I'm getting to it, just hang in there.

Growing up in rural West Virginia in the 80s and 90s, I didn't really see a lot of tattoos on people. When I did, said tattoos were always on two different types of people, and only those people:

1. Unsavory characters -- bikers, dive bar musicians, drug addicts/dealers, and carnival folk, or
2. Former military, with those tattoos being service-based in nature (USMC or Navy tattoos on veterans and the like).

There was no in-between when I was younger -- if you had a tattoo, you were one of these two types of people and that was it; they were not a fashion statement, artistic expression, or "body art" like they are, culturally speaking, now. They may have been in larger, more progressive urban areas, but definitely not in rural West Virginia. In fact, while tattoos are indeed more socially acceptable now (almost universally so in some places) I guarantee you that I still have some friends and family back home who will universally disapprove of the fact that I got a Starfleet tattoo yesterday. It doesn't even really matter that it's a Starfleet tattoo, though I'm sure for some of them that would be part of it -- no, it's the fact that I'm now one of those people. That's fine; it's what it is, I'm never going to change the minds of people like that and it's mostly pointless to even try.

My oldest brother turns 50 in 2020 and is almost completely covered in tattoos, from head to toe. All of them were acquired at different times for different reasons, and for a large chunk of them I was actually able to watch the progressions/additions of them as he got more added, more details laid down in multiple sessions over multiple years, etc. Several very close friends have about the same amount of tattoo coverage all over their bodies as well. What do all of these people have in common? Well, aside from the fact that my brother has always been a dive-bar musician (which I don't hold against him, our dad is too) -- all of these people are wonderful, upstanding and contributing members of society.

When I started paying closer attention to the people I knew with tattoos, my perception of tattoos began to change. For so much of my life I was in the camp of (probably because of my upbringing in West Virginia) that people who had a lot of tattoos were, by and large, low-rent, trashy folk. To be completely fair, some of them are. But not the people I know. And really, people are just people, and all of us judge one another too harshly these days.

Neither of my parents have tattoos -- most boomers don't, unless it's one of the aforementioned military tattoos. Tattoos in my world have been worn primarily by Gen X and up -- the further away you go from the boomers, the more tattoos you see. Millennials are covered in them.

Generation X is the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the Millennials. Researchers and popular media typically use birth years around 1965 to 1980 to define Generation Xers, although some sources use birth years beginning as early as 1960 and ending somewhere from 1977 to 1984. 

I was born in 1982. By some folks' definitions, that marks me as a Millennial. By others, I'm squarely within the last few years of Generation X. Everyone in my family as well as Daisy's family, the parents, aunts and uncles, and all -- are very firmly boomers. In my own family, my youngest aunt was born in 1965. Youngest. There were six other kids before her, including my mother square in the middle, born to my grandmother between 1947 and 1965. Almost none of them have tattoos or would ever dream of getting one (especially not now that they're old). I say almost none because I know for a fact that my uncle has a barbed-wire tattoo around his bicep, and I'm not sure if any of the others have anything -- though i would guess not.

I met Daisy when she had just turned 24, and she already had two unobtrusive tattoos when I did -- one on her wrist and one on her back between her shoulder blades. I never understood the concept of getting a tattoo you couldn't see, but okay. I never judged her for it, it's fine. Both of hers are classy and tasteful, and they mean something deep and spiritual to her.

Me, meanwhile, who had grown up around my brother and friends with tattoos, always dreamed of one day being "cool enough" to get a bunch of tattoos and not caring what people thought of them. To me it was the epitome of being bold, being a rebel, and bucking the trends of society. To see my brother be covered in tattoos and still marry a proper catholic lady, father three children, and hold down a number of very stable, steady jobs in which he was always able to provide for his family and be a good father and husband not only showed me his character but also showed me that boldness and bravery can be and frequently is rewarded.

To those ends I always wanted the classic "badass" tattoos -- a flaming skull on my arm, a detailed Chinese dragon wrapped around my leg from ankle to knee -- etc. I always wanted sleeves, both arm and leg. I always wanted what they call "rocker stars" on the fronts of each shoulder.

But all of those are, of course, somewhat derivative. They didn't mean anything to me personally.

And, of course, I was very needle-phobic -- I don't like needles, never have. Last week when I got my flu shot, even though it didn't really hurt (it hurt way less than my tattoo today) I still looked at Daisy all glassy-eyed in fear and squeezed her hand tight while the medicine was injected into my arm. I am, frankly, a big wuss, and wouldn't be able to take the pain of a super-intricate tattoo. Or so I thought, anyway.

As an aside, I still hate having blood drawn during doctor's visits and have fainted more than once when this has happened.

But, I'm getting older. I knew if I didn't get a tattoo now, I never would. I'd keep putting it off and putting it off, citing time, fear of the needle, money concerns, etc. Another part of it is that I also know that I have an addictive personality, and knew that if I didn't mind it or outright liked the experience, I'd want more and more tattoos, which would cause me to spend many hours in the chair and many hundreds of dollars.

There were a lot of designs I thought about getting, of course. Sometimes in a passing fashion, sometimes not. I told Daisy that I wanted the dark mark tattooed on my forearm for some time, as I am a Slytherin to my core and being one holds lots of personal meaning to me. Daisy outright refused to let me get it. Well, I shouldn't say refused, but she did tell me that if I got it she would be very angry with me because of the whole murder-and-torture connotations behind it. I also considered the deathly hallows symbol as well, but I know at least four or five people who have one of those already. I thought about a stylized anchor, as my grandfather was in the Navy and was at Pearl Harbor -- but I never met the man (he died three months before I was born) and I did not serve myself, so that seemed a little off. Also -- again, it's a bit cliched at this point.

I wanted something instantly (or almost instantly) recognizable, and something that held very strong, deep and personal meaning to me -- especially as it's going to be on my body for the rest of my life, of course. I gravitated towards symbols, towards insignias, towards things that would not only speak my truth but would speak it for me, something that people would look at and say "yep, that's Brandon for you."

As such, I kept going back to Star Trek.

I've made it no secret over the years what Trek means to me, though to the average person it's a bit hard to explain without going into some long-winded diatribe about why I'd want something so...I dunno, commercial? tattooed on my body.

The truth is, I grew up watching Star Trek. It helped shape me as a person. My own middle name is Trek-related/derived, as my mother was and still is a fan. I very strongly believe in the principles of the Federation, as well as the overall message and mission of what it does:

To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.

That speaks to me. Always onward and upward, always the peaceful search for knowledge and new connections, cultures, and civilizations for the betterment of all. Star Trek is unbridled optimism, it is curiosity and exploration, it is at its core what humanity as a whole is and should be capable of were it to get its collective shit together and get off this planet. I think with progressive enough policies and forward-thinking leadership, we could absolutely create a real-life Starfleet-like organization within the next twenty years or so, and I really hope I live to see it happen.

There's nothing I believe more strongly in than the force of good in the hands of the enthusiastic and capable.

For someone who has been a lifelong pessimist and cynic, this is a big turning point.

So I settled on the Starfleet delta insignia. But which one? There are so many slightly different versions, based on the timeline of all of the series and movies:

I mean, how am I supposed to pick one of them over any of the others? I grew up with all of them, from the original series through today, with Discovery, and all of the movies in-between.

In the end, I wanted something timeless and stylistically immediately recognizable, so I picked the fourth one on the top row, as you know if you've seen the photos I posted here on my birthday. That's technically the chest emblem from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the design of which was later implemented into the chest badge of the five films following (see second row, first on the left). I already have one of the actual chest badges with that insignia pinned to my military jacket -- I bought one from the original propmakers a few years ago because yes, I am that level of nerd -- and I wanted one with the four-pointed star in the middle of it.

So, with that image file saved in my phone, I let Daisy know that this was the tattoo I wanted, on my left inner forearm, brought up the picture and laid my phone on my arm to show her the size and scale I wanted, and we made plans to go get it done. I got some initial eyerolls from her, but when I explained why and what it meant to me (much like I did above), she understood how important it was to me and agreed to accompany me on my quest to get it inked.

That was in July.

Work happened, life happened, money was tighter some months than it was in others, and any plans I'd had kept getting put on the back burner or removed from the proverbial stove entirely. I pushed the plan to get the tattoo "to the fall," which then became "at some point," before I finally came to the realization that there may never be a good time to go get it done.

That is, until earlier this month, when Daisy was asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I didn't know what to tell her.

Cycling back for a minute, I really don't need much in life. Not materially, anyway. I have a roof over my head, more than enough clothing to last me for years, and we can pay our bills and keep food on the plate (and the cats' plates) with no real issues most of the time. Most things that I want, I can easily purchase on Amazon and have it arrive at the house within two days with Prime shipping. If it's something larger, I can save and budget for it and will eventually be able to get it, also with little issue. Most of the time I'm relatively happy at my place and station in life -- overall, anyhow. I'm mostly content. So, when Daisy asks me things like "what do you want for your birthday?" or "what do you want for Christmas?" I don't really know how to respond, because I have few actual needs and my wants are ancillary and generally trivial or unrealistic -- or expensive.

Some examples? I want a few arcade cabinets from the early-to-mid-90s and three or four pinball machines. I want a 1977 Bandit Trans Am. I want a hot tub or a backyard swimming pool. None of these things are needs.

So I began to think -- my birthday was my day, and Daisy always wanted to celebrate it as such. What's something that I wanted that wouldn't a) be unrealistic, b) cost a lot of money, c) put undue stress on myself or on her, or d) she would enjoy the experience of as well?

Try as I might, I can't just think about myself, even on my birthday. I don't like putting people out, especially not my wife.

I told Daisy not to get me anything; while she loves taking care of me and making me happy, she always spends a lot of money on me for the holidays (I do the same for her too, see my recent Christmas post) and that I'd be perfectly happy just getting a pizza with her and spending the day with her, since she took the day off work.

But in the middle of the night one night last week, for some reason, I remembered the tattoo. 

The thought of the tattoo just sort of came out of the blue; I remembered that I'd wanted it, and my thought process went along the lines of "well, now is a good time, I guess -- I'll be off work for ten days so I can get it, take care of it while it heals, and it won't be that expensive."

So I told Daisy my plan, told her that's what I wanted to do, and she agreed.

And I immediately began doing research.

There are a number of tattoo shops in Omaha -- they are scattered around the city and some have better reviews than others. Daisy had gotten her own tattoos done at one downtown before I'd ever met her, and told me while she loved her artist's art style, she didn't like the dude as a person. I consulted some folks via email, we reached out to our heavily-tattooed friends to ask for suggestions or recommendations, and on the nights at work where it was dead because the holidays are coming, I spent hours reading about tattoo care and aftercare, getting all sorts of information about how much tattoos hurt, about how to prep your skin for one and how to take care of it afterwards (the life-cycle of a new tattoo and when it stops being swollen, when it scabs, when you can stop cleaning it every 4-6 hours and putting ointment on it, etc). Most of the resources I consulted told me to prepare the skin by shaving it and moisturizing it, as tattooing in hairy places could cause your hair to get caught in the needle, etc.. For aftercare most resources mentioned Aquaphor by name, so I ordered a bottle of that. A few places also mentioned a special water-based foam soap and a before-during-and-after lotion called Hustle Butter, so I ordered both of those as well. My mindset was that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. Shit is expensive and I'm not going to have the tattoo run or fade or look gnarly, I was going to take care of it.

Anyway, one of the shops I reached out to got back to me the next day, and said that my tattoo would be quick and simple and I could schedule an appointment if I wanted to, or I could just come into their sister shop, a walk-in studio, anytime during business hours -- there would be a wait for a bit, probably, but they'd be happy to do it.

"Let's just do the walk-in," I told Daisy. "There's no reason to 'schedule' this thing; it won't be that expensive and it'll be less than an hour's worth of work."

The morning of my birthday, I very carefully shaved my inner forearm -- I shaved more than I needed to because I didn't want anything to get in the way and I decided that if I wanted a bigger version of the Starfleet insignia, I could size it up and make it bigger. I then applied some Aquaphor (which had arrived a few days prior) and made sure my skin was supple, smooth, and moisturized.

The shop opened at noon and we live about ten minutes away. It's in the hipster district of town known as Benson, a fantastic few streets of arcades, bars, coffee shops, art studios, a music venue or three, and yes, tattoo shops. So, shortly before noon, we headed that way, arriving around 12:15 or so.

Now, mind you, my birthday was on a Friday, five days before Christmas, and we were going to a tattoo shop at noon. I figured the place would be completely deserted. I was wrong.

"It may be a couple hours' wait," the aloof front desk lady told me.

"That's fine," I said, still gung-ho despite the circumstances.

There were two other people who had arrived before me -- one was a young-ish kid who was getting a very large and detailed arm piece of a tiger, and the other was a lady perhaps a few years older than me who was getting the phases of the moon down her back from neck to below her shoulder blades -- both were beautiful designs, but the tiger kid was absolutely going to take hours to do, and there were only two artists in the shop that day -- the owner, who was doing the tiger tattoo, and a guest artist, who was doing the moon phases.

"Those moon phases are pretty, and they're big," I whispered to Daisy, "but they're not especially intricate. He'll be done with that in an hour or so, and then I'm up."

True to form, I was correct. I listened to/watched him finish up with said tattoo and he charged the lady $120, which is about what I was expecting to pay for my own tattoo -- it was a cash only shop and we made sure to get out cash beforehand, both for the tattoo and for the pizza we'd be ordering later in the evening.

Anyway, I was up next. I showed the artist the photo on my phone, and he asked where I'd gotten it.

"Um, the internet," I replied, to the artist who was very clearly a millennial and had never lived in a time before it.

He then pulled it up and put it into the stencil program, which he could increase or decrease the size of the image in, and when we got to the size I wanted, I told him that was good and we could begin. He put the stencil on me and made sure it stuck -- the "ink" they used to print the stencil was purple and reminded me of those old-school "ditto" mimeograph machines. That may be what they use, actually, I dunno.

"Are you ready?" he asked me, once the gun was all good to go and the ink was secured in its cup.

"Yep," I said, "Let's do this."

For those of you who have never gotten a tattoo before, it's an odd experience. I don't know if I can accurately describe the feeling or the pain involved -- and yes, there is indeed pain -- aside from saying that it isn't what I expected at all. I expected the pain to be severe, but it wasn't. I described it on the phone to my mother, as well as to Daisy's parents, as being drawn on by the tip of a knife that is vibrating the entire time. It hurts, yes, but it's nowhere near unbearable. I didn't mind it at all, and even watched my artist do most of it, because it is fascinating to watch.

Other tattoo experiences, I'm sure, are really painful -- multiple colors, shading, gradients, yeah, I can see those being excruciating. And I'm sure different parts of the body will hurt more or hurt less due to the placement and nerves in those parts. But, again, this is what I got:

 

It's simple line art. Even the star in the middle didn't hurt any more than the rest of it, and that is some deep color shading there. The most painful parts were the back points of the delta, where they're thicker and where (I believe) there are more clusters of nerves under the skin -- I did have a few twinges of nerve pain later in the day/night after it was all done, in those spots only. But the overall experience? Quiet, much less painful than I expected, and at times -- dare I say it -- soothing. 

My artist was done within 40 minutes or so, and the tattoo looked much like it does in the photos above -- and still does now, thankfully. He immediately cleaned it off and bandaged it, then gave me the after-care instructions (each artist has a version of this, by the way) and lauded that I'd done my research and already had the Aquaphor and the like. Good guy. He wasn't necessarily friendly, nor did it seem like he really had a sense of humor, but he did good, fast, efficient work.

"Did they give you an estimate when you came in?" he asked me.

"Nope," I said, "not at all."

He hemmed and hawwed for a moment and then said "I'd say $80 is probably good."

"Cool," I replied, and pulled $100 out of my wallet. "There's $100, the extra $20 is for you, thank you."

He thanked me, I thanked him and the staff, and we were on our way.

In the two days since, the tattoo itself looks and feels fine. Every 6-8 hours I've been gently washing it, patting it dry, and applying a layer of Aquaphor to it. I can stop doing that around Christmas Eve/Day, and can switch over to the Hustle Butter to keep it adequately moisturized and to minimize any scabbing and/or itching. That foam soap I ordered is supposed to help with that as well.

Is there any residual pain? No, not really. There was when it was still bandaged right after it was done -- it felt hot and achy, akin to a sunburn -- but once I removed the bandage, cleaned it, and put the Aquaphor on it the first time, that went away. The arm itself feels ticklish and sensitive, but that's generally because I shaved all the hair off and I'm used to having hair on my arm.

Instead, a larger problem now presents itself, and it was one that I was afraid of before getting the tattoo -- I now know what it feels like and that it's not incredibly expensive or painful, and I want more.

The next tattoo I've planned will be on the other forearm in the same spot -- the Rebel Alliance/Republic Starbird:

Another simple line art piece that means a lot to me in its symbolism -- rebel, fight evil empires, resist we must. Given our current political climate this means more to me now than ever before.

I'm stating for the record now that I'd like to get this one done within the next few months, preferably before the end of winter. This is partially because I now know that the pain isn't bad at all and also because I'm a fan of symmetry. Having one arm with something on it is cool, but looks out of place when there's nothing else on me anywhere. At least to me.

"You're aware," Daisy told me shortly before getting the tattoo, "that you may end up getting a job that will require you to wear long sleeves at all times because of your arm tattoo, right?"

I blinked at her a few times. "I am aware that's a possibility," I said. "However, I would never want to work at a job where I would have to keep a tattoo on my arm covered at all times. Not really my thing."

Which is true. If that's a job's policy, I can't imagine what other authoritarian policies they'd have on the books, but regardless, it's probably someplace I wouldn't want to work anyhow. Almost every office-related job I've applied for as of late has touted their "casual work environment" either on their website or during the interview. I'm too old and too rebellious to work somewhere extremely formal anymore. That would've been great fifteen years ago -- now I'm just looking for somewhere to pay the bills and give me a decent path to retirement.

Anyway, that's the tattoo story.

Now....on with the holidays.

Christmas 2019, Part I

(post originally written between December 15 and December 20, 2019)

I am without real sleep this weekend.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I have slept, but...well, not as much as I would have liked.

I've mentioned before that my body only lets me get about 5-6 hours of sleep at a time. If I'm especially exhausted or have gone an ungodly amount of time without sleep (which, sometimes, this time of year tends to do to me) I can maybe crank out 8-9 hours.

There are various reasons for this; the main one is that I work overnights, yet still have things to do during the daytime on my days off (and, sometimes, days on). This is a problem. It means I burn the candle at both ends, I sleep when I can, and when I can't I am forced to pump myself full of caffeine so that I can remain conscious and lucid. This has varying effects on my body, from jittery-ness to insomnia to what can, at times, feel like heart palpitations (woohoo!) -- but, most of the time, it simply keeps me on an even keel and at best, lucid and active enough to take care of my daily or nightly tasks.

I have worked overnights for over three years now. I have been trying, as of late, and in a wholly desperate fashion, to find another job that is a) not within my current company, and b) on days -- or at least a more reasonable schedule. There are many reasons for that, but the primary one is that I don't get to see my wife enough and spend actual time with her, and when I do, it always feels like a clock is ticking, counting down until the next time I have to work or have to sleep or what have you.

It also means that when the holidays roll around, I have to use almost all, if not all, of my accrued paid time off in order to get away from work to spend it with her and the family. Regardless of whether they think they are or not, my work's company policy isn't that nice when it comes to the holidays -- as a 24/7/365 operation that never stops, someone is always left holding the bag when it comes to who has to work the holidays, especially when you're management like me. I used to care a lot more and feel a lot more guilty about whoever had to do that, but in recent years I've adopted much more of a fuck you wholly and completely attitude about that place for various reasons (and I have written up the whole story to post here when I end up leaving said job, don't you worry). I generally work 1-2 holidays a year -- I always work New Year's Day, primarily so people can't complain and say I never work any holidays, and sometimes I work July 4th (I believe I've done it twice in the going-on-six-years I've been there). For all of the others, I take PTO as far in advance as the system will let me, my boss always eventually approves it, and then I count down the days.

I have four working days left until I am off for the holidays this year. I am working December 15, 16, 17, and 18, and then my weekend kicks in. I took PTO for the entirety of next week (the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th) and Christmas is a paid holiday anyway. I will return on the 29th and 30th, have the night of the 31st off to spend with Daisy and/or the family (depending on weather) and I will work the 1st. The latter part of that information isn't important -- the fact that I have ten days off in a row (the 19th through the 28th) is.

Though I'm sure my coworkers would probably disagree (because they never take time off) I actually almost never take any time off work aside from the occasional sick day, bad weather day, or mental health day. I schedule two long-ish vacations a year -- the first over Memorial Day, so that Daisy and I can have a nice bit of summer time off together around and leading up to our anniversary, and the second during the birthday/Christmas season. That's generally really it.  For 2020, due to the way the days fall, I'll more than likely be taking a full week off for our anniversary and will absolutely be taking the full week of Christmas off. Both our anniversary and my birthday fall on Sundays in 2020.

This is, of course, if I'm still working where I am now. Who knows if that's not the case.

Anyway, moving onward.

Christmas used to be a time of the year that I hated. I hated it because for a very long time I was a very bitter man and hated seeing other people be happy and enjoying themselves, and Christmas tends to be one of the few times a year where that happens. Add to it that there are people out there who are huge Christmas fans (I should know, I married one of them) and add the Jesus-y component into it -- because I mean, it is a religious holiday, and I've been an atheist for over 20 years -- and I was simply miserable during the holidays most of the time.

I can also step back and look at those times with an outside perspective now, and realize that for many years of my life, I was a miserable person. Also, the fact that I had many a Christmas (both in my childhood as well as my adult life) that were bad doesn't help things much.

I've tried to go through the years in my head and remember those Christmases one by one based on where I was and what I was doing in my life at the time, and can only pull bits and pieces here and there of what I remember.

1982-85 I was too young to remember much of anything about Christmas. I only remember the tiniest of snippets, such as getting a haircut and having family photos taken. It was either 1984 or 1985 that I got the Hot Wheels City playset. I remember getting a Glo-Worm, a Cabbage Patch doll, He-Man figures and a rocking horse on wheels I could ride on that whinnied when you pushed a button (mechanical, of course, not battery-powered). I don't remember much of anything about people or places.

1986 brought me a Transformers sleeping bag (which I unzipped completely and used as a blanket well into my teenage years), the Ghostbusters Fire House and Ecto-1, and numerous other small things. 1986 is around the time I begin being able to remember family Christmas dinners at my grandmother's (or aunt/uncles' houses), where everyone in the family and all of the kids got together.

1987 was the year my parents divorced, and I remember it as the first time I had two Christmases -- I also got the Power Wheels Bigfoot. This is around the time where I begin getting envious of my cousins and their own gifts, and I remember watching Christmas specials like Rudolph with my mother in our small apartment this year.

1988 was the year of the "Christmas bush" where our tree was lopsided and squat. I had an ear infection over my birthday and Christmas this year, and I remember a lot of time spent on the couch with my mother in our trailer. It also strikes me as the first year that I/we felt truly alone over the holidays, and bad weather almost completely prevented us from spending Christmas with the family. When I had Christmas with my father, he bought me a blue bicycle with the word "renegade" on the side, as well as a sled. I spent my time at my father's house over the holidays that year teaching myself, in the cold, how to ride the bicycle (as I'd never ridden one before).

1989 I don't remember much of. A lot of the holiday season sort of mashed together, but I do remember it as the first year my former stepfather joined us for Christmas with the family, and I remember the argument he and my mother got into when it came to driving to the family home in what was, again, nasty weather -- and my mother had her brand new Cavalier at the time, which wasn't exactly built for snow and ice.

1990 was the year my mother and stepfather said that it was their turn to buy me a bike, and they did. It was also the first year my mother and stepfather were married, and the first year I spent some of the holidays at both step-families' houses for gifts and celebrations.

The holidays of 1991 and 1992 are much of a blur; I remember some of the gifts I got during those years (some Legos, a chemistry set, Micro Machines, and some VHS tapes) but the actual holiday festivities are almost nonexistent in my brain. I remember that both of these years I spent Christmas Eve sleeping in the spare room in my former stepfather's parents' house, and that I was so focused on presents and getting out of there and off that rock-hard bed that I don't know how much sleep I actually got. The holidays of 1992 are also significant as they are the last holidays I'd spend with my father and stepmother, who had already given birth to my oldest sister almost two years prior, and was heavily pregnant with my second sister.

1993 was a turning point; by this time my mother had separated from my former stepfather and it looked as if holidays were going to return to normal for my mother and me, with our family and no one else's getting in the way. My mother had gotten me some clothing (including two Power Rangers hoodies) and a new pair of shoes that year, and because she knew I'd wanted it so badly, my grandmother got me the Tiger LCD handheld game version of Mortal Kombat. The Tiger handhelds were BIG in the 90s; I must've had five or six different ones. This was also the beginning of the end of the big family Christmases with our side of the family, as the family was starting to splinter off into squabbles here and there about all sorts of dumb shit.

1994 and 1995 were the beginnings of an upward trend for a few years running -- these are the years my mother got me a Sega Genesis, my grandmother got me a Batman game and Batman Forever on VHS, and I was amassing my comic and action figure collections. I was entering my teen years and electronic things were new and exciting to me, as I had grown up without a lot of them. I began collecting videotapes. I began really listening to music and started building a CD/tape collection. Life got even better when my Dad (my mother's partner now for over 25 years, not my actual father) came into my life and we began spending time with him and his family over the holidays as well. 1996 and 1997 continued that trend as well, when I got my first desktop computer and not one, but two different trench coats (one black, one gray) as well as some games for my newly-acquired Game Boy Pocket and Star Wars stuff.

Sometime around 1998 or 1999 I noticed the first bit of a turn in how I perceived and felt about the holidays. It didn't help that I'd already had my first of several major depressive episodes by this time, nor did it help that it was beginning to feel like Dad's family never truly wanted or accepted me or my mother, but were instead just going through the motions. I was a moody, loud, depressive teenager and this didn't help matters much. I escaped into my PlayStation (1998's Christmas gift) and my first guitar, my stratocaster (1999's Christmas gift) and I, well, felt like I was growing out of the Christmas spirit. 2000 brought a second guitar, my Danelectro, and an effects pedal -- but by my college years, 2001, 2002, 2003 and onward...I was basically over Christmas and was, for lack of a better term, sick of it. Christmas came and went and whatever I got over those years, aside from the bigger ticket items (a DVD recorder, etc) is mostly a blur. I remember in my more jaded years just telling my mother to get me a carton of cigarettes and some decent coffee and to "call it good."

So, for many years, I downplayed it and barely celebrated it at all. Alley's family wasn't incredibly big on Christmas -- they celebrated it and had "fun," of course, but as you may know (if you read my Places series on here), I had several bad Christmas experiences in a row that further soured my thoughts and feelings on the season. It became a chore. I began to hate Christmas music with every fiber of my being. I became actively Anti-Christmas, going so far as to barely acknowledge the day existed for a few years running.

Christmas 2012 began the very slow upturn, I think. I can pinpoint that year in particular as the year that things started to get better. It was the year of my first Christmas with Daisy (she bought me a laptop, amongst other things) and it was the first and only Christmas since that I got to spend the holidays both with her family as well as my own -- I flew out to West Virginia for Christmas for the first and only time since I've been living away from home. By Christmas 2013 I had been engaged to Daisy for ten months and had already been accepted into her family well beforehand, and by Christmas 2014 Daisy and I had been married for almost seven months and everything continued to look up.

But still there was rage and anger in my heart for the holidays. Daisy is a big fan of Christmas and always has been. She loves all of the family and togetherness and giving and happy, warm, fuzzy feelings. I, meanwhile, had downright loathed Christmas for years, and while I could appreciate her glee and optimism, as well as appreciate her and her family -- both here in town as well as all of the extended family, nieces and nephews and the like -- bitterness like that I possessed was really hard to shake. In public or around the family I was as cheery as I could force myself to be. In private I was the biggest Scrooge (or Grinch, if you prefer), on the planet.

I bristled or got visibly irritated when she played or sang Christmas songs. I didn't like singing along, I didn't like decorating, I didn't like the endless stress of trying to get the perfect gift for every single person (I was, and still am, very much a walk into a store, scan the shelves, pick an item that looks neat, and put it in the cart to be done with it sort of Christmas shopper).

As an aside, nowadays I'm a browse Amazon, click on something neat and buy it sort of guy. The fact that people actually still Christmas shop in stores is amazing to me. Plebians.

Still, she was patient with me. It took time. It took a few years, in fact.

A bigger part of it was that I was, and am, incredibly anti-religion. I tend to keep my thoughts on that private for the most part because, if I did not, I would be (or would have become) one of those abrasive neckbeard, incel, trilby-wearing, m'lady-saying fuckers that I cannot stand.  I don't feel as if it is my duty or calling to force my thoughts on religion on other people, simply because it would make me no better than they are -- and, throughout my entire life, one of my driving reasons for living has always been to be better than everyone else. Sometimes that is more difficult to do than others.

Despite this, I acknowledge and appreciate that Daisy's parents (and all of her family, in fact) are deeply religious people from several different types of Christianity -- Catholics, Mormons, Evangelicals, etc. Daisy and I were married by our brother-in-law, a Mormon minister. I do and always have had a deep respect for others' beliefs, even if I do not agree with them. And every year, I absolutely look forward to going to the Christmas Eve service at the church with Daisy and the family. I don't have to believe in anything to enjoy it -- I see it as akin to Daisy going to the Star Wars movies with me. It's a play, it is a display of beliefs that I don't have to share in order to be able to enjoy the family togetherness aspect of it.

Some people get cross tattoos, I get a Starfleet one. Everyone can believe what they want and choose what they revere or otherwise hold in importance.

So it took some time, but after I got married, a lot of those negative feelings about Christmas slowly melted away. Christmas is now an event, it is the one time of year that everyone tries to be happy and do for others. Do I feel that everyone should be doing this at all times? Yes, of course, but we all have lives and jobs and responsibilities. After a few years of marriage, I found myself turning on Christmas music willingly, putting on Christmas-based clothing and putting the yule log channel on the TV when I was just sitting around the house. I began singing along with the Christmas songs, something Daisy loves (apparently I have a very nice, bellowing Bing Crosby-like classical singing voice)

I particularly delight in the gifting aspect of Christmas. Retail therapy, as it has been called in the past by myself and some others, is absolutely a weakness of mine whether it's the holidays or not. During the Christmas season I use it to my advantage, and begin plotting as far in advance as possible for what I'm going to get or do for Daisy, her parents, and my own parents. Depending on what family is planning to be in town for the holidays, I plot for that too -- and I generally begin my Christmas shopping in September or so (this year, I started in July).

Yes, I will have a full rundown of everything I got for other people this year coming within the next few days -- I can't post it before Christmas, of course, because the wife reads this blog.

Daisy and I both have tried, and tried very hard, to do a "minimalist Christmas" every year. We almost always fail. What I mean by "minimalist Christmas" is that we always say we're only gonna get a few little things for each other in an attempt to spend less money and keep from cluttering up the house anymore than we need to...and then still spend hundreds of dollars on each other anyhow because it's an addiction and once you start shopping it quickly balloons.

In 2019 I spent approximately $293 on Daisy alone for Christmas. In 2018, that total was $235. In 2017, it was $177. In 2016, it was $285. In 2015, it was $265.

How do I know these things? Because I track them every single year. FOR EVERYONE. That's just part of the person I am -- I'm neurotic and I like being able to look back on what I did and when. It also tells me that despite our plans to have a smaller, more minimalist Christmas this year, I spent more on the wife this year than I have any other year since we've been married, and I did not intend to do that, it just happened.

Of course, I never intend to do that. I try to get one big gift and then be like "Okay, now I'm done shopping for Daisy." But then I see something else she would like, and I get it -- or she tells me something else she wants, and I get it, and it keeps ballooning slowly from there. Eventually I have to cut myself off and stop or I'll just keep going on indefinitely until there's no shipping time left before Christmas and my credit cards end up being maxed or close to maxed for a few months afterwards. This year's big gift for her is really two things, and makes up $133 of that $293 total. The big gift is always something she'll never see coming, and I plan it that way on purpose. I don't care if Daisy guesses what the little gifts are, because I tend to get her the same little gifts every year -- coconut caramels, vegan jerky, generally some sort of coffee or tea (though this year I didn't do that) -- the big one always comes out of left field and is always something completely different, something she would never see coming.

So that's where we stand now. Tomorrow the family arrives in town and the fun begins...