Spot the moment of festive cheer

So I'm at Spot, my favourite café in roc, trying to extend the flow of my day in the library. Finally energized by my writing, feeling like something meaningful is actually being made.



I've been quite offhand about the holidays this year. I put some white lights up around the windows in my flat, and sent out a few -- very few -- cards with little penguins on. B and I had a shared moment of sadness about the boxes of decorations in her basement that are the postscripts of the lasagne-and-tree-trimming parties we had for years. Touchstones of a community. But overall, I'm good with F's resolute focus on new year's as the holiday to mark. I like the shift of the year, and it feels good to let go of the accumulation of jagged raggedness that christmas represented for years -- all the shuttling between families, never a chance to be peacefully at home. The pent up angst of the year spurting out in all the close proximities. It feels right to make new rituals, and I'm excited about the trip we're planning on the west coast between xmas and new year's. The right coast.

And yet, here at spot, the Seasonal Music I much despise mercifully muted, an instrumental version of Partridge in a Pear Tree catches at my ankles. So fused to my memories of my dad, fiercely insisting that the extended family pause to sing along. The dramatic -- if tuneless -- intonation on Five Golden Rings. Missing that moment of optimistic intensity. A moment of yearning.

And then back to a warbling, despised Ella version of Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, and it passes. Time stretched, rift opened, sewed firmly shut again.

Suspension

Self-referential and annoying though this is, I think a little self-conscious meta-bloggery might get me through this sort of fuzzy-headed block I have about my dissertation. What I've been doing since September: collecting "data" and assembling my basic argument. Data, in this case, means asking long-suffering couples to record their private conversations and then to submit themselves to an interview with me.

I finally finished all of that last week, and now I'm supposed to be in the infamous "writing" phase. It's tough. I feel like I've kind of lost sight of what it is I'm trying to say, and the lightest flicker of a distraction can send me off the path. Like, there's a new book related to my topic,and I tried to get it, and it seems to be unavailable, and so this creates some kind of synapse gap in my ability to think about the topic. I *do* work in bursts, but the bursts aren't firing quickly enough for the time pressure I'm under.

So. That's where it is. I'm kind of floaty, and I feel like I keep head-butting into a big foamy block like those things football players slam their shoulders into in practice. Move forward -- SLAM. Fall to the ground on my ass. Hop up. SLAM. Distraction by scrabulous mania, holiday gifts, travel booking, navel-gazing about my relationship, checking BBOD to see if they're finally broadcasting the vital two episodes of Torchwood we missed, intense conversations with those among my compatriots who are near a computer and equally divertible during the day.

That's me, now. Floating and angstful. Now, back to waiting for UPS to arrive.

Beth's Chestnut Story

(This is beth's voice).

Well ....

I was in university and was grocery shopping with Dan. WE happened upon some chestnuts and I squealed in delight, having eaten them often from the street vendor in TO. So I bought some.

We went back to Dan & James' place. I remember them all doing normal things whilst I waited on my chestnuts in the oven (I didn't know how to cook them): Dan was on the phone, James was fiddling, Bill was reading... So, I figure I should check on the chestnuts, but didn't know how I'd tell when they were done.

I removed one from the oven and popped it into my mouth and bit it open. It exploded. There was a loud bang.

I remember vividly Dan, saying to whomever he was speaking to, "Oh my God! A chestnut blew up in the stove!" and dropping the phone and running to the oven and opening the door. He didn't notice me standing there, leaning forward, chestnut dripping from my mouth, until I began loudly grunting, "Oh oh heeew! Oh oh heew! Hewp me!"

My tongue was shattered to bits, all flesh and skin hanging. They had no ice, so James tried to give me a frozen chicken leg to suck on until we could get some. I still retained a spec of dignity and flatly refused, though I kept my tongue stuck in a glass of water whilst Dan drove me across the street to the donut shop, where they gave me a cup of ice, then to the emergency room.

This was back in the days when there was a woman/nurse sitting at the typewriter at a window in the ER. Becauth I couldn't thpeak becauth of the ithe on my tongue, Dan began to explain that a chestnut exploded in my mouth. He barely got the words out of his mouth when he completely lost it, just collapsed with the kind of laughter that comes usually when one hasn't slept in days and is completely on the verge of hysteria. He was weeping with laughter, and as he managed to finish the story of what happened to me?

The lady collapsed, completely and embarrassedly and with complete abandon, hysterically laughing over her typewriter. At one point, I remember she
managed to catch her breath, and she looked up at me and spit out, "I'm ss--ss--ss-orry!" then collapsed again, unable to speak, shaking across the top of her typewriter.

Eventually, someone took me to the examining room. Whilst I waited, my tongue stuck in a cup of ice, I heard shrieks of laughter erupting outside the door. Finally, a small, bright Chinese doctor came in, fighting to keep his composure while the corners of his mouth twitched. As he attempted to examine my tongue, he lost it. I remember him saying, "I just don't know what to do....I mean, I could *try* to bandage it..." then he collapsed.

The next day, my tongue hurt so badly I could barely talk. I went to meet Michael D before our class. As I told him what happened and he began to visualize the story, he completely collapsed. Across the table, gasping for air, pounding his fists, unable to speak. In other words, I was beginning to learn, the usual.

At one point, he managed to catch his breath, take in a deep gasp, and spit out, "I'll bet your deadly with a baked potato" before collapsing again, across the table, and practically onto the floor.

To this day, he swears he tells the story to everyone.

Smacked into posting

"In truth, it is a lonely life." Hm. Miranda said that on SATC when she was pretending to be a stewardess. But I guess it's the life of my blog too. Sma

Updates? Dissertation angst. I wrote 2678 words yesterday, finishing up the section on the methodology of the analysis and part of my intro. Exciting, eh? Some of it I like -- just whispers of it. The rest of it, blergh. Maybe I'll ask B if I can post her chestnut story, because reading it is the most amusing thing that's happened to me in days.

Another thing that makes life joyful? A man you love bringing you coffee in bed. Made perfectly right.

More later.