insomnia haiku

Holiday letter postscript

You didn't believe me, did you? When I said people write outrageous Christmas letters ... you probably thought I was exaggerating.

Today, my parents received the annual Christmas letter from a former associate of my dad's. They find it so over the top that they've given me permission to reprint parts of it. "You can even say where he lives," they suggested, though I won't do that. I pointed out that if I reprinted any of this word for word, he might be able to find the blog post by searching for the phrasing. "Good!" they said. I love when my parents are gleefully vindictive.

Some people, you see, have no filter. Or maybe they have one, and it flies out the door when they sit down to write up the year's news. As I unfolded the letter, this paragraph — the second-to-last one — leapt out at me:

2013 specially the latter part of it has been a difficult year and chaotic for a lot of people. The medical field will be turned topsy-turvy by the ridiculous Obamacare. Unfortunately, more pain will come in the future. Well, with an incompetent, dishonest yet arrogant idealogue in the White House, what can one expect.

Yes, this was in a Christmas letter. Seriously?! Even if I agreed with that sentiment (which I obviously don't), I can't imagine how someone thought that was appropriate to say in a letter being sent out to a vast list of friends, family and long-lost acquaintances. Merry Christmas! Our president is a crook!

The letter ends with "Wishing you all, with God's grace to have a better 2014," which doesn't make any sense, since Obama's still going to be in the White House next year. He probably should have written, "Wishing you all to have a better 2017, when that scoundrel Obama is finally gone for good."

The rest of the letter goes in the other direction entirely. I now know a lot of vague, mundane things about his kids and grandkids. For example:

___ stays busy in her work. ____ is working for a different engineering company with higher pay. ____ is busy as usual in his business. ____ is in preschool and is in her usual sweet disposition except for occasional stubbornness.

Please understand, I'm sure his family is full of lovely, warm, hard-working people. I'm just not sure what the point of any of this was. This is like the worst of Facebook ("Eating a sandwich!" "That was a great sandwich!"), done up old-school style.

All of this brings me to the conclusion that I didn't do a good enough job of parodying the mind-numbing tedium of the annual Christmas letter. Here's what I should have written instead:

***2013 Christmas letter [excerpt]***

... ____ is five years old and still likes cars. He also likes trucks, but he really prefers cars. Mom and Dad got new Internet upstairs, and it's much faster. They also put new carpet in. It's similar to the old carpet but a slightly different color. Tonka has to wear a diaper when he leaves the house, or else he'll pee on the floor. Josie started eating new food and now has much better breath. Dexter had to have his leg amputated but was soon running around, peeing pooping on the carpet like his old self.

It's been a difficult year, partly because they cancelled "Happy Endings" and "Breaking Bad" ended. Most of all, I can't believe how terrible those Tea Party Republicans were this year, shutting down the government, stifling voting rights and spreading ridiculous myths about Obamacare. Well, with so many close-minded, ignorant idealogues being pig-headed liars, what can you expect? Unfortunately, they won't ever change. At least we kept them out of the White House until 2017. Also, gay marriage.

Wishing you all a better 2014, filled with hope, good health, and a Cal football team that wins more than one game. 

Happy New Year, everyone.

My 2013 holiday letter

I've fallen off most people's Christmas-card lists, mostly because I no longer send out cards myself. 

If I'm going to do it, I prefer to write a personal note. I'm not knocking anyone who sends unsigned card stock with pictures of their kids and letters about their year. I like getting those. (Thanks, people who sent them!) It's just my preference to write a note to the person, and since it takes a while to do that, I've given up the effort entirely.

But despite the fact that I enjoy hearing about my friends' lives, there are holiday letters, and then there are letters. I'm talking three-page missives about every mundane thing that happened to every person in the extended family. My parents used to get an epic Christmas letter from a barely remembered acquaintance, and reading this thing became an annual event. What will they say this year? What kind of surgery did the husband have on his toe? What grade did the daughter get on her algebra exam? And wow, is that how you really feel about Obama?

There's a balance. Call me strange, but I think there are some things that may not be appropriate for the annual Christmas letter. But who am I to know? And there is something to be said about letting people know what's going on in your life. Especially if you "forgot" to update your blog for a year. Therefore, please allow me to present my own Christmas letter for 2013. Please to enjoy. And happy holidays.

December 24, 2013

Dear Friends,

Goodness, what a year it's been! 2013 started with some exciting news: I got a job. It had been a while, so I had to weigh the pros and cons when deciding whether or not to rejoin the full-time workforce. The cons included taking a shower and getting out of my pajamas every day, having to be at work at 9am (believe it or not, this was a first for me), and not being able to go to Trader Joe's at 2pm when there are no lines. The pros: free coffee, a regular paycheck, the opportunity to interact with people and not become the Unabomber, the restoration of my self-esteem. It was close, but in the end, free coffee won out.

In April I went to a friend's wedding in Jamaica—my first destination wedding. The wedding was lovely and I had a lot of fun, learning some important lessons along the way. For example, people really do say "yeah mon" in Jamaica. And, going to an all-inclusive resort turns you into a starved monster who only wants to get her money's worth in meals. The attitude becomes "I already paid for it, so I am going to eat my weight in food." The first night, we dined at an all-you-can-eat surf-and-turf buffet. I was perfectly satisfied after my first serving, which included lobster tail and lamb chops. Then I went back for seconds. Possibly thirds. And dessert. It was like Thanksgiving in that bad, "why am I trying to kill myself with food" kind of way. Then again, I suppose the ultimate lesson here is: Keep me away from buffets.

In May, I traveled to Kona, Hawaii, with my parents. I did all the driving. This proved stressful since, with my parents in the car, I drove like a grandmother. It gets dark on the Big Island, and also rainy. Hawaiians were constantly tailing me as I drove 15 mph around hairpin turns in the rainy dark. Other than that, the Big Island is beautiful, and we had an amazing meal at Merriman's, and we saw a turtle.

I don't remember what happened in the summer. It was really hot. We all stayed inside and talked about how hot it was.

Somewhere in there, I spent a month growing out a broken toenail on my big toe. It was quite an ordeal, and I am grateful to everyone who supported me during this difficult time.

In July, "Orange Is the New Black" came out on Netflix, and I disappeared from civilization for three days.

This year in general was a momentous one in that I accomplished a lot of binge-watching. Some may argue that watching four hours of television in a row, for multiple days in a row, is unhealthy. I would argue that it kept me from becoming a crack addict. To each his own vice. Among the shows I  binge-watched this year: "Justified," "House of Cards," "Scandal," "Battlestar Galactica," the final season of "Damages." The end result is that I have a crush on Timothy Olyphant, I covet Kerry Washington's coats, and though I now understand what all the BSG hype was about, I had issues with the finale, and if you've seen the series, then YOU KNOW WHY.

Also, I hated "Man of Steel." Let's move on.

In August I attended a huge family reunion in Peru. We ate lots and lots of heavenly food. No, I'm afraid you don't understand me. Picture a lot of food, and then multiply it by ten. At one point my mother asked my sister-in-law if Peru was what she'd expected. She replied that my brother had told her there would be a lot of food, "But I didn't realize it would be this much food." Let's just say we had not one, but two pigs roasted for us. My cousin's husband made his famed lomo saltado. (He adds "polvo magico" to it. Translation: magic dust.) My aunt made picarones from scratch. There were feasts coming out our ears. If you've ever wondered where my love of food comes from, you just need to stay with my family in Peru for a few days to understand why.

I did pick up a new hobby this year: archery. Two friends and I took a class, and after a single hour and a half, I am confident that I could win the Hunger Games. Or go to the Olympics. 

Speaking of the Olympics, I transferred my Angry Birds obsession to a Candy Crush obsession late this year. I'm on level 181. The chocolate fans are the worst. There were some dark days. I am grateful to everyone who has supported me during this difficult time.

But friends, in all seriousness, it's been a good year, full of change and challenge and possibility. Here's to you, and yours, and the promise of 2014. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone.

Love,

Me

Don't call it a comeback

Hello! I realize I've let this blog lapse for a while. There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, having a real job is exhausting. You'd think I would have known this already, but either this job is more exhausting than the last one, or I'm just old. So when I get home at night, all I want to do is sit on my couch and binge-watch TV shows. I haven't decided whether my New Year's resolution is to get a new hobby that gets me out of the house more ... or to binge-watch more TV shows.

Second, in the last few years I have become much more conscious of an obvious fact: The Internet is public. It doesn't matter whether only two people read my blog, or I take my name off of it and hide it from search engines. Anything I write is out there, in the world. Therefore, what I may take as an interesting or amusing anecdote from work is not something I can share, lest it get traced back to me and I get in trouble for airing my company's dirty laundry. (Not that we have any. My company is awesome! Hi, NSA!) I'm not comfortable sharing stories from my personal life, or pictures of people I know, since I didn't get their permission first. And I'm all too aware that anything you say on the Internet is out there, readable by anyone, and it can get picked up and go viral in a flash.

I've always been a private person. This blog has been a creative outlet for me, a chance to work out ideas and write in ways I don't normally get to do professionally. And, since the act of writing takes a lot of effort for me, it was a way to force myself to write and not make excuses. But when you're trying to write things that are "real," you're bound to blur the line between expression and exposure. If you have thoughts to express but are suddenly afraid of exposure, you feel paralyzed. You sit there and think, maybe I shouldn't say that on the Internet, as amazing a story as it is. Maybe I should think about it some more. And then time passes, and you lose the impulse, and the story never gets shared — except for over a glass of wine with friends, which isn't a bad thing, if being afraid to share on the Internet makes you talk to people more.

At any rate, this isn't, despite appearances, a farewell to the blog. It's just an explanation. It's possible that all of the above isn't a reason but an excuse, and that even though my qualms are valid, I simply need to step it up and come up with things to write that aren't too private, yet that still make you laugh or think or stew. Or, given that I've lost all two readers that I had, I suppose it only needs to make me laugh or think or stew. Because at the end of the day, you should write for yourself. The rest is just gravy.

And with that, I'll end this and start thinking about the post I actually wanted to write. I hope it won't take me 11 months to do it, especially since it's related to Christmas, but then I guess I'm just being super early and prepared for next year. Yeah, that's it.

P.S. I'm thinking of moving this blog to Wordpress, since it's free and has better features. But then I'd lose all the pictures (the roast chicken pictures! sob) and the URL would change. Still contemplating.