rambling round

 

how long?

 

 

Dear Post-Holidays,

You know how it is, the big thing is over, and you are packing away your bits of sparkly ribbon, and you feel a little empty.  Maybe you have even made a commitment not to fill such spaces with another box of candy or a steeply discounted little something for yourself, since you didn't get that genuine yak fur steering wheel cover you asked for this year.  So all you have, then, is a sort of glittery mess to clean up and a refrigerator that needs to be cleaned of leftover seasonal foodstuffs (or maybe, your end of the year culture is not so dysfunctional as all this, and good on you!).

Maybe (even more shadowy despair) you are contemplating how to write the thank you notes to all the good people (and the less good) that participated in this strange fest with you.  Maybe you are thinking how to make it more real and less of a pantomime performance next year.  Maybe you got a gift that really hurt; I did,* and I didn't expect it, because I thought I couldn't really be hurt anymore by this person.  Yes, that sentence does feel very familiar- like I have said this over and over, and over and over I have been surprised at how rawly sensitive little parts of me still are.

Anyway, you got this thing, like I did, and you have it, sitting right here, so you will never forget not to let this person under your skin again- you have this hurt on display in the form of the gift and the message it came with; a little shrine to your own pain, your own weakness, even.  Many times I have saved a hurtful gift for a long time, hoping to learn from it, and also, truthfully, picking at the scab so it bleeds a little now and then.  But, and this is my question for today, how long?  How soon is now?  When do I say, enough, I have examined this terribleness long enough; it isn't time to forgive, because that is something else again, and I think maybe we have all done way too much forgiveness already; but it might be time to dismantle the memorial, to take away whatever token it is that holds this hurt.

Let this letter then, this telling, to you, dear ones, be the thing that I will hold instead of an object that represents a tiny monument to my wronged righteousness.  There is always more absolution to be poured, even when you have left the table, stopped showing up, walked away calmly, raged privately, and all the other good advice has been followed.  

*  Gifts like: an old bathrobe with instructions to 'make something' of it, the two halves of a broken wooden cutting board (oh, I kept that one for years, hoping it would armor me from further assault), a mangled, kinked gold chain, a holey ancient cardigan suitable only for a dog's bed, a 50 year old bent plastic purse.  It is a startling list of junk, but when I read it, I see mostly, to my shame, that I did that; I did make something out of that damned bathrobe; I followed those mandates to make use of these unloved things like a loyal servant.

give it to somebody, anyway

 

Dear Day No. 5,

Today, this gem of overlapping percussion- it's all about this little phrase of five: da da da da daa.  The lyrics are to be ignored, because they smell faintly of seventies sexism; but the little five beats, those are worth keeping.  Imagine you are in the studio and making this song- you say:  Hey!  Piano, horn, guitar, drums, cowbell, whatever you got;  Everybody, give it to me!  Give me that little da da da da daa!

PS  I played five other give it songs, and Give it/Gimme is sexist in any decade- I checked so you don't have to!

welcome

 

A funny painted copy of an Audubon work; read about it here, at the Met.

Dear All,

Welcome to 2026!  The year is all potential at this point, and that seems worth celebrating!  Here is your song for today, and the year!

Good Luck in the New Year

 

Dear Friend,

Are you lucky too?  I sure am!  What I have, right now, is three (count 'em!) new books by three of my favorite authors!  I really don't know where to start!  One thing I have decided, is to start in the new year; to save them gleefully for another few weeks.  It gives me something to look forward to in 2026.  Which yeah, if it is like 2025 at all, well, it's going to be another fascist hellscape of a year with only the shocks and stings of new awfulnesses to mark the days by.  So, Happy New Year anyway, and I hope, I really hope you have set aside a little thing to make 2026 a year for you to look forward to, even if it is only what's left of the chocolate from the holidays.

closer

 

Dear Ones,

Your song of the day is here!  You know, I think, that is is a favorite song of mine, from the old days; but I love Lola Young's rendition at least as much as the original.  Still, you will have your own opinions and so here is the old song.

The other day, my Dad, who does say the darnedest things, was maybe feeling a little lost, in a kind of fast paced conversation about the characteristics of the living Generations (i.e.: Silent, Boomer, X, Millennial, Z, Alpha).  Anyway, he wasn't threatened by anything these other generations had or said or did, except for the one Great Sin of the X Gen, which is, and this is nuts, that the music is/was "terrible."  

Now, you, perhaps, in your healthy, regulated discussions with your father,  might have said: "give me an example," or, "wait, let's define 'terrible' in terms of music."  But, I, I have been being trained for years to say nothing, to be good, to shut up, and admonished not to 'be so sensitive,' so of course, I said nothing.  But I have been thinking on it for the last month, and you know, I don't think he even listened to but a handful of songs from my youth, and beyond that, his great loves in music are strangely displaced in time and space: he loves Dixieland jazz from 1930 to 1950.  Now, he was born in 1946, so, mathematically, his teenage music would have been 1960 to 1970, or maybe 1958 to 1968.  I know what you are thinking, he must have an 'old soul,' but I think maybe he has a bad case of the Nostalgias.  

Nostalgia, as a disease, is running wild right now, and you have to be careful not to catch it no matter how old you are.  One early symptom is commenting on the (astounding) price of a thing, any thing.  If you hear yourself saying out loud something about the price of eggs or gasoline, you should drink a lot of water and get yourself to bed and stay there until you have found some music you like from this year, even if it is a cover version of an 'old' song!

checking it twice

 

Dear Reader,

Look at this thing I found!  The Stinging Fly!  It sounds like it was made for us!  I ordered a year's worth.  It seems to me to be the kind of thing you might want to give to a friend.  

For your young folks, I hope you will read them this book, The Magic Pudding.  It's all about a koala named Bunyip Bluegum- I am sure that you and anyone you know, will love it, at any age.  This is not a gift that would require money, this reading to your loved ones (see link above), it is a gift of your time.  If you live far away, maybe you could buy a copy and mail it.... 

This year's handmade gift from us will be Sriracha sauce- we wish you a spicy year!