Monthly Archives: December 2010

My Christmas

Just in case you haven’t heard it already, I am not a fan of Christmas.  I liked the holiday as a child but sometime during my freshman year of college I realized that the best thing about Christmas was getting a few days off work.  Twenty-six years later Christmas has evolved into a month long ordeal of spending money, rushing to finish work projects and crankiness brought on by the stress.  And the extra days off work?  Those get eaten up by wrapping gifts, cleaning, cooking and driving all over the place to visit family and friends.  I know it’s supposed to be the season good will and charity and celebrating family togetherness but by December 26th I am so burnt out with putting myself before others that I don’t even know who myself is anymore. 

So now I like to say that my Christmas is December 26th.  In many countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom they celebrate Boxing Day on December 26th.  From what I can gather it is a bank holiday and similar to Black Friday in the U.S.  The origins of the holiday and it’s name are unclear but my favorite explanation goes back to the Middle Ages when after feasting all day on December 25th, the manor lords would pack all their leftover in boxes and hand them out to the serfs who got the day off.  By the Victorian era, the tradition evolved to one where household servants were given their bonuses on December 26th and, I assume, the day off work. 

Get the idea here?  Since I feel like a servant for most of December, on the 26th I take the day off from all responsibilities and eat leftovers.  It’s beautiful.  And sometimes I even get a bonus.  Like yesterday when Jerry went out to Grocery Outlet he brought me back these: 

christmas spice

He also showed me this which made my holiday complete: 

Chopper Santa San Leandro

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! 

30 Days of Truth: Something You Have to Forgive Yourself For

Well that didn’t take long.  Already I regret embarking on this 30 Days of Truth project.  Maybe this is what I need to forgive myself for.

OK, all joking aside, this topic has actually gotten me thinking about something.  No, I do not have some big horrible regret I’ve been carrying around for years that I need to forgive myself for.  Not that I haven’t done a lot of stupid shit in the past.  Believe me I have but all the stupid shit I’ve done in the past is done and I’m not one to hold on to a regret.  I gave up on regret a long time ago when I realized how damaging it can be to one’s state of mind.  So because I have no regrets, I don’t really have anything I need to forgive myself for. 

I’ll tell you something I do have though, and that’s an inner critic.  My inner critics is the bitch voice inside my head who constantly tells me I’m writing crap.  Turning that bitch voice off is kind of like forgiving myself isn’t it?  I think so and last month I was able to do it. 

I’m talking about NaNoWriMo.  Remember that month long novel writing project I said I was going to do?  Believe it or not but I actually did it!  Well, kind of.  I didn’t end up with a 50,000 word novel but rather a 26,422 word novella.  It’s not exactly what I set out to write but it was more than I have ever written before.  And I was able to do so by devoting a couple of hours a day to writing with the bitch voice in my head turned off.  And that in itself was a huge achievement. 

Will I be sharing my 26,422 word novella with the world?  No way!  Even without the bitch voice in my head I know that thing I wrote last month is a huge piece of crap.  Most of it doesn’t even make sense since the characters seemed to take a life of their own and about 5,000 words in the storyline completely changed.  But still I did it and it wouldn’t have been possible if that bitch voice had stayed in my head. 

So thank you NaNoWriMo for helping me forgive and turn off the bitch voice that lives in my head. 

Lawyer! Lawyer! Face on Fire!

Now that we are well into the holiday season I can share the first of my Paralegal Chronicles which is technically a Christmas story. 

It happened at the firm’s holiday luncheon which was held every year at some fancy-assed San Francisco restaurant, always a different one because we got thrown out every year.  The thing that got us thrown out that year was a flaming drink, prepared by a bartender who thought it was okay to serve to a drunk lawyer who in turn thought it was okay to consume the drink before the flame burnt out. 

The shocked paralegal sitting next to the drunk lawyer, who hopes that 16 years is an acceptable amount of time to go by to finally come public with this story (considering the statute of limitations it probably is), still remembers the circle of blue flame around the drunk lawyer’s mouth.  Luckily there was a quick thinking associate close by who knew that fire was included in the short list of occasions when it’s appropriate to throw a glass of iced water in your boss’s face.

Five minutes later we were all standing outside the fancy-assed San Francisco restaurant deciding where to go next.  

Like all good Christmas stories, there is a goodwill-to-all-men and  gift-giving aspect to this one.  In the weeks leading up to the luncheon I had been fretting about getting a gift for the drunk lawyer as his was the name I had chosen for the Secret Santa giveaway.  Now all my problems were solved and a few days later on Christmas Eve he was presented with a fire hat from Toys R Us. 

30 Days of Truth: Something You Love About Yourself

Oh dear.  This is way harder than writing about something I hate about myself.  What do I love about myself?  Hmmm…

Oh here’s a good one!  Those of you who work with me and are exposed on a daily basis to my annoyingly stressful self might be surprised to know that I have very low blood pressure.  I know!  It’s something I love about myself because it means I’m healthy. 

I always knew my blood pressure was normal because whenever I go to the doctor and they take my blood pressure I get positive nod and a “very good!” from the person who takes it.  Then a few years ago I went to donate blood in the company blood drive and they turned me down because my blood pressure was too low!  It was crazy!  At first I was concerned.  I’m a serious about sharing my blood because every pint counts.  But when I got over that I starting worrying about my own health.  I mean, if your blood pressure is too low it means you’re dead, right?  But after careful research in my medical library (ie: Google) I could find nothing negative about having low blood pressure.  In fact, the time it was too low to donate blood was when I was training for a half-marathon.  How’s that for a good example of the benefits of exercise?  

If only I could remember how great exercise is for keeping one’s blood pressure low when I’m ditching my lunchtime workout at the gym in lieu of a bag of Cheetos and a teen vampire novel.  I really hate that about myself! 

D’oh!  It’s so easy to get off topic!