Stormin Norman

With Christmas comes surprise and secrecy. It's a long standing tradition of parents hiding presents from their kids and kids trying so very hard to discover all the wonderful things they got this year.

But me and my sister were never good at keeping secrets or surprises. We are known for getting our parents to tell us what the other daughter is getting for a Christmas gift and then we tell each other. Usually when I buy somebody a gift I get so excited that I have to tell them right away and I ruin my own surprise. It's like I physically can't contain it. This year I have cured that disease by just not buying anybody presents. It's amazing how easy it is to not blab if you don't have anything to blab about. I don't suppose this is going to go over really well though so maybe I should think about getting to the store sometime this week. And by store I mean online shopping markets. Get real if you think I am braving the crazies that only come out during Christmas. Do you think I'm nuts!?

In short though, I'm not good with the secrets thing. I can indeed keep a secret... but I don't like to. It's too much responsibility. And quite frankly I have to consciously think about the words coming out of my mouth so I don't screw it up. Do you think I regularly use a filter? If you've figured anything from this blog... it's probably that I don't often filter my thoughts.

At least that is what it appears like. I do actually filter my thoughts though. It is just that the holes on my filter are so incredibly large that only things that are actually caught and held back from the world are the thoughts that are so ludicrous or offensive. I find this is good enough. If I was to use a more efficient filter, like normal folk... I would just sit here. Literally, no words or thoughts would escape me and wouldn't that be dull!? I think all muscles in my body would atrophy until eventually I was a puddle of nothingness on the couch under my high school throw blanket. And then my dog would come sit on me because apparently he has decided this is his blanket and not mine and steals it every chance he gets.

So yes, here I am a puddle of nothingness under a blanket, under my dog, lost to the world... which is why I said to hell with it and chucked the "normal people" filter a long long time ago. And now, all I am left with is the "Stormin Norman" filter. That is what I named it. I feel it adequately sums up the amount of work it actually does for me. Sometimes, I wish I was able to get the "normal people" filter back just so I could exchange it out every once in a while. Once, I did actually find it. It was hidden in a box of goodies labeled 3rd grade year. I put it on for a day... a solid day! But it was too much hassle. It always got clogged and I spent more time cleaning it out than anything thing else. And let me tell you, cleaning up backed up thoughts and words caught in your filter is not pretty. It can get rather... messy and loud. Surprisingly loud. I'm way too lazy to clean up that kind of mess.

I should mention I am also a rationalizer. I do this to make myself feel better about things. Which is what I just did above if you didn't realize it. Hey, I'm not perfect. I admit it.

According to Urban Dictionary (the most reputable dictionary I can think of): Rationalize: To make excuses by masking own flaws/insecurities by explaining one's own reasoning/actions, often used to avoid the real reason or reality when all it does it make one small, simple & scared.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary (a dramatically less accurate version of the truth): Rationalize: To bring into accord with reason or cause something to seem reasonable.

I'm mentioning rationalization now because I was thinking: "Hey isn't there that quote that goes something along the lines of - You shouldn't bottle up your thoughts and emotions. I should go search google and try to find something about this so I can justify it on my blog to everybody that not having a filter is actually a sane thing to do!"

So that is what I did. I used my best friend google to search quotes. Do you know what the first thing I found!?

Friends, this does not bode well for my outcomes in life. I gotta say, the duck is making me feel a little better though.

And then I got over it when I find the most perfect quote I have ever read. It describes my life to a T. It even has sheep in it. It's pretty awesome and I think I may put this on my blog page.

"I Live to think for myself. I refuse to be a mindless sheep following the crowd into cookie-cutter oblivion. Otherwise I'd just be a zombie with no heart or passion in life." - Hervey Taylor IV (whoever that is?)

Wait a second... somehow I don't believe I got on the computer to write this. That's because I was supposed to be writing about keeping secrets and I got wildly off topic. It's because once again Stormin Norman isn't doing its job about filtering things. Sometimes getting ridiculous amounts of sidetracked is a side effect.

And now I find that this blog is becoming rather lengthy and I don't have room to give the justice of the secrets that I have been keeping so close for so long.

So lets just be quick and to the point. I can finally talk about it because the surprises already happened yesterday at our big dinner get together on the pretense of my Dad's birthday dinner. 1. My sister came home! She was surprising my grandparents. 2. My old friend from down the street came home. He was fighting in Afghanistan and wasn't supposed to be back until January. But with the help of his sister he rigged a plan to get here before Christmas and surprise everybody.

I'm so very happy to have everybody back and safe and home where they should be for the holidays. Plus it helps to have the sister back (aka the favorite child) because now my mom took the week off to spend with her and now has time to make all kinds of  holiday treats... which truly means I do not have to partake in cookie making this year. It's really the best gift somebody could give me.

I'm hoping I get the chance to one-sidedly converse with you all before Christmas which is six days away... but if I don't. I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season and enjoy a good wood burning fire and some legit hot chocolate made from actual chocolate bars (not that lame powder stuff). The first of which I just need to convince my father to brave the cold and chop up some wood when he gets home. The second of which I am going to guilt my mother into making by playing the poor-me-I-know-I'm-not-your-favorite-child card. Oh the true spirit of the holidays...

Oh. My. God. I just tried to guilt my mother into making hot chocolate and she said she never actually made it with real chocolate. She always used the powder stuff and then lied to us... my whole life is a lie! I am officially crushed.

Edge of Glory

I am sorry. I have been unable to communicate for the week. Why? I lost the spark, the fire... my funny. I don't know that I have it back but I decided to come out of my troll cave and say hi to everybody. Hi.

So... I finished finals last Thursday. It was amazing. My last final was microbial genetics. I was up until 2:30 in the morning at Ihop studying for it. Then I woke up at 6:30 to continue studying for it until my final at 10:30... which I aced in case you were wondering. After the final I ran out to the streets of campus jumping, skipping, yelling out with glee and expletives because I was overcome with joy. At least, that is what I did in my head. In reality, I took my peppermint chocolate cupcake (provided to us by the teacher... she gets extra points in my book for that!) and walked the five minute walk to my car. Which actually took a good 20 minutes in my sluggishness.

It was the most excruciating walk of my life. It was cold. My unwashed hair was sprawled across my face peeking out from my cupcake beanie and I trudged all the way to the muddy southside parking lot. People avoided me on this walk... I am almost positive I look like I got in a fight and I had just miserably lost. My eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion and I had purple bags around them. It didn't help that my eyeliner was smeared everywhere giving me that raccoon look. I held my cupcake like I was Gollum and it was My Precious and I swear if you had tried to take it I would have fought you off like an angry beast. I think I may have growled at a couple of people that tried to talk to me. I don't know. I was delirious.  But finally I got to my car and got home. Where I slept until right now.

Not really, I've been getting up everyday at 5:30 am to head into work with the sheepy. After which I sleep. I think I am better now. I think my wits have come back. I think I may not die from sheer exhaustion. I may die from something else though... I had a revelation today. An epiphany. A moment of utter amazement. Which is what I really wanted this blog to be about:

Christmas

Now, for those of you that know me... I am indeed a Grinch, a real Scrooge when it comes to the big green and red holiday. To put it simply... I hate Christmas. It is just that Christmas comes with drama. Lots and lots of drama. You would think that it would make people calm and happy but it makes people stressed and anxious. This causes people to lash out. People compete over who gives the best presents. There are fights and bickering. It is all just too much for me to handle. In all actuality I don't really hate everything about Christmas. But this isn't a story about how I dislike Christmas. Like I said, it is a loving story of revelation and a new outlook on life. BUT just to get you up to speed here is a list of what I do hate:

Christmas music:  It's absolutely horrible. It is like nails on a chalk board to my ears. Every year I die a little when I have to listen to these horrid sounds. Not to mention they start playing it in early November. There are two songs I like... Carol of the Bells (instrumental version)... and The Twelve Days of Christmas (Muppet version). That's it. No others.

Christmas lights: They are bright. And they blind my eyes. And my family... is the Griswalds. I am not even kidding you. Right this very second my room is being lit up by the lights outside and my blinds are closed and my black shades are drawn and yet it still looks like my room is a disco ball. It's kind of obscene. All we need is to hook it up to some Christmas music and we can put on a choreographed light production in our front yard. And all I can think is oh my god... I don't even want to see the electric bill.

Christmas decorations: Really, I don't understand why we have to collect these little trinkets and store them in the attic just to get down for a few measly weeks. I do not think this is necessary. Then we have to put them away. I mean what is up with that!? I'm waaaaay too lazy to do this every year. So I don't. I have opted out of putting up decorations and lights since I was little. Much to the dislike of my Christmas adoring mother.

Christmas cookies: We make 8000 cookies every year. I am not kidding. It's what we do. We make a good 20 different kinds and 4 or 5 batches of each. This takes DAYS. After making them though, you'll never want to eat another cookie again in your life. That's the only good thing about it.

I am just hitting on the big things here... this doesn't even begin to comprise my hate list. But here is a list of things I greatly enjoy about the Christmas season.

Tamales and Taquitos on New Years Eve: This is a tradition for us. I love it. Even though I am not religious my family is and every year after Church we go eat these delicious things. We don't make them though. We're too white to make good Mexican tamales. I wouldn't dream of destroying these traditionally made delicious goodies with my Italian cooking ways.

Waking up on Christmas Morning: There is just something so magical about this. No drama. No craziness. Just my sister, my mom and my dad. And presents of course.

That is all I can think of... I am sure there must be more. Surely. Right?

Anyway, today after a long day of sheepy work and lunch with an old friend I decided that what I needed was wine and Lady Gaga. Two of my favorite things. So I poured a glass of Lime-a-Rita wine and sang loudly to Edge of Glory. That is when it happened. The revelation that is.

After about a glass of wine, this warm feeling started to come over me. I thought it was just the wine. But it wasn't. At least it didn't feel like wine induced warm feelings. It felt like Christmas feelings!! Is this what people feel when they talk about how they love Christmas and the holiday season? I can see the attraction to these warm gooey feelings of happiness. They started to build inside me and before I knew it I couldn't contain these Christmas feelings and that is when I turned around and saw my tree. Our beautiful fake Christmas tree. This is the first year we have had a fake one. We usually have a real one because my mom feels like it invokes the spirit of the holidays better. This year we convinced her that it was more logical and economical to just buy a fake one we can reuse. She was devastated but went along anyway... all the while chiming in how we have no holiday spirit. I am allergic to pine trees so a fake one was also more attractive to me in that way... but nobody seemed to care about that before. It always made my nose runny and me itchy. Bleh.

Anyway... back to the story. Wine. Lady Gaga. Warm fuzzy feelings. And there it was this glorious tree. 1200 LED lights shining back at me. Un-adorned with anything else. The ornaments were always mine and my sisters responsibility. But this year she isn't here and my mom said she would just do them herself because I so obviously didn't want to.

But here in this moment of fuzzy ooey-gooey feelings I made an executive Christmas decision to put on the ornaments. And so I did. All 600 of them. Give or take 10 or so. Then as I sat on the couch to look at my handy work... which looked pretty damn good if I do say so myself... the Lady Gaga song ended and my glass of wine came to empty. And as easily as it had come the warm feelings flew away and were replaced by a cold chilly breeze that usually settles in the part of your brain that controls Christmas feelings. And realized I was itchy and my nose was runny. Turns out I was never allergic to the pine tree. Just Christmas.

And so that is how I discovered the secret of Christmas. How all the adults actually get through this time of year. Wine... lots and lots of wine. I need to stock up. Bring it Christmas! You are getting owned this year.