On the other side of Christmas

     Wow! My first Christmas as a mortal. Sure will be different from the other side. Trust me when I tell you the holiday season is busier for us than it is for you.
     First of all there's weary travelers to take care of, and drunks to see home in one piece. There's ensuring that even the poorest family finds a peaceful Christmas. And that mankind shows goodwill to one another for at least one day of the year.

     Just preventing salmonella from undercooked turkeys and eggnog in itself is a Christmas miracle.
     But this year I get to experience the good stuff. I get to gorge on turkey, and stuffing. I can drink hot toddys and caesers and beer. And when I've had too much I can caterwaul Christmas carols and slobber on people under the mistletoe.
     They tell me there will be chocolate and candy canes too. Did you notice how all holidays involve enormous amounts of food and/or drink? This one seems to have the most food of all. Is this why you have New Year's Resolutions immediately afterwards?
     I will not be posting next week. I'll be back again on January the sixth, so I want to wish everyone a fantastic and safe holiday. Merry Christmas!


photo by: nuttakit

Ode to voluntary Christmas Misery

 

     I remember the first Christmas carols. How your ancestors performed them door to door and on street corners. This was of course before the iPod or MP3 player. Even before Walkmans and vinyl records.

     I remember how delightful it was that your species sang dozens of joyous hymns to celebrate a single day.

     I mean you certainly don’t do that for any of your other holidays. You seldom hear a jig for St. Patrick’s Day-or a chorus for a Halloween. Well…There are songs for other holidays, but not with the same exuberance as you have for that Jesus fellow and his chubby friend.

     I loved how your forefathers burst into song for their own entertainment and that of their neighbors.

     Then some diabolical genius invented the PA system. Things have never been the same since. Everywhere you go, Christmas music follows you. Throughout the malls and grocery stores, blaring through speakers and transmitted through airwaves like some malevolent form of mind control.

     It’s relentless! It’s evil! It’s self-induced! I mean really-How many Christmas CDs do you need when you are surrounded by it at every angle? And I have news for you. They are all the SAME SONGS! Just sung by different people.

     This smacks of self-torture not unlike ‘exercise’. Why don’t you people go all the way with it? Why not do your aerobics to Christmas music and drive yourselves ALL the way insane?

Purchase till I plummet! :)

     There are no malls in Eden. Nor are there escalators or bits of plastic to buy things with.

     As I am experiencing my first Christmas on your world, I am told it is appropriate to buy gifts for your favorite humans, and they in turn will buy them for you. This is exciting!

     And exhausting. I have journeyed the length of this gargantuan structure known as 'West Edmonton Mall', and endured the circular ritual of parking. I have enjoyed  ingesting the vast varieties of food in your courts, and cheerfully tolerated that warm chicken-noodle-goat smell you humans get when you wear your jackets indoors.  And this is the holiday you humans celebrate for  Jesus? Just so you know, he didn't wear red, or have a white beard. (I met him before he came to your planet. Nice fellow, highly idealistic.) But I would love to know-What did you get for your favorite humans?
     For my chosen male copulation partner I have chosen a military grade tomahawk, a leggo man flashlight, organic sake with a genuine sake serving set, and fifty pounds of feta cheese. Do you think he'll like it?

     By the way, why do they call it a 'Master' card? My  favorite male says I'll find out when the bill arrives.

This cold is too common

I hab my first code. I don't like it bery much. My nobe is running, my head feels full, and I ab sneebing my head off. Bery ubpleasant.

When I get back to Eden I'b going to ask the Energy why It invented germbs. What ib the purpose ob millions ob tiny bacteria that create snot? What purpose does snot serve? How can one body create so much of it?

It might be different ib it was useful. But all it does ib fill copious abmounts of Kleenexes. What the point ob that?

Nob to mention the violent snot anb saliva projections. I hab difficulty uberstanding why the Energy would like us to share these germbs.

I hab a theory. Perhabs this is a different Realm of Life that I prebiously didn't know about. Maybe this is a different universe where all the inhabitants are germs trying to reproduce and expand territory in a humban host? Can dou imagine? How horrible do you have to be to reincarnate into a germb?






*photo by Arvind Balaraman

Telepathy-schmepathy

     I am impressed. You humans are only using about ten percent of your brains and the vast majority of you have no ability to read each others thoughts or experience each others feelings. Yet you have technologically advanced well enough to write and speak to each other across the entire planet.

     The Energy told me you were a resourceful species, and It was correct. In fact, if it wasn't for your various forms of communication, my mission would not have been what it was.
    
     I am old enough to remember how excited our kind was when Alexander Graham Bell made it possible for you to speak to each other directly across vast distances. If he could see you all now. What would he say if he knew his modest little telephone would lead to the internet? Or to cell phones, with millions of people carrying telephones around like pocket watches?
    
     Your kind, in these generations have the ability to speak to people in other countries within minutes. Can you not use them to discuss your vast differences?

     I have no doubt your species will strive to do more with your technology. Indeed, it would not surprise me if you learned to hard-wire your precious cell phones and computers to your head. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could program empathy?




*photo by xedos4 at freedigitalphotos.net

Drawn to cartoons

     It was a quiet Saturday morning. All quiet in the house. Not a creature was stirring. So I turned on the TV, and found a cartoon mouse! You people seems to have a thing for cartoon mice. There's Mickey, and Jerry, Pinky and the Brain...Itch. Or is it Scratchy? Oh and don't forget the Biker Mice from Mars! (I've met biker mice-and they don't come from Mars and they're not as buff.)

     I knew I liked television-It's fascinating what you can get out of such a small box-but until I discovered cartoons, I had not quite grasped the true joy of sitting glued to one spot and staring mindlessly at a screen full of  scripted images. In fact, these manufactured images are really funny before I've had my first coffee, but they're even funnier after about nine cups.

     I like them all! Even the one with the coyote and the roadrunner even though every episode features absurd situations that would never happen in real life. I didn't spend a lot of time on your planet previously, but I can assure you I've never seen a coyote building rockets. And I'm positive that if you throw one off a cliff, it will not get up and walk away-nor will it sound like an accordian.

     I REALLY like the superhero ones! The ones with brightly colored costumes that fly through the air? Makes me wish I'd worn tights and a cape when I could still fly. Come to think of it, I saved people, I saved the world. Where's MY cartoon?

Plain cave-speak

This post was post-phoned for one day out of respect for Rememberance day.

     It is of great interest to me how your language has changed over the centuries. I expected eventually your species would eventually learn to clarify what you said when you realized 'Ugg' didn't get your point across.

     I even expected it when your kind moved away from Latin and Hebrew and created your own languages, such as Cantonese, Italian and English.

     What I didn't really expect, is how you would learn how to mangle your own speech patterns and twist words around to mean entirely different things. Remember when something 'fantastic' meant something truly horrifying-like demons? Now it means something that is really interesting, or 'cool'. (Don't get me started on THAT word.) Truth be told, some of the things you humans find fantastic horrify me anyway-like fast cars and scary movies.

     What about 'outrageous'? When I see old Grammy footage from the eighties I asked myself why getting an award so offended Lionel Ritchie. And why was he smiling? Sigh.

     And you are still doing it-even when you are on your computers. You are skipping steps as you go. What about LOL and BTW. Are you too lazy to type 'By the Way'? The faster your lives get, the shorter and more abrupt your speech becomes.

     I suspect it won't be long until your kind goes back to saying things like 'Ugg.'