There's been a couple of snow storms since then. The first one, we actually went out side and had a snowball fight and made a snowman and just romped around in the snow. When I say 'we' I mean my younger brother and me. Sometimes I actually don't want to hit him in the face, and he's an okay kid. He's even got me on my own diet and workout schedule. We'll see how this goes. I almost typed "fingers crossed" but crossing my fingers will do absolutely nothing. I should say "busting my ass on my elliptical bike and ab workouts". Do you know where fingers crossed comes from? Its origin is in the early Christian church. Crossing your fingers invoked the power of the Christian Cross (makes sense) when in the face of Evil. That's pretty legit. Nowadays I guess it's just for good luck I suppose.
I've decided electronics are slowly sucking out our souls. Not on a religious standpoint at all, obviously, but they are just taking the life from us that we are so fortunate to have. Friendships and Relationships are made so much more complex than they need to be. I mean, remember having to physically GO to somebody's house to see if they were home and if they wanted to play with you? Or you could call them on their house phone, "hello Mrs. So-and-so, is _______ home?" having phone etiquette and such. How is it possible to be in a room with someone else and be more attracted to what's going on inside of your electronic device? You literally have a living human being there and you'd rather look at some plastic, glass, and circuits. Blows my mind. We get so wrapped up in texting and twittering and facebooking it's weird. Like picture not being from earth and seeing us, walking around staring at something in our hands instead of the world around us, shoulders hunched, head down, oblivious. I was watching TV last night with my parents and cat, and the cat was staring at the TV too. So my mom narrates the cat's thoughts (she does this a lot folks), "if everyone else is staring at the light box on the wall, so will I". Even if she didn't mean to, she said something pretty profound. That's all it is. A box of light. and we just stare at it. and fill us up with thoughts and images. What ever happened to challenging your mind, imagination and stuff? I dunno man, but I think we should all close our laptops a little sooner instead of watching that 13th episode in a row on Netflix, shut off our TVs instead of watching that 4th episode of Friends (because let's face it you've probably seen it before anyway), let your phone die, and leave it dead for a little while. It's so hard to be unreachable now, that it almost is a privilege (spelled that wrong 4 times..). I think we should all be a little more aloof. Read more books, listen to more records, draw more doodles, hang more decorations, walk to more places, drive to our friends houses and knock on their door to see what they're doing, go to see a show in the city, do the laundry for your mother, write a song, teach yourself how to play an instrument, solve a rubik's cube, find a song that none of your friend's have heard before, just do more things. because however nice the internet is and texting and all that jazz, it's not real. it's not tangible. if one day all the power went out and we couldn't charge our shit, we wouldn't have it. SO .. that's that. go be a person.
I've been baking so much lately, our house smells so good. Sugar cookies, CHocolate chip, almond jellies, peanut butter blossoms, lemon bars, holiday bars, and I just want to stuff my face. My diet has mainly consisted of cookie dough, and more cookie dough. and sometimes an orange Sanpellegrino fizzy juice. love. but anyway that's inspired this list.
Ten Things to be sure you do this Holiday Season:
1. Bake something delicious. And then find somebody to enjoy it with. Nobody is on a diet during the Holidays. and if you are, well, stop it. eat a cookie it won't kill you.
2. Buy your relatives or friends gifts, or make them gifts, or just wrap something and give it to them. It won't only make them feel good, it'll make you feel good.
3. Instead of Mass Texting everyone a "merry Christmas!", make it personal. stick their name in there somewhere. The world is so much less personal now.
4. Sing Christmas Songs Reallly Really loud, when given the chance. The shower has wonderful acoustics. and it's very hard to frown while belting "Jingle Bells"
5. If you're Jewish, say Happy Hanukkah, and if you're Christian or Catholic? Say Merry Christmas. Whatever you believe in, just say that. And who cares if someone wishes me Happy Hanukkah and I'm not Jewish, I mean hey, at least they said something nice to me.
6. Get a Christmas Tree and decorate it. It will give you a few hours to do something productive and beautiful and unique. NOBODY'S christmas trees look the same. Don't you want your own little magical something?
7. Believe in something. Whether it's Santa Claus, or yourself, or your friend, or miracles, or humanity, just believe in something.
8. Watch Elf, on repeat.
9. Don't be a Grinch. Nobody likes a sour puss at their Ugly Sweater Gingerbread House Making party. Everybody else is having more fun than you anyway, ugly sweater and all.
10. Most importantly, don't be selfish. There are like 10987 different ways to be selfish this holiday season, so don't do any of them. Maybe donate some presents to a shelter. or help out at your local church. Give your neighbor a jar of homemade eggnog or a fruitcake. Let the kid at the store take the last of whatever it is you want. I dunno. Do something bigger than yourself.
I'm so Gung-ho holidays this season it's ridiculous. I can't wait to live in my house. It's gonna be like santa's workshop up in this bitch. Cookies and wrapping paper and lights and trees and elves. Yep. It'll smell like heaven, basically, if heaven smells like freshly baked goods and scotch tape and pine. Here's to wishing you all a very merry Christmas (if I don't post before then). And hopefully if my meeting with the Dean of Students along with a few other important people goes well, I'll be on my way back to Lehigh in January! I could not be more excited about something (besides Christmas). I'll admit there are a few things I am having reserves about, but overall, I cannot wait to be back at school.
now then, a few songs I put on my "songs to BLAST while you're alone" playlist..
