Sunday, November 18, 2007

Howdy, Leaguers.

It's in the 80's during the days right now and someone on the street perpendicular to mine has hung Christmas lights. Thanksgiving is at the end of this week, so its hard to say that its too early to hang the lights. After all, Christmas commercials hit the air in the days around Halloween and we've already sent out the announcements about our own Holiday party (you're coming, right?). Which means I'll be using the Monday after Thanksgiving (I asked off way back in September) to climb a ladder and string the front of the house with a million twinkling white lights.

There is a point: This Fall is going by too fast. Just how summer seemed to come and go too quickly, Fall is only a month from wrapping up. Hell, there's only one football game left in the regular season for the Mighty Texas Longhorns. With the change in time, the windows of my office (which face out onto a derelict building, complete with hobos, smashed bottles, graphitti and the occasional colorful act) aren't waiting until 7:30 to begin to go dark like they were during the summer. At 5:00 the sun dips low enough that my office is abruptly plunged into darkness, leaving me typing away by the light of my monitor. So I get up, turn on the $15 floor lamp, and sit back down to spend another hour-and-a-half or so wrapping things up, trying to catch up for another day.

It seems like there's been a lot of catching up lately, which makes me wonder where the time is going.

This weekend I bagged, boarded and boxed more comics than I want to think about. We made time on Friday night for grabbing BBQ at the Green Mesquite and then 18-holes at Peter Pan Mini-Golf on Lamar and Barton Springs. Matt demonstrated some amazing superhuman ability at the course, coming in pretty well under par and sinking at least four hole-in-one's.

Two photos can be seen here. As always, I wound up mixing and matching friends from various concentric circles in my life, with Julia from the office coming along with Matt, Jamie and Jason.

A somewhat impromptu Austin-Thanksgiving was cut short when poor Nicole, who'd planned to cook, was laid low with an illness I have yet to hear properly described. She's been out of pocket, staying at Matt's, so hopefully they've gotten all that resolved.

As much as I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving with the family (we're headed to Lawton), a part of me is really trying to figure out how to better incorporate friends into the Holidays. Sure, we throw the Holiday Heckstravangza, but that's also seeing 40 people in the span of a few hours. My mother always had some folks at Thanksgiving and Christmas who (especially when I was in college) I really didn't know. I used to wonder how on earth that happened, but generally was so busy emptying the Box O' Wine at the end of the table that the mystery was never fully resolved... but I think I get it now. You open your doors and your table to your friends and even folks who maybe you don't know all that well, you feed everyone and pass around a few bottles of wine and hope for the best. Maybe that's where I'm headed, trying to coordinate some force of will that insists we'll all see one another on the Holidays despite the shopping and perfunctory office parties.

There won't be time enough for everyone between now and Christmas, and that's too bad. Hell, there's a birthday or two in there (right CB? when is that), and I know people with kids and jobs and all that are even more busy than their usual crazy schedule...

All that said, this weekend Jamie and I stuck close to the house and had a weekend not unlike the ones we'd have in Arizona. I was dinking around with comics, Jamie was on her laptop or puttering with the pets. It was very quiet and, should I go to bed sooner rather than later, I might actually catch up on my rest.

Time for bed, Leaguers.

I have no idea how busy I'll be over the next several days. Hope everyone has a good Turkey Day.

1 comment:

Steven said...

It's because no one wants to be responsible for their part of creating a Lars.

Mmmmm box o' wine.