Stopgap Measures.....Or Stop Measured Gaps

I'm too busy living it up with some of my favorite people in the world (minus the people who are snowboarding, people who are visiting other states, and people who are sitting at the bedsides of their grandfathers) to seriously post, but I feel as though you could use a late X-mas present.
Genius is in the eye of the beholder.

We Interrupt This Holiday Cheer.....

We here at the Liberal Anti-Christmas Jihad have noticed a few of of you are riding a little too high on shameless love for the "infant messiah," and are forgetting the tragedy that befell our great nation on that dark day, lo those many weeks ago, 11/03. Never. Forget.
Well, fire up the outrage boosters, kids. I was so busy being happy school was out, and revelling in my impending homecoming, I accidentally listened to the news, and the next thing I knew, I was reading Democratic House of Representatives propaganda. It's a slippery slope.
I give you:

• Osama Luvs Your SUV, bitch.
• Once More, with Squealing. Worth the listen for the music clip.
  
• "Tell the class the Bride Price is actually an honor to the bride. It says she is valuable to the groom and he is willing to give something valuable for her"(click on the first link and read the PDF, if you dare).
• Godless Humanists Bless Us, Every One.

We now return to your regularly scheduled comment thread.

The D Dance

As God is my witness, I shall never take a math class again.
This may be the sweetest my life has ever been.

For those of you to whom it means something, I should be safely in the ever-loving arms of Oak Ridge sometime Thursday afternoon/evening. I ask very few things of this break, and here they are, in no particular order:

• Eat
• Drink
• Merry
• The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Also, someone's going to have to help me remember to drunk-dial Mikey at every opportunity. I've got promises to keep.
I have the house to myself for the next three days. That's another way of saying I'll be dancing around the house naked singing Handel's Messiah at the top of my lungs for the next three days.
Hallelujah!

Listening to: Pink Martini- Brazil

Wrap it Up and Keep it There

happiness n 1: state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. 2: emotions experienced when in a state of well-being

A constant theme in my life seemes to be the accusation that I'm not happy, or at least happy enough, whatever that means. More than one partner (most especially the current administration) has lamented he felt he wasn't "making me happy" as though it were a perpetual state you're either in or not. I'm sorry, but I have quite a few issues surrounding a statement like that. Firstly, in the interest sorting things out, I looked at a few dictionary definitions of happy, happiness, happier, happiest, etc. I failed to find a satisfyingly quantitative or qualitative analysis of the word, so I fail to understand how one would go about making someone so. Especially in perpetuity. That seems, to me, an impossible amount of responsibility.
Hey, some people might need to be happy all the time, but I tend to think that would make life imcredibly dull. In my own defense, I generally find myself in a state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy, so the dictionary seems to believe I'm happy enough. As the high prophet Denis Leary once said, "happiness comes in small doses, folks. It's a cigarette, or a chocolate chip cookie, or a five-second orgasm. That's it, okay?!? You cum, you eat the cookie, you smoke the butt, you go to sleep, you get up in the morning and go to fucking work, okay?!?"
Sure, I yell at the nightly news. I get a little miffed when story after story might as well say "people everywhere are idiots who throw money at the symptoms of problems rather than use an ounce of common sense to root out the cause of said problems," or worse, "people everywhere are idiots who throw other people's money at the symptoms of problems because they know deep in their hearts what the cause is, but it doesn't jive with the values put forth in their chosen religious texts and therefore must not be acknowleged." Yeah, that puts a bit of a damper on my intense joy sometimes.
My point, and I think I have one, is that I feel as though I, and I alone, am responsible for defining happiness for myself, finding it, and worrying if I fail in that endeavor.
That said, I certainly believe people can go a long way in contributing to the happiness of others. Having more friends than I can keep track of brings me an insane amount of contentment, and that two of them have decided to get married elicits something that puts intense joy to shame.
I know I've gone a long way just to say a few congratulations here, but to my favorite sibling, Anna, and to my new favorite sibling-in-law to be, Randy, I wish you absolutely the best of everything. Someday (when you're good and ready, of course) your progeny will take over the world and make it a better place for everyone, if you should fail to do it first, and I'm not so sure you will (fail, that is). I love you both, and I am ridiculously happy for you.
In fact, I'm just happy.

The Damien Clause

Final Art History class today. Five classes, four semesters, one nasal professor. Over.
Watched a movie in class in celebration. Not the class, mind you, just me, Chris, and occasionally our surrounding classmates. I haven't seen it any other way, but I'm pretty sure the optimal method for enjoying Bad(der) Santa is with the sound off, during a lecture on Impressionism.
Don't get me wrong, I HEART art history, but Carol has a knack for sucking every last morsel of fun from it, and Billy Bob Thornton fucking the bejeezus out of Lauren Graham's body double in a jacuzzi puts it right back in.
Also my last day (for now) of assisting for six hours at the end of an already long day. It was refreshingly uneventful, but I did throw on Michael Jackson's Number Ones (or something), and Sean and I broke it down on opposite sides of the studio while Jessie and Anderson toiled at the furnace. That album has become a favorite in the hot shop because it provides a chronological auditory tour through the genius and madness of the great Michael Jackson. And the first 7 tracks or so just rock the fuck out.
Don't. Stop. 'til. You. Get. Enough.
My final blowslot of the semester is Sunday afternoon, then I'm just a loser with no purpose in life for another month and a week.
Wholly looking forward to that.

You are a polite salad buffet who loves to corrupt Wile E. Coyote

I'm not sure what drove me to it. Elves, maybe. The cocktail affair is not to be. I jumped the gun. I couldn't possibly host an affair because Alexis is throwing her own boum, and her house is more accomodating. Please disregard that last post.
Nothing to see here, move along, people.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

What: Holiday/End of the Semester from Hell Cocktail Party
Where: Casa de Cara, Ross, y Rush
When: Saturday, December 19, 2004
What to bring: A bottle of your favorite hooch (or beer, if you must), a mixer, and your finest elbows for rubbing
Dress is Fancy Schmancy, or Whatever's Clever, just bring your fine ass.

Drink the Corn Liquor, Leave that Cocaine Be

Why I'm starting to love Nashville:

The Station Inn is a miniscule hole, but it's the cradle of Bluegrass/Country/Hill music. When they came down off the mountain, it's where they played. You know..."they", all of them. Zero frills, low ceiling, one kind of beer, sold only by the pitcher. We got in line for to see the second of three nights of OCMS around 6:15 for a 9 pm show. They let us in at 7 and we commenced ta drinkin'. Turns out Clay Bush's old babysitter was working the tap, so we enjoyed free pitchers all night. While we were waiting, Sean and Ross ran into some bakers across the street and traded some hits off their pipe for piping hot sourdough and chocolate bread. Sourdough bread straight from the oven, and free beer, and the show hadn't even started yet. By the time Old Crow hit the stage, the 15 or so of us were more than ready to dance, so we pushed all the tables we'd fought so hard against the crowd for aside and didn't sit down until the shindig ended a few hours later. We were stage right, and when I say that, I mean the entire area was comprised of our dancing fool asses and a few unfortunate older souls who were stuck with us. I was dancing like a maniac, and about four tables directly to my right, I caught a face I knew I'd seen before. I stopped, scanned the registry, and realized Gillian Welch was seated placidly ten feet away. About the same time David Rawlings joined the band onstage, and I wished on an eyelash she'd join them onstage. I'm going to start wishing on more eyelashes because a few songs later she was up there, with a drum no less. She sang backup with them the for the rest of the show. I feel very sorry for the people going tonight, because the roof was blown off last night. Those guys play hard and fast, and slow, and sweet, and everything in between. At one point, Ketch Secor broke his bow and twanged to the crowd surely, here at the Station Inn in Nashville, Tennessee there is a fiddle player in the house, and several people ran to their cars. He picked up his banjo, but one returned with a bow before they could start the next tune. The whole affair was an absolute riot. I like to dance, but I've never dance like I danced last night.
To cap the evening off, I was in line to get water on the way out and heard my name. I looked over and saw two girls ducking, and they just happened to be Sarah Strickler and Amanda Wilburn. They had been betting to themselves whether or not I was me for a good portion of the evening, so they tried the name test just to see. We gushed and caught up for a minute, so great to see both of them.
I needed some fun, and I got more than I deserved last night. I suppose that means it's time to lock myelf in the studio for the next four days. Nice knowing you.