We are so sacrireligious. And weird.

[brigdh]

My family's conversation, as we pulled into the church's parking lot on Christmas morning:

Me: Um, there's no one here.
My Brother: Why are there no cars in the parking lot?
Mom: Maybe it's a 12:30 mass instead of 12:00? Go run up to the door and see if they have their hours posted.
My Brother: But even the lights are turned off.
Me: Even if it was 12:30, there'd still be a few people here by now. Like... the priest.
Dad: I think we missed it.
Mom: Um, whoops?
Me:...WHOOOOOO! Best Present Yet!
My Brother: It's a Christmas miracle!
Mom: It is so not fair that Brigdh is the only one who got her prayers granted.

And then we went home and watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin, because if there's a movie that more accurately portrays Christmas morning family togetherness, I don't know what it is.

My tradition of getting out of attending church by bizarre events, such as major ice-storms and electricity black-outs, continues unbroken.

Comments

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

But the real question is -- is this story better than the year you almost missed Easter b/c you drank like a fish the night before?

*considers*

::giggles::

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. Nah, I guess my Easter morning Walk Of Shame story still wins.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

*blinkblink*

But why would you even go to church. I mean, it's Christmas day: if you're not opening presents and eating left-over gingerbread and blini, with slightly flat champagne cocktails, aren't you missing the whole freakin' point?

Although, good recovery with The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

See, that was my argument! Unfortunately, I was out-voted (or, more accurately, out-whined, because there was really only one person in the family who was at all enthusiastic about the church-going), but it appears that god sent us a sign as to the true meaning of Christmas.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

You guys. If you're not listening to overexcited small children shriek about who owns which of the four identical glittery objects that have been distributed among them in the vain hope of preventing this very conflict, and watching at least one relative put together an impossibly-complex toy for hour after hour, and being urged to go out to any of a dozen gatherings where there will be yet more shrieking, more gift detritus, and more traditional food you do not actually want, you're totally missing the true meaning of Christmas.

That's why there's Mass, for the fortunate Catholics and Anglicans among us. You go to church on Christmas, or Christmas Eve, or both, because it will be quiet there, except for the cool Baroque music, and no one will want you to wrap anything or play with anyone significantly younger than you are. And no one can tell you that you're slacking off when you do it.

That's the true meaning of Christmas, or so the traditions of my homeland tell me. If you aren't dying to go to church by noon at the latest, you're doing it wrong. The real pros have already been there twice, having cracked at midnight and again at 8 am.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

listening to overexcited small children shriek

You paint a real picture. Of hell on earth. Thank god none of the family members who visit us breed.

[(Anonymous)]

You paint a real picture. Of hell on earth.

Don't think I don't know it, too. For once, I have good cause for being behind on everything, and I resent it bitterly.

Have I mentioned my envy of your icons? One is more glorious than the next. And now I too have all this space for good ones, and I haven't even had time to look around and try to borrow any from gifted icon-makers, let alone to try to make any new ones myself.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I thought I was logged in when I posted that. I'm also trying to troubleshoot my Firefox slowdown, because it took me about five minutes to learn that I can't live with any of the alternative browsers. Give me Adblock, or give me death. I must be logged on in Safari, or perhaps Opera.

I'm never going to finish that story. Never. Why am I even trying?

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

I am so in love with my icon space it's unhealthy. But very fun. And, by the way, I get a huge kick out of making people icons, so if there's ever anything you want but can't find, really, just ask.

And, while unlike you I have no right to complain as I'm not working under a deadline so it's all my own obsessive fault, I too am just about ready to throw up my hands in disgust with my story -- it's almost to the 'curse god and die' stage: I'm trying to write all sorts of things I suck at and have no idea how to make it better. "Why am I even trying?" pretty much sums it up.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

You tempt me. Kind of a lot, in fact. I don't have a great deal of intuition for icons: I admire and envy other people's without having them spark any ideas about what I might want to do myself if only I could learn. I couldn't even tell you what I want but can't find or make for myself, because I'm just that clueless.

All right, that's not completely true. I do know that I want one based on an extraordinary poster Printemps did for an exhibition a few years ago. I loved that poster so much that I steeled my nerve and actually went to the customer-service desk at Printemps and begged them, first in my fractured and nonexistent French and then in English when they took pity on me, to sell me one of the big subway versions. But they didn't have one that could be obtained: being French, they had never thought of selling their advertising as if it were art. They did give me a postcard of part of the image, though, and I took a digital picture of it. Alas, though, if there is any way to make it legible at icon size, I haven't figured it out. There's a reason anime images work so perfectly in icon space, even I can tell that much.

But I do know that I want more, more. Cool ones of the kind the icon-gifted have, for the many moods in which one posts or comments. In more than one fandom, even. So if you ever were desperate for procrastination projects and had an idea of what I ought to want, if only I knew, I wouldn't exactly run in horror, you know? Although I would feel bad about my inability to reciprocate, which only goes to show that there is indeed No Free Lunch.

You're trying with the story because it's going to work eventually. It may even be working now. You just don't know it. At some point, perhaps when I have either gotten my own damn story done or given up on having it before New Year's Eve at the earliest, I should write up the annoyingly inspirational narrative that I got from a young couturier in Paris a couple of years ago about her creative process. Not that she considered it inspirational; she was just being anxious in familiar ways about how everything she was doing sucked. Right up until the moment at which it didn't.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

Well, the French are just sort of nuts.

This isn't a very useful mood icon, but I've run into so few people who have even heard of M -- let alone love it -- that I couldn't resist:



And in exchange for your annoyingly inspirational narrative, I'll try to post this quote I ran across on the creative process which -- for me at least -- has something of Emerson's alienated majesty; because, damn, even though it's about making typefaces of all things, it just nails what writing is like for me. Now if only I can find it again...

And I think perhaps the fundamental problem with my story isn't that it's not working -- though it's not right now -- but that I feel deeply ambivalent about what it's working towards. The emotional range is so much louder and messier than I'm used to working in, and I'm also being forced to much more explicit which frankly frustrates me to no end. And, god, the sprawl. It's like jumping from painting miniatures to Turneresque landscapes, but all you have to work with is single hair brushes. Gah!

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Oh, shiny! Thank you! And really, I fear it is indeed useful as a mood icon. It would be nice if that look of utter terror were never appropriate, but that's not the world I live in. Why, I've read stories in my time that could barely even be mentioned without an accompanying icon that looked just like this one.

Your story only sounds more intriguing the more I hear about the precise nature of the pain it's causing you. But God, do I ever sympathize with the difficulties involved. One of the maddening things about writing is the way it makes you design and build all your own tools. If you really were jumping from miniatures to Turneresque landscapes, you could at least go out and buy some big brushes (or you could if you had sufficient money to throw at the problem, at least). But no. You're a writer, so you have to figure out what kind of fiber you need to make the brush you want, and then learn to select the best fibers and bind them properly before you can even think about using them. Anybody would be frustrated, and all of us usually are.

Nevertheless, I have every faith that the results are going to be worth it. And at least once you have the new brushes you can use them forever.