Monday amusement

Since it's a Monday, I'm in extra-special need of amusement. Luckily, my needs are simple. And so, when I discovered that there's a journal called Conradiana, devoted to all things Joseph Conrad, I smiled, if only inwardly. It seemed like a Conradian thing to do.

The holidays have me a bit befuddled, what can I say? I have the highest threshold for family togetherness of anyone I know, but I reached my limit shortly before Thanksgiving. Also, there's this whole issue with lack of sunlight. It's difficult not to be bitter that I spend precious daylight hours in a little rabbit hole of an office (not windowless, thankfully) doing work I could just as well do in the dark. If I stayed up all night. Which would mean I still wouldn't enjoy the sunlight.

Back to the holidays--they give me frenetic energy that ends with a bit of a depressing letdown. Something about the sameness of every year makes me a little frantic. On one hand the sameness is stultifying; on the other hand, the alternative (say, celebrating holidays after my parents are gone) is horrifying. At least we've mitigated some of the sameness. These days, we all go down to Florida for Christmas. We grill burgers and usually head down to the beach for sunset.

So I'm becoming a humbug. I did think of one holiday treat that gives me comfort and joy, as the song says. It's the ubiquitousness of glitter. Glitter gets on everything, and it's sneaky. You might walk around all day with a piece of glitter on your forehead. You can't feel it, it's nearly impossible to wipe off, and no one is going to tell you it's on your face.

Imagine you're in a meeting with the president of your organization, and he's unaware of a sparkly purple dot on his nose. Oh, the hilarity. This holiday season, I'm making it my mission to spread glittery flare to as many people as possible.