Wholly Unfair
Christmas decorations are up in the common areas of our condo. I feel a little degraded by them.
Born This Happy Morning
Apart from when I saw Nick Cave sing The Mercy Seat live, the music that has made me battle tears in public most often has always been sacred music. (Okay, also God Only Knows at the end of Love, Actually, but that’s kind of sacred too.) It’s the same with weddings – in church weddings I often feel like I’m about to cry when the couple is pronounced man and wife, but in the first secular wedding I attended I was shocked to realize that it didn’t touch me anywhere as much, or feel as meaningful. (To me, that is, of course I know it was deeply meaningful to the couple.)
Today in Mass during O Come All Ye Faithful, as the organ arpeggioed up towards “Glory to God! Glory in the highest!” and as the music softened down again for “O come let us adore Him” I had to close my eyes and stop singing. There’s no cool way to say this, and I guess some of you would rather I get back to talking about stuff like how I start every day with Satan, or my gay-soaked childhood, but at that moment I felt stunned by His glory, without which I really am nothing. Despite more than a year of feeling almost completely disconnected from Mass in Singapore, I imagined my life if I continued to keep God out of it, and it felt empty.
That’s all. Merry Christmas, everyone. We now return you to this site’s regularly scheduled blips of indie music blathering, frivolous vulgarity and cat pictures.
Bloody Merry
Merry Christmas, everyone. A pint of Hoegaarden is certainly not enough in itself to render me merry (especially at the sobering price of $19) but surveyed in the context of a fantastic trip to Thailand, a completely fuckup-free introduction of Alec to my various extended family units, and the divinely bonecrushing bass response of my brand new Altec Lansing speakers to Photek, it should be fairly obvious that you have before you a bloody merry Michelle.
At some point I had lofty plans for year-end music/movie lists, but much like the Christmas cards I haven’t written or sent yet, those might make their appearances some time well into 2004.
Christmas 2002
The bacon’s bubbling away in the Coke, Avril’s alternately wringing her hands and shouting “Big Willy!” at the TV, Alec and his brother are blowing raspberries and doing armpit farts, and I am calmly and detachedly taking it all in. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Not Complaining
Notable Christmas presents:
- Dominatrix boots from Alec. I distinctly remember saying I wanted slapper boots, but I’m not complaining.
- Why Men Are Crap from Mark. I found this book hugely enjoyable. Alec now wants to kill Mark.
Christmas/New Year 2002
It’s been two weeks of unprecedents.
Unprecedented bicep pain from clinging on to the rope pull before I was good enough to go down chairlift-served slopes (just one day, thank God). Unprecedented cccccold on chair lifts at 4.30 pm, trying for one last run after the sun had gone down. Unprecedented amount of disgust at the gaudy ski suit I’d borrowed – didn’t feel like incurring expenses for an activity I wasn’t sure I’d like enough to do again, but now I wish I’d gone ahead and bought one, given the twin factors of that suit’s grossness and my reasonably high fun-levels while skiing. (Many thanks to Russ for yet another stint as personal communications assistant/general tech support to Michelledom in my absence.)
Unprecedented girliness: sharing a room with four girly girls, going mad shopping in Andorra la Veille, massive stripping session in said room with said girls after said shopping trip while gleefully showing each other our purchases and trying on other people’s.
Unprecedented loss of restraint at post-Christmas CD sales back in London. From Virgin: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Yo La Tengo), Carboot Soul (Nightmares On Wax), Black Sunday (Cypress Hill), Suzuki (Tosca), USSR: Life From The Other Side (DJ Vadim). From HMV: Trompe Le Monde, Pixies At The BBC, Complete B-Sides (Pixies), Endtroducing (DJ Shadow), Things We Lost In The Fire (Low), Red House Painters’ self-titled, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Kid Koala). I so have to return some of these for the sake of my financial sustainability.
Unprecedented amount of missing another person. Unprecedented amount of unhappiness I have caused another person. (Two different people.)
Unprecedented amount of time away from this site. Unprecedented amount of stuff I’ve wanted to write about during that time away now simmering in various headspaces while I try to muster the time and skill (skill more than time, it has to be said) to do it all justice.
I’ll keep trying. I hope you keep reading. Happy New Year.