Question of the Day - 12/10/08

There are a lot of things we see most often in December, like caroling, potato latkes, mistletoe, mulled wine, eggnog, and returning gifts. What's your favorite holiday tradition?

My favorite holiday tradition has always been Christmas Eve.

I don't remember where the idea came from or the first time we did it but our family has always spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house. And although we're most likely changing it up this year, it's always consisted of a big, seafood dinner. My dad works for this upstate New York food service company and brings home fresh fish and crab legs and lobster and those little tiny legostinos that look like brains. My dad is in his glory when he's making a mess of his jail cell-sized kitchen so he spends the majority of the day there, while the rest of us help when he needs it. My uncle sits in the same chair with a blanket watching the news or his favorite show and the women usually wind up drinking some wine and despite the objections from my father and brother, putting on Christmas songs and cavorting around the house having a jolly ol' time.

It's usually just the Hamiltons (my "good" aunt, uncle, and two cousins) and my immediate family but one year, my mom did invite her other two sisters to spend it with us. My aunt and her alocholic husband came from Pennsylvania, my other aunt and my two cousins came, my "good" aunt and uncle and my two cousins came, and at that point, my maternal grandparents were still alive so they spent the holiday with us too. We had to borrow a table and folding chairs from one of my mom's co-workers and set it up in the foyer of the house but even with that, we used another card table and put it smack dab in the middle of the family room. It's the only time I remember the entire family being squeezed into my parents' small house and it's one of my favorite Christmas memories.

When I was younger, we went to Midnight Mass but as we Andy and I grew up and realized religion isn't really for us, we scrapped that tradition. Because Penn Yan doesn't offer midnight mass anymore, my mom has to go to Geneva (where my aunt and uncle live) so I still go with her so she doesn't have to drive alone late at night. I could take or leave that part of the tradition but part of me still can't help but associate Christmas with the smoky smell of the incense. And my cousin Ashley, aka the family entertainer, whispering and making smartass remarks that leave me spending most of the hour trying to cover up my laughter like a little girl who knows better than to misbehave in church. The choir always sings O Come, All Ye Faithful and I always cry and I always think back to one of my all-time favourite Christmas specials and how after Mr. Brady escapes from being trapped in one of his buildings, Carol and the rest of the bunch start singing it.

The night ends with my mom and I getting home close to two o'clock in the morning, wrapping ourselves up in blankets, turning on the Christmas tree, and sitting up in the semi-dark, looking at the tree and talking.

Over the years, bits and pieces of the holiday have melted away with the snow. My grandparents are no longer with us, my brother now has a family of his own with whom he spends Christmas morning, and with ever year, I find myself wanting more and more to spend the holidays here in Chicago. This is the first year I've found myself realizing just how comfortable I am with our changing tradtions and the fact there will be many more.

I guess it's because I don't ever feel like I'll forget the ones we've had so far.

Question of the Day - 11/12/08

From shooting stars to stray eyelashes, there are a lot of ways to make a wish. What's your preferred method for asking favors from the universe?

Every day at lunch, if there are straws involved in the drinking of our libations, I peel the paper off and spit it at my co-worker. At that point, I take the paper back and proceed to tie it in a knot and if when the paper breaks (as it always does), the knot stays, I make a wish. I then keep doing that and making wishes until the paper is too small to tie into knots. Since, at that point, I'm left with a bunch of little pieces of paper, I wad them up into little balls and flick them at my co-worker for the duration of our lunch.

I'm also entirely unable to see the clock read all the same number without making a wish. But I much prefer the straw paper knot wishing method.

Question of the Day

Whether it's a canary in the coal mine or a waitress in the weeds, idiomatic expressions can sometimes stump us even in our own language. What common expression puzzles you the most?

The cat's meow and the cat's pajamas
I've never really understood either of these. Some find a cat's meow to be annoying, not the greatest thing in the world. And pajamas? The cats pajamas? It baffles.

Sleep like a baby and eat like a bird
I just don't understand these because they don't make any sense. "Sleep like a baby" is usually used to describe sleeping well when in reality, babies are notorious for not sleeping through the night and being fidgety. And most birds? They eat lots!

One hand washes the other
I've actually pondered this while washing my hands because it's very difficult to wash one hand all by itself. You can't thoroughly wash your hands...without one washing the other. I guess it doesn't puzzle me so much as just make common sense.

I'm sure there's more but for now, I have some "getting ready for the week" to do and I'm gonna be quick as a porcupine's hiccup about it!

Question of the Day

Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and Vlad the Impaler, the original Dracula, have the same birthday. Coincidence?

Nothing vampire-related is coincidence. Their evilness prevents it.

It's the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, marking the Marxist overthrow of the Russian government. Karl Marx once wrote that "religion is the opium of the people." What is the new opium of the people?

Obama! C'mon, marixsm, socialism, communism...it's all too easy!

One of the highlights of going to a literary festival is hearing authors read from their own works. What author, living or dead, would you most like to hear read?

Wow, there are a lot of possibilities there. I'd very much like to hear Virginia Woolf read, especially if it's To the Lighthouse, one of my all-time favorites. As for the living, I would love to hear Wally Lamb but what I would really give my left arm for is to hear him, along with the women whose stories came to be through the volunteering he's done at York Correctional Institution in Connecticut, reading from both of the books the women helped write. If anyone can make that happen, let me know, huh?

Question fo the Day (catch-up)

Woah, it looks like Halloween was the last Question of the Day I answered. My bad.

NaNoWriMo starts today. Give us a one-sentence description of the novel you plan to write.

The novel I plan to write is a non-existent one full of no characters and even less storyline.

As the Northern hemisphere spins toward the shortest day of the year, it's getting dark earlier and earlier. What comforts do you fall back on when the days are short and the nights are long?

I've always been a cold weather girl. Fall, winter...they're my seasons. I feel most alive, I feel the happiest, and thanks to my ever present preference of the nighttime over the daytime, I quite like all the darkness that comes with this time of year and the same things that comfort me the rest of the year (family, friends, my city, my part in it, and so on and so forth) comfort me this time of year.

November is National Beard Month. Muttonchops, Van Dyke, goatee, soul patch, ZZ Zop-style - tell us about your own wild and wooly facial hair. Even better, post a picture.

What, only dudes use LiveJournal? I have no wild and wooly facial hair and like it that way. However, when it comes to facial hair on penis havers, I'm a big fan (especially of a little non-shaving stubble or a goatee...rawr!).

Now that the election is over, we can get to the important stuff. Why is there a light in the refrigerator but not in the freezer?

Isn't it because people are more likely to get up from sweet sleep and look for something (mainly a beverage, I would think) in the refrigerator than they are to look for something in the freezer? At least, that's what I've always thought the reasoning is there.

Question of Election Day

It's hard to ignore the fact that today is Election Day in the U.S. If you went to the polls today, tell us what it was like. Long line? Free stickers? Hanging chads? We want the details.

I got up a little earlier than usual, got to my polling place around the corner at 5:50 (10 minutes before it oficially opened) and I was #24 in line. With 7 voting booths, things moved relatively quickly, I filled in my little arrows next to my candidates, hopped on the bus, and was early to work only by about 15 minutes or so. From what I hear around the office, we may be closing down early today anyway so that people can get the hell out of dodge before everyone and their sister comes to live it up (hopefully!) in Grant Park.

At that point, I'll head home, get comfy, and settle in for what I'm hoping will be the delightfully positive, feel good event of the year, involving take-out food, wine, blog reading, watching my two boyfriends cover the election, and copious amounts of texting my political junkie friends and family. Funsies!

Question of the Day

We have to ask: What are you going to be for Halloween this year? And can we see a picture?

I don't love Halloween. I don't hate Halloween. I...I nothing Halloween.

Even as a kid, it was never my favorite holiday. Even though I can tell you that my all-time favorite costume was when my brother and the two kids from across the street went out trick-or-treating as a box of Crayola crayons (yours truly was purple, of course). As I was running down the steps of a stranger's house after snagging some candy, I tripped and fell and ripped a big old hole right in the middle of my crayon costume.

I also remember my brother and I dressing up as toothpaste and an Oreo cookie. But for the life of me, I can't remember who was the toothpaste and who was the cookie.

But either way...since "growing up," I don't really celebrate Halloween. I don't need a reason to eat candy whenever I want nor do I need a reason to play dress up.

So this year, I'm just me. And no, you can't see a picture.

Question of the Day

30 Rock returns to television today. Should Tina Fey's striking resemblance to Gov. Palin become part of this season's storyline?

No.

And as fucking hilarious as Tina Fey is, she should stop having to play her.

So for the sake of Tina's sanity, my sanity, and the sanity of everyone in the world, please do not help elect the vapid, incompetent woman.

Thanks.

Question of the Day catch-up

With Halloween on the horizon, burning questions about the undead need to be answered: Can being a zombie be considered suffering?

I generally believe suffering to be entirely subjective. Much like most of life, I can relate it to Buffy. After his gypsy curse, Angel walked around with a soul, forced to recall and live with the memories of all the vivious things he did as Angelus. Suffering. Spike, having no soul at all, dug his ability to walk around sucking the life out of people until The Initiative implanted the chip (die, Riley, die!!) He only suffered after being rendered inable to live life the way he was used to. It's all about circumstances. Some zombies probably dig it, some probably don't.

Everyone enjoys a ghost story. Or at least knows one. What is the scariest ghost story you've ever heard?

I'm not sure I've really heard a lot of true ghost stories. I've read plenty of creepy, scary stories (hi, Stephen King) but ghost stories, not so much. When I read it in school, I remember thinking almost anything written by Edgar Allen Poe has a genuine fright to it (moreso the prose than the poetry) and just the other day, I picked up The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. So far, I've only read my all-time favorite, The Cask of Amontillado, but as I read some this week, I'll let you know if they're as scary as I remember.

Happy birthday, Internet! The Internet, of course, has changed many things for the good. But is it all good? What is the biggest problem the Internet has created for you or the world?

Nothing in life is all good but I definitely say the internet has been more beneficial to me than it has been detrimental. The biggest problmem it's created is probably the huge amount of time that's dedicated to it on a regular basis. Although it's usually used for reading and learning crap so, ya know...that's a good thing.

Question of the Day

I don't care for some of the Question of the Day questions so when that's the case, I'll pick something from the archive instead. This shall be one of those times.

Everyone knows having a crush at the office or in class can make the time pass a little bit quicker. Is it better to keep your crush a secret or tell them how you feel?

"Depends on the situation" definitely could apply to this question but generally, I think that by nature, crushes aren't intended to develop into significant, intimate relationships and having genuine feelings for each other is much different than feeling infatuated and / or having a crush on someone. For me, there's no hidden agenda behind a crush or secret longing.

If it's a crush on someone I barely know, chances are, I'm going to keep my mouth shut because, "hey, we don't know each other but I have a huge crush on you" would make me feel a bit awkward so I assume it would for others as well. But if it's a co-worker or a classmate I'm friends with...I say definitely own up to the crush.

Question of the Day

When it comes to making a difference, some people donate money and others volunteer their time. What cause gets your time or money?

Few things get my money, simply because I don't have the kind of disposable income I'd like to have in order to donate money and not feel like I'm putting myself further into debt. But through my workplace, for Christmas, we sponsor families through Christopher House and my money goes toward clothing and toys for families who need them.

If I ever win an assload of money in the lottery, my money shall go to my parents and brother to pay off their bills and have some fun money, some more for my brother so he (and hopefully my father) can open a restaurant, a college fund for my brother's girlfriend's daughter, and some friends so they can have some cash to make whatever they want happen for themselves. After that, I would most definitely donate to Just Detention International (an organization focused on ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention), the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago, the Human Rights Campaign, and I would hopefully find some more local organizations to help.

My time, on the other hand, is much more readily available than my money and it's mainly donated to the Chicago Rape Crisis Hotline. A few months after starting my shifts, my parents asked on the phone one night how it was going and I told them that even after those few months, I couldn't imagine not working there.

I still can't. Can't really imagine I ever will.

Question of the Day

Imagine a world without Star Trek. Is it a world you'd be very happy to live in, or a dark and terrible place?

Well, considering I've never once seen an episode of Star Trek and couldn't tell you a single thing about it, I'm going to say it'd be the exact same kind of world I'm living in now. The one in which I'm pretty happy.

That question sucked.

inaugural "Question of the Day" post

From here on out, I'm going to take the Live Journal Writer's Block question and use it as my Question of the Day in this ol' blog. And depending on how bored I am today, I may just scroll back through past ones and answer some. So beware possible over-postyness.

As my brother used to say when he was younger: ready...go...set!

'Tis the season for scary movies. Some rank The Evil Dead as the best horror film of all time. What is your favorite scary movie?

I've never been a huge fan of scary movies but I'm definitely going to have to go with The Shining.

I hate films that are full of blood and guts and gore simply for the sake of being full of blood and guts and gore. None of those things scare me and none of those things are what The Shining is about. It's about the entirely plausible reality that a man could go crazy due to isolation. Sure, you've got to somewhat believe in the power of a haunted place to affect a guy and his family but you remove someone from society and stick them in a place where they start believing something or someone is fucking with them and shit's bound to get creepy.

Every time I read the book, I'm freaked out. And every time I've watched the film, I've been sure to leave a few candles burning for some comforting light.

It doesn't hurt that Jack Nicholson is just plain creepy as fuck.