Merry Christmas?

Christmas in the childhood home with the family I've grown to love and be irritated by in a town plagued by deep rooted ice sheets and formidable winds is really one of the best days of the year. The fighting interests of contrived American and Greek cultural traditions at Christmas time in my home is something to be appreciated. The morning liturgy blared on the television thanks to a 1980's style satellite dish that may or may not be illegally attached to the roof of the house fought the middle sister's persistent attempts at playing Christmas jingles on the piano she touches only in late December. An awkward combination of foods was worked on all day, including crab legs, an opaque green jell-o with red spots (a perfect depiction of an Ebola victim in the first stages of bleeding out), spinach pie, terrible wine (ooh this year, we had terrible mulled wine), and an assortment of attempts at vegetarian side and main dishes. Most of the food inevitably goes uneaten and provides the parts and pieces for future meals of dissonant flavors.

The lunchtime banter is the usual mix. Each person ends up telling a story, not on purpose, we're totally not one of those families that sits patiently around the table passing around the "talking stick". First one sister will say something, then the other (she'll share a personally funny story that doesn't translate well into humor to a public audience, but she will cry in hysteria regardless), then Ma will get a bit freaked out that 2nd sister is choking, then Dad will tell a slightly related story (this story will be completely unrelated but may have taken place in the same hemisphere as the previous story, maybe the same season, maybe both stories had a young person as the main character). I tend to not tell stories, I don't think. My role at the table has consistently been to make fun of everything that came out of each of my family member's mouths and to regulate my dad's food consumption (this year, I got to sit at the head of the table because he couldn't comfortably fit between the table and the wall behind the chair).

The presents come next. We each get a few, I get the most. I have hobbies and interests that go beyond feeding squirrels, trimming my bangs, painting my apartment, and doing laundry (these being the interest of the rest of my family). I got a few pretty boss pairs of socks - they were those cotton-free socks that don't absorb the mysterious moisture your foot produces during the day but rather create an environment allowing the liquids to be released into your shoe....I guess they may be a bad idea....maybe they quicken the whole throw-my-shoe-away-because-it-smells process.

The best gift had to have been the over sized cold weather running gear my mom bought me. I'm not the tallest guy in the world and I weigh a fierce 167 pounds. I had asked for some UnderArmor so that I could keep on running outside when the temperature drops. This stuff is supposed to be tight, like, skin tight. I totally intended to wear shorts and a t-shirt over this second layer of flesh as without it I would look like I was trying to hard, like I was a complete tool. My mother thought it looked too tight and bought me XXL shirts and shorts. I think the only thing more embarrassing than skin tight athletic gear, is baggy skin tight athletic gear. The tight stuff keeps everything in place, this stuff sort of exaggerates the wearer's spots of vulnerability allowing love handles, beer guts, and genitalia to visually flail for the passing pedestrians to tell their friends about.

Other gift highlights included a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce, a rolling pin, a plastic tin of pickled fish, more socks, slippers all around, um ... The gift giving typically ends with my dad going to the Lay-Z Boy and falling asleep, my sisters going to their respective ends of the house and making a mess of things (they're in their 30's), my mom is usually on the phone at this point, and I sit in the corner hugging my knees, rocking back and forth, singing silent night as I stare at the mounds of wrapping paper and ribbon, dirty plates and mugs, receipts and half open boxes. Eventually I get the motivation I need to stack everyone's gifts in neat piles, separate the recyclable waste from the unsalvagable rubbish, etc.

That, in a walnut shell, is Christmas in my house. We usually have a couple of visitors who we treat to bizarre Greek cookies and coffee (I can see in their eyes that they are wondering, "where the fuck are the chocolate chips in this thing, why isn't this shaped like a Christmas tree or an angel or a bell, why don't any of these have peanut butter in them or a Hershey's Kiss on top"). We may go, as a family, to another family's home for a bit of dessert and coffee, to give us something to do, some other people to talk to as we've already exhausted most of our conversational options, skipping controversial issues such as the Gaza Strip, my budding alcoholism, issues involving gay people, and the definition of family (my dad has become overly dependent on a pristine image of family unity which he didn't really care about when he had a job, but now that he's retired, uses as a concrete crutch to fill his day with organizational tasks that end up hindering the daily flow of the rest of our lives - but yes, Dad, thanks for the car insurance).

Reason for Optimism

On second thought, with billions of people around the world, I'm surely better than at least 1 of them in nearly all aspects of my ability. So, at least I'm not the worst at anything.

The World's Just Getting Too Big.

So there are 6.7 billion people currently carrying out their daily business on Earth's surface. By 2042, wikipedia tells me there will be upwards of around 9 billion given current growth patterns. While most of the press revolving around this topic of human proliferation pressuring the coping mechanisms of various regional ecosystems, I'm more worried about what it's going to do on my ego.

I'm not sure about you, or the drunk at the end of the bar, or the bus driver that wouldn't let me off the bus while stopped in gridlock traffic for a 2 minute time span that felt as long as the 2 minutes one ponders through prior to attempting a drunken kiss, but I really want to be the best at something at some point in my life. When I write "best" I don't mean, like, beating a bunch of children in a footrace despite being in what researchers would consider the prime of my physical ability. I mean, like, no one in the world could possibly do something that I do better than I do it. I want to actually be the best in the world at something. One out of 6.7 billion. The 100th percentile.

What I'm worried about, then, with this rampant population growth is that with every second that passes, more than 2 babies are born into this world. That's 2 more people that could potentially be better than me at everything I try to put my hands to (sure one of them is currently broken leaving me at a slight disadvantage but I should have it's previously mediocre assistance back within a few weeks). So what's it going to be? Will I start staying up till dawn forcing the jargon of economic theory into my brain? Will I somehow single-handedly (ha! that's sort of a joke to go along with the broken arm) stop global warming in its melting path? Will my name be in Rolling Stone in 30 years just as Mitch Mitchell's was last month, followed by praise for my innovative and technically immaculate drumming? Will I even make a meaningless last second shot while playing basketball with myself in which the seconds that are winding down are nothing more than an internal monologue created to serve as an arena for my own accomplishment?

Ambition, I've decided, totally blows. Statistics just aren't going to let me be the best at anything. I'll be lucky to even be really good at something. I mean really good, like Dicky Simpkins good. Sure the guy got drafted into the NBA and played for the championship winning Bulls, but there were still thousands of people better than him at playing basketball. You would think, then, that with this realization that infinite accomplishment in any single activity or area is a certain impossibility, I would give up hope and accept the mediocre life that I likely have ahead of me. Unfortunately, I don't know if that's going to be the case. Anxiety has infected my blood. I wake up in the morning, not able to go back to sleep because I could be using the time trying to get good at something. I don't travel, because it take too much time. I could get a little better at something in the time, for example, that it takes for me to go to the store for more cheese. I'm satisfied eating a grilled bread sandwich rather than a grilled cheese sandwich and sitting while eating it, thinking of things that I could be doing to try to get slightly better at something.

Clearly the anxiety over the attempted achievement of unachievable goals stem from my own, deep, nearly unconscious hopes of immortality, but I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the increasing population. Feels better already. I might even hit the snooze button tomorrow morning, on the alarm clock that I am setting despite having absolutely nowhere to be for 4 days.

How To Lose a Girl in 10 Days

HA! Ten? Try 1! It's really easy, it really is. Just act interested in a truly sincere way.

Be completely normal, say what you're thinking. Ask her questions about herself, things you want to know about her. Your responses need not be faked, you actually are interested in her, so just respond how you see fit. You know, a little touch on the arm, a coy giggle, whatever. During that night, go ahead and drink, but don't get so completely drunk that you wake up the next morning with mysterious bloody scratch wounds on your back and her vomit all over your freshly shaved chest. End the night like a normal person would, walk her to some adequate mode of transport. Say goodnight. Make some tentative plans to see each other again.

You know what? You've nearly done it. So long as you are less attractive than the non-existent but surely drop-dead gorgeous/handsome love child of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, I can guarantee you that she's been lost. You are now completely dead to her and will most likely not be responded to regardless of how Zach Braff-Love Actually genius your text or voicemail may be. If, on the other hand, you want to attempt a long-lasting, meaningful relationship with her, then I guess you need to go for the mysterious bloody scratch wounds route.

Expatriated Thanksgiving

There's nothing like a genuine bit of cynicism to get one through the overly thankful Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Being in London makes unthankfulness all the easier to obtain. Try to make cornbread? Well good luck finding corn flour. Without a Native American or Hispanic population to provide sufficient year round demand for the stuff, it's basically missing from all major supermarkets. Luckily, I thought outside the box during my search and located a small packet of it which was marketed as "raw polenta". It was in the pasta section. Weird.

God forbid I want a can of pumpkin stuff. That's just impossible. Pumpkin pie was outlawed, I think, in the entirety of the UK sometime in the 1960s when several cans of pumpkin puree fell off the shelf at a supermarket and landed on a previously cheery young boy. Within the year he had begun wearing mascara, he died his blond hair black, and started wearing leather. This incident began the first wave of Goth culture. To avoid any future unfortunate fashion/music trends, the country discontinued its imports of pumpkin puree, thus making pumpkin pie a dessert too laborious to make.

I can't really complain, though. I'm unemployed, thousands of miles from home, and broke. I have a broken hand and my bedroom suffers from a relatively severe condensation problem. AND I have an unpaid internship which requires me to fill my days with tasks of manual labor that would usually be accompanied by a union wage. In this season of thanks, I guess I'm thankful for life. I'd be thankful for family, friends, health and what not, but I think my own actions are responsible for those things, and I don't really like thanking myself.

I am thankful for my second attempt at baking jalapeno cheddar cornbread turned out better than the first. I am not thankful that my first attempt at making cranberry orange jello came out better than the second. The best part, though, is that the entire holiday is completely unobserved by everyone other then American expats. There's something about being in a celebratory minority that makes the entire experience of the holiday itself that much better. Thanksgiving day expanded into a 4-day long gluttony bender leaving my colon in shambles and sending my blood sugar through the capillary roof.

The lesson, I guess, is that while there is seldom anything to be thankful for during these times of global calamity and cynicism, there is always an opportunity for the human imagination to conger something worse. I could be unemployed and unemployable. I could have a broken hand and a broken heart. Britain could outlaw pumpkin puree and pistachios. Terrorists could have hit Mumbai and Delhi. At the end of the day, it is what it is, and we should be thankful it's not any worse and I guess try harder to enhance our current lives for next year, so as to lengthen our list of ways things could be worse. While this may sound like a pessimistic interpretation of this day of over-consumptive days, it can't be because right now I feel totally psyched about repeating Thanksgiving festivities in a year's time.