It occurred to me today, as I sat here sipping my coffee and staring at my monitor, that I am firmly addicted to Craigslist. And before you pervs get all worked up, not the personals! Jeez.

Missed connections… sometimes it makes me giggle and sometimes it makes me sniffle. All those people putting it out there trying to find the person they passed in the mall or made eye contact with on the Metro… amazing.

And RnR? *bwahahahahahaha* All I can say is that there are some seriously messed up people in the area. Seriously. Oh lordy, and ugly to boot! Stop posting pictures of your jello butt!

And who in their right mind asks for relationship advice from the tools on Craigslist? Are you kidding me? That’s funny as hell. Thanks for the laughs! I’ll be back throughout the day to watch the sharks zoom in on your ass.

From LakotaFreedom.com:

“We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have withdrawn from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law. For more information, please visit our new website at www.lakotafreedom.com.”

Please read it, and support our native brothers and sisters.

We are the immigrants, this is their home. They deserve better than they have been given. Think about it.

Our fears:
The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we’re afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we’ll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.

Our hurdles:
There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.

Our visions:
You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.

Our destinies:
When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you’ll find something solid to stand on
Or you’ll be taught how to fly!

- Richard Bach

And I, like some lost and ancient angel, spread my wings once more and remember what it was like to fly.

Being somewhat pagan, I do not tend to celebrate Christmas the way so many of my friends and family do. Solstice comes a few days before and the birth of a godchild from a religion that is bound and determined to clip my wings is not really my idea of a reason to celebrate. With that said, I still find myself in a very peculiar place this morning.

For the first time in the entirety of my life, which isn’t terribly long, but hey four decades and all, I am alone. Even with the typical juggling of holidays that comes with being a divorced parent, I have never truly been alone on this day. Usually, if it was the ex’s year for Christmas day, we’d have our celebration on Christmas eve. After we moved far away, and the kids began going back to Florida for the entire winter break, we’d have our celebration when they returned. And I and my partner would enjoy a quiet day of our own to celebrate.

I remember trying to explain this to someone last year, as to why the day itself seemed so important to me even though I wasn’t Christian. He couldn’t quite understand and answered my heart felt explanation of tradition and family with snark, “What the hell do you care about the birth of our lord and savior for?”

I don’t. Never did. Not even as a wee Catholic girl did I care. It was never who I was, nor will it ever be who I am.

But I do care about family, friends, connections, and the slow return of longer days and shorter nights. I often choose to celebrate Solstice on Christmas simply because it’s usually the day everyone has off, and it’s what I’ve been programmed for since childhood. On this day, you stay home with the ones you love, or go to the ones you love, and spend time together. You laugh, you share, you watch the faces of the children light up, and sometimes you even bicker. But you do it together.

Listening to the absolute stillness of my household this morning is almost deafening. There is no scrambling to see what’s under the tree. There are no tiny shreds of paper and ribbon cluttering up the floor. The oven is not beeping at me to check on dinner. There is simply nothing. No sound other than the echoing of the keyboard as I try to get a handle on my thoughts.

There is only me. Lost in my thoughts and feeling an overwhelming sense of missing. Missing my children, my family, my friends. Perhaps I even miss a different kind of love, but that’s never served me very well, so I shall not dwell on it.

Whatever you celebrate, for whatever reasons you celebrate, I hope that this Christmas is a wonderful day. I hope it is filled with noise and laughter and hugs. With good food, good company, and good connections. I hope that it is filled with love.

Blessed be.

So, I’m not cooking dinner this year, right? What with no one being here and all. Why go through all that trouble just for little ole me? I don’t eat that much, there’s not a lot of point.

So I’m heading to the grocery store soon to purchase a gazillion pounds of bacon. And that’s what I shall eat! All of it!

Damn that makes me giggle.

Blessed Solstice, my friends.

Merry we shall meet
Merry we shall part
And merry we shall meet again.

Blessed be.

From zdnet comes an interesting conundrum.

A man takes his computer to Circuit City to have them install a DVD burner. While the techs are testing it, they find what appears to be child pornography on his hard drive and turn him in. The cops come, seize the computer as evidence, and when the customer returns, they arrest him.

Okay, what complete tool needs Circuit City to install new hardware? That’s just sad. But, whatever, that’s not really the issue.

Naturally, child pornography makes me want to burn holes in somebody’s face. But did said tool have an expectation of privacy? Did the techs at Circuit City have the right to pilfer through his files?

Because of the nature of the files, of course I want to see this tool be prosecuted. But I’m struggling with the privacy issue. Do we have an expectation of privacy when we bring our computers in to be repaired?

I guess the bigger question for me is would I be less conflicted and leaning more towards the expectation of privacy if the videos found were considered “unpatriotic” instead of child porn.

Discuss.

I am having a hell of a time getting into the spirit of the season this year. Cricket is heading to Florida to join her brother and dad, leaving me alone for the holidays for the first time in twenty years. Other than possibly going to the movies with Cathy on Christmas afternoon, I have zip planned. Oh, wait, I think I’m rearranging furniture Christmas eve. Can you taste the excitement?

Even though she is going to be gone, Cricket insisted we put up the tree. Bah. The usual Putting Up of the Tree Festivities include cookies, cocoa, eggnog, music, and lots of giggling. There is also the annual Untangling of the Lights, which is a ritual that generally involves a lot of profanity and swearing that they’ll get put away correctly this year.

This year, not so much. I made Cricket some cocoa, skipped out on the cookies, and refused to put lights around the windows. My various St. Nicks were not unpacked, the angels are still in their boxes, and she had to beg me to put stockings out. Again, bah. And it was with this grumpy countenance that I arrived at work today.

I had planned on staying quite grumpy, thank you very much.

Alas, my plans were thwarted.

One of my officemates brought in his traditional cuppycakes! Joy!

In the kitchen is a grand selection of cookies, candy, and popcorn. Caramel popcorn for breakfast! Bliss!

Okay, so maybe I have a little bit of holiday spirit. But only until the food runs out.

Dude… life, it comes, it grabs you by the tail and gives you one hell of a shake.

And if you don’t pay attention, if you sleep through it, well, that’s nobody’s business but your own I guess.  You think it’s just another bad dream in a series of bad dreams.  And you roll over and go back to sleep.  Thinking maybe tomorrow is going to be a better day.

Not this bitch.  She’s alive and kicking.  Tomorrow?  Not happening.  Not a better day than today.  And this moment, this very moment that you take a breath in?  No better moment than now.

What time is it?

The time is now.  It is always now, right now.

Don’t try to interpret, just go with it.  Sweet dreams.

So Cricket calls me yesterday while I’m on my way home and says, “Hey Mom, can we have movie night tomorrow?”

What’s a mother to say to that?  How can you say no?

“Sure!  After work we’ll go to Blockbuster and get a bunch of movies and popcorn and then hang out all night in our jammies!”

I hear a deep sigh from the other end of the phone.  A slight pause… and then…

“No Mom, I meant can I invite some of my friends over?”

“Oh… uh, sure honey.  That’ll be fun, too.”

So she and her little friend Emma have taken over the family room with their Pirates of the Caribbean marathon.  And I?  Am relegated to sitting upstairs doing my nails.

Whoops, busted in the family room!  Gotta jet!

I think I’m taking over the upstairs den and moving my computer sooner rather than later!