Merry December 25th!

I’m fairly astonished to realize that the last time I wrote a post was 10 days ago.    I’m slipping!  Naturally, it isn’t that I’ve been doing nothing.  Here is a random collection of things I’ve been doing, experiencing, and thinking about.

First, I’ve had a cold for a week and a half.  So I have a few more days to go, at least.  As Fakesister says, if you take care of yourself, a cold will last for two weeks.  If you don’t take care of yourself, it will last for 14 days.  I’m voting for a new name for “cold”.  Somehow that just makes it seem too minor.

I’m about to go to the beach for New Year’s.  It’s oyster weather!  Oysters on the half-shell, that is.  Not sure how that’s going to work out this year.  Oysters require a briny environment, a mixture of sea water and fresh water, and Atlanta keeps stealing our water from the Chattahootchee/Flint/Apalachicola river system.  The oysters will probably be small, hard to find, and expensive.

The situation is really quite dire.  Fishermen and shrimpers are still managing to eke out a living, in spite of the lingering paranoia about the BP oil spill in the Gulf, but the oystermen are suffering.  It’s one thing to overcome the paranoia of the public–it’s another not to be able to find the source of your livelihood.  Or if you do find them, they’re dead from being exposed to too much salt.

Well, I can still read.  Presently I’m reading “Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver.  I decided that for the beach, I needed more mindless beach reading.  Specifically, a whodunnit or two.  So I got “White Heat” and “The Boy in the Snow” by M.J. McGrath. Nothing makes you feel warmer at the beach in December than reading a couple of books that take place in Alaska.   Also my January book club choice “The Language of Flowers”.  Not looking forward to that one.

I am always astonished when visiting WordPress to see the number of countries represented by my readers–at least a reader who visited once.  Here is a list of countries where someone from there visited only once:  Lebanon, Grenada, Iceland, Syrian Arab Republic, Guatemala, Bahamas, Nicaragua, Seychelles, Panama, New Caledonia, China, Northern Mariana Islands, Qatar, Palestinian Territory (Occupied), British Virgin Islands, Madagascar, and Senegal.  Apparently I wasn’t interesting enough for them to come back.  But seriously.  Syria?  I think they are otherwise occupied. Probably not much time to cruise the Internet, assuming they still have electricity.

Also, I started writing a book.  It’s something I always wanted to do, but was too much of a perfectionist to try.  Now I’m like–what the hell.  We can’t all be Tolstoy.  It is–speaking of whodunnits–a whodunnit.  My blog friend Vanessa Chapman agreed to review it for me.  After reading only one chapter, she’s already given me excellent advice.

This brings me to Christmas.  Except when I was a little kid, I’ve always hated it.  I hated the requirement that you spend it with your family, no matter how unpleasant that might be.  I found it a chore.

Now that I’m older, I’ve realized that I don’t have to do things I find to be a chore, no matter how much it’s expected of me.  Go ahead and think I’m strange.  I’ll get over it.

But another thing has happened too.  I’ve finally gotten up the courage to just admit that I don’t believe in it.  I’m not a flaming atheist like my cousin Drew (who says he’s spending today with Tom Cruise at the movies).  I respect all religions, and the freedom of people to choose what that religion is.  Including none.  I just don’t understand why religious people can’t have the same attitude.

So…Merry December 25th.