Christmas Games – Thoughts from December 20 and 21, 2022

December 20, 2022

Patti came to work with me today. On the way, we talked the whole time. Sometimes we put on a podcast and listen to that, but we were both Chatty Cathies and never really listened to anything but each other. It’s good to know that after 25 years of marriage we can still talk to each other for an hour and not get bored. I was telling her about the new people we have at work and some of the recent stories I haven’t told her. She said stuff too. I know that sounds awful, but you should know I’m a great listener who has no recall of what I listened to. If you tell me to do something, you better make me write it down because I will not remember it. I remember visual things, but not auditory things. Anyway, it was a pleasant trip in.

She met up with her family and I had her send me a picture of who was there. The picture was fuzzy as all her pictures are. I could see who was there, but they were all slightly fuzzy. The only thing in focus was her sister’s purse. It was Christmas themed, like many of Patti’s. It was like an ad for the purse and the people didn’t really matter. I would say I need to teach her how to take photos with her phone, but I know she wouldn’t listen to me. Unlike me, she would purposely interrupt the lesson and accuse me of yelling at her. Few people have heard me yell and Patti is no exception. She’s heard me yell more than others have, but it’s rare and never directed at her. I’m sure if she’s reading this right now, she read this whole paragraph as an exclamation.

I’m going to be in a little bit of trouble with my brain because I’m not sure what I’m doing right now. Yes, I typed that last sentence with only predictive suggestions from my phone. I’ve typed the predictive messages to Patti before, but she doesn’t like it. She thinks something’s wrong with me. Maybe she thinks an artificial intelligence has taken over my phone. I was talking earlier in the day with some coworkers about how artificial intelligence is being used in art. They were actually talking about it. I just joined the conversation. They all seemed to be worried about it, but I reminded them this kind of thing is not new. The legal system will sort this out just like they did with sampling, Napster, and all the other advances that people can use for great or horrible things. Nothing is going to end creativity. It will simply grow.

December 21, 2022

Today is my last day at work … (pause for dramatic effect) … before I’m off for 5 days in a row. We have plans for just about every day. They mainly involve praising the lord Jesus Christ for supposedly being born around this time. Oh wait. It involves doing real things and not celebrating fictional characters. Mostly, I’m going to be spending time with Patti and our five female felines. Alliteration! We’re going to Patti’s sister’s house for Christmas Eve. Patti has been working on a game we’re going to be playing involving little pieces of paper and presents. She told me about this after I told her I hoped we wouldn’t play games this year. Her game should be fun, though. I was mainly talking about her sister’s games from years past. They were competitive games with prizes I didn’t really want. I have talked in the past about my dislike of competition. I will admit it’s better than talking about politics or watching football, but it’s in the same vein.

Tomorrow, we’re going to a party at our mobile home park is putting on. It’s in the rec room that we’ve never really used and barely been in. It’ll be a chance to get to know our neighbors as real people instead of just the horrible people who drive by our house with their loud vehicles. I’m assuming the nasty people will just not come to it because they hate everything—especially their cat-loving liberal neighbors. We might see some of the few neighbors we know and like. Maybe we’ll meet someone we can talk about our former neighbor Charlie Manson with. They still have the Charlie house boarded up with caution tape around it. We might find out what the deal is with the house. The best news is, Charlie won’t be there.

A band I was talking to mentioned someone they play with who got banned from playing at my work and from a bar where they perform. They banned him because he was drinking alcohol in the park. It was after their last set, but they were still technically working. That I work at a family friendly place is just the icing on the stupid cake. The bar where they worked banned him because he was hitting on too many girls. The true banning happened when he was having sex in a room above the bar with a key he stole from someone. He was caught by the owner of the bar or someone who told the owner. The cherry on top of this idiotic ice cream sundae was he did this on a day he wasn’t even playing at the bar. Stupidity is the new normal.

I’ve been reading “The Papers” I wrote in high school I showed to other students in class. Two of them I have read and recorded many years ago. There are 25 in total. Some of them do not stand up to modern ears. There were a few of them where I was experimenting with all the swear words I don’t use in real life. I had a poem that used the “C” word. I think I rhymed it with “hunt”. It was a period in my life when I thought being edgy passed for being clever. It didn’t then, and it doesn’t now. Mostly, I laughed out loud (as the kids like to abbreviate as “lol”) at the weird wordplay. I will do something with them someday, but I still don’t know exactly what.