Tashe Dalek, Yo!

Snow cornice. Hurricane Hill trail, Olympic National Park. If you're looking for
a place to freeze every single one of you 'nards off during Lunar New Year,
I can't think of a more beautiful place to do it.

Greg:

Tashe muthaphukkin' dalek, and a Gung to the Hay to the Phat to the Choy! It's Lunar New Year, yo! It's 2133, Year of the Boar! Hope this letter finds you eating something made of pork, which in Chinese medicine is a warming food. (Although, don't get me wrong, I can't really endorse the eating of pork since I'm a vegetarian and all. But as I recall your diet consists of about 68% pork so I'm probably correct in assuming that you are reading this with a bag of chicharrons in one hand and a ham hock in the other whether I like it or not.)

Instead of staying in Chinatown and watching my little dog freak right the hell out over all the firecrackers and whatnot I decided to split town, hit the frozen road and do some snowshoeing.

Wait! Wait! I have to tell you something funny that happened even though it has nothing to do with Lunar New Year. Last week I was walking back to the office after lunch and I was just about right in front of the building when I encountered a lady out walking a great big beautiful golden Lab. Musta weighted about 150 pounds. Real pretty dog. So I asked her if I could pet her dog and she said yes - but, "Watch it. He jumps." So I put my hand down there by his snout to let him sniff it and BANG! The dog totally fucking tackles me and - more startling still - starts making those earnest, arduous gyrations that dogs are wont to make in fits of sexual passion. I don't know if you've seen me recently but I'm fifteen and three-quarter stone heavy and eighteen and a half hands high. It takes a shitload of sex-crazed Labrador to knock me down. So the lady starts screaming "CHICO! CHICO! GET DOWN! JESUS CHRIST, GET DOWN!" And I was wondering to myself - while being dry-humped with all the might and mechanical determination of the steam hammer that killed off John Henry - whether the lady knew what the word "jump" actually meant. Once I had wrested myself free from her dog's unsolicited - er - embrace and got to my feet I wanted to say, "Ma'am, your dog doesn't jump. It does something that rhymes with jump. But it does not in fact jump. Get my drift?" But by the time I got my shit back together she was throwing all of her weight into the dog's lead and dragging it off up the street.

As usual, I have digressed. Onward now.

So anyhoo, Teresa and I rounded up some friends and rented a cabin Wayne the Hell out in the wilds of Port Angeles (where the yards are more plentifully sown with rotting Volkswagens than a beach-hippie's crack is sown with grains of sand) and made a snowshoeing weekend of it. T'was a gaye auld tyme. We went to one of our usual summertime stomping grounds, Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. It's a whole different ball of wax (or snow) in the wintertime, though. We decided to take a pretty easy trail that we'd done in the summer a bunch of times: the Hurricane Hill trail. Well, in the summer it's a walk and in the winter it's a freakin' trek, especially with tennis rackets on your feet and snow and 40MPH winds stomping you in the face most of the way. Although don't get me wrong, it was still a blast and a half and rather a hefty workout, and the stunning beauty of the park in winter was more than sufficient fuel for the usual breathless exclamations of love, sacrifice and self-enucleation.

Can I stop right here and do some product endorsements? First, let me just say that there's nothing like brewing up a cup of Boyd's Country Creme with your JetBoil on a snow-covered ridge at 5,500 feet after having trekked a few miles on the best goddamn snowshoes ever. The tenacious grip and feather-like weight of the MSR Lightning Ascent makes snowshoeing a - well I won't say breeze, but it makes it way nicer than doing it with queen sized bedframes of beaver sinew on your feet like the Cheechakos used to do. We were lucky that one of our party - Tami Fairweather, the most mirthful person on this otherwise drab planet - (No, seriously. It's a huge compliment. -Ed.) works for Cascade Designs and five-fingered us a few pairs of these bad boys from the promo pile at the office. Her promotional ploy worked. I shall purchase my own pair anon.

Wait - another word about Boyd's real quick. Every other beverage they produce blows. Their coffee is simply atrocious. You should use it to stun tobacco beetles or something but for God's sake don't drink it. And it probaby took the combined brainpower of thirteen marketing executives to come up with the term "Country Creme" for something that is essentially hot egg nog made from chemicals that would otherwise be sprayed on tenement rats. But with all that said, it's goddamn delicious.

Final product endorsement, then I gotta skeedaddle. The guys from Tempur-Pedic are coming over to replace my box spring. They didn't even quibble for a second when I told them that my box spring was squeaking. They're just up and replacing it - snap - like that. Now that's service. They should be here any minute so I gotta run. Have a looksee at the photos from our trip below.

Cheers, and Happy New Year!

-Thaddeus

Snowshoeing 2.17.2007

Uncle To The 26th Power

Pull my finger: Something tells me that at least one of these guys is somebody's

batshit-crazy uncle. So this is what I have to look forward to.

Greg:

I'm going to tell you something that may surprise you. These letters that I write to you are not private. In fact, they are "posted" on a "blog" called "Dear Gregory" where literally "hundreds" of "people" "read" them.

Now let me tell you something that will surprise you even less. Our niece Morgan gave birth yesterday at 5:10PM to our newest grand-niece, a linebacker of an infant girl (8 lbs. 10 oz., 21") named Mina. That brings our nephew/niece total to 26. We are now uncles to the 26th power.

Just stick with me. All of this seemingly disparate information does have a singular point.

Back to the "blog" issue. Last month, I installed sophisticated tracking code on this blog which enables me to see exactly how many people are reading it and exactly wherefrom. It also tells me which installments get the most "hits". (Ask me to slow down if all this heady technical jargon is too "much" for you.) What I have discovered from reading the data produced by my new analytics tool is that people everywhere simply love farts. As a matter of fact, people love farts five times more than they love philanthropy. Here's my proof. Of all the letters I've written to you, the one about farts scored five times as many page hits as the lowest scoring page (which was essentially about philanthropy). And the "fart" entry set an all-time record for number of hits from any entry point - and - and - it was read worldwide. Wimbledon, Valencia, Madrid, Paris, Budapest, Beijing - all God's chilluns love they farts. Yes they does.

However, people read about farts much more quickly than they read about philanthropy. People spend about 3 minutes ripping through an installment on farts, whereas they spend a dawdling 16 minutes on installments about philanthropy.

OK, so - how does this figure in with the astounding number of nieces and nephews we have in common? Lord knows I can't even remember most of their names. Who are they again? Let's see if I can keep a running total - John's kids: Gabe, who has four kids, so that's five; Camiya plus her three kids - so that's nine - Brendon has two...or three? - I'll spot him one, so that's thirteen total now for that one sibling. You've got none, so that's easy. Sgt. Rock's kids: Phaedra - fourteen - Alowan - fifteen - Morgan plus one - sixteen, seventeen. And our sister - she has ten. Whoah, that's twenty seven! But that takes into account Brendon's extra mystery kid that I may have just made up (let's call him Shmendrick), so it may just be 26 after all. Well, anyway you slice it, that's a buttload of kids. It's like somebody got out the baby hose and sprayed it in every direction.

So with that many nieces and nephews of ours crawling the planet, it's a pretty good bet that some of them read this blog. And if they read this blog, then according to my fancy new analytics tool, they love farts.

Here's a tip, kids, if you're reading this: don't tell anyone we're related. You know why? I'll tell you. One day you're going to be somewhere, maybe somewhere far away, maybe some place where they read this blog, like China. And you're going to be in a Starbucks in Beijing and some guy is gonna come up to you and he's gonna say (in Chinese), "Hey, do you read 'Dear Gregory'?" And you're gonna say, "Read it?! I'm freakin' related to that guy!" And then all of a sudden the guy's gonna point at you and scream "You love farts!" And then pretty soon everybody in the place is going to be screaming "you love farts!" in Chinese. And you're gonna feel pretty crunchy. And then they're going to put you in a labor camp where you'll be forced to build the Victory Over The Fart-Loving Roundeye Memorial Dam. And that'll pretty much be it for you. Done deal. Game over.

Look, all of this may sound like lunatic ravings to you and there's a very simple reason why it does: because it is. But every little kid out there needs to have a crazy uncle who spews rambling, nonsensical yarns to the point of glossolalia, don't you think? A friend of mine had an Uncle Carl who used to raid buffets at the funerals of complete strangers while wearing a Santa hat. Nobody said shit to Uncle Carl and he was always well fed. Never had a grocery bill in his life. People gave him a wide berth and a bottle of suds and let him be. I learned from Carl's example that pretty much anything you want is attainable, provided you're willing to compromise a big, thick slice of your dignity to get it. I always wanted an uncle who was about that nuts. Then one day I looked around at a crowd of my nieces and nephews who were laughing their fool heads off because I had my suit on backwards and was talking gibberish, and you know what I realized? I realized that crazy old Uncle Carl was me. (Only thing missing is the Santa hat. -Ed.) So yeah, with 26 (27?) nieces and nephews, I figure I have to be able muster up enough crazy to go all the way around.

I'm rambling now, but like I said, that's exactly what crazy old uncles are supposed to do. They're supposed to ramble and tell fart jokes. So far I'm doing pretty damn good, dontcha think?

Pull my finger,

-Thaddeus

Why Must I Fart So Much?

Hubert Korneliszoon Poot: Dutch Enlightenment-era writer
and namesake/author of the first fart joke.

Greg:

I don't know if you've ever farted before. I didn't really keep track while we were growing up. Maybe you did and you just blamed it on your tuba and no one was the wiser. After all, the tuba is the most flatulent of all the brass instruments. Just in case you haven't, don't take it up as a hobby. It's really not worth the alienation and/or social stigma. To wit:

I had two going-away parties to attend last night, one for my friend and (now) former co-worker Francesca (hired away by the Starbucks creative team) and another for my friend and (now) former co-worker Tyler (leaving on a round-the-world voyage)...

Wait, first I simply must digress onto the topic of Naughty Limericks. Francesca is one tough old bird, and though that tough old bird is a songbird who trills like a meadowlark, (Drop that goddamn bird metaphor now before I shoot you with a bb gun. -Ed.) she occasionally peppers her discourse with Naval-grade profanity. So I figured hey, what's a better send-off for a pottymouth like Francie than writing and performing a trio of Naughty Limericks in her honor at the event? So yeah, I did. And for your edification, here they are - with reactions from the present company included parenthetically after each:

There once was a hooker named Francie
Who found her vocation too chancey
She found some employment
Much more to her enjoyment
And safer than dropping her pantsies

(Francesca hoots with joy; one token giggle by the rest of the company; many anxious brows furrowed.)

Francesca has gone to Starbucks
We wish her "so many good lucks"
All we ask, Francie dear
In your heart, keep us near
And come visit us miserable fucks

(Francesca blushes with joy and cackles; much nervous clinking of cutlery on the part of the rest assembled.)

Francesca the horny wordmonger
Needed fresh meat to lessen her hunger
She felt wrongly pent
By the age of consent
"Eighteen? Hell, I'll go ten years younger!"

(Francesca shrieks with glee I LOVE IT!; cold granite silence and frozen, contorted grimaces of abject terror from the rest. Apparently pedophilia, even in Limerick form, doesn't play well in Seattle.)

Yeah, so as you can see, I was a smash hit. And soon after that I continued to ingratiate myself to the present company by furtively playing an oboe cantata with my butt. As you know, I'm a vegetarian. That means when I go out, if I'm not going to a strictly vegetarian restaurant, I have to make do with whatever legume, twig, or compost heap that's on the menu. And usually the selection is pretty much anything you see pictured on the label of the Beano bottle. I don't know what it was about the entree I ordered, but it could've been called The South Wind Special. Blazing sciroccos of acrid stench were emanating from my backside. Since I had the handy "out" of Tyler's party, I clenched my hiney as best I could and said my goodbyes.

Needless to say, I never made it. On the way there, I stopped off at home to pick up Teresa, but by then such a fugue was going on - with grumblings, claps, and staccato horn-bursts (with the occasional bold firmata and scintillating arpeggio) - I couldn't possibly subject another group of air-breathing humans to its terrible majesty. I mean c'mon, my ass was practically respirating. Someone would've called the police. Or the Guinness Book statisticians. So instead I sat at home and did my best to inflate the couch.

It's perplexing. Why do I gotta toot so much? And how do I explain to Tyler that I couldn't make his party because my ass was practically shouting and I was afraid of asphyxiating the guests? I've combed Emily Post's rules of etiquette, and I got zero hits on any combination of the terms "fart", "party", "wind", and "stanky". Any advice you may have short of using a cork would be most welcome.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Why Am I Such A Total F@#king P&%sy? And Other Profane Musings

Dear Baby Jesus, how can I quit being a such a total fucking pussy...
and how come I swear so fucking much? Hallowed be thy name,
A-fucking-men.

Greg:

I've slipped and hit my head this morning on a brick of self-hatred which resulted in an effluvium of profanity, much like hitting one's head on an actual fucking brick might cause. Bear with me.

Have you seen me lately? If not, look up. I'm the guy in the picture. I look like a potato made of Silly Putty. And my standing curl form is horrible. Plus - Jesus, wouldja look at my moles? What am I, a Dalmatian or something? Plus plus, I'm weak. I'm a total - well, you know what.

Hang on, I'll be done in a minute.

Oh yeah. And I'm convinced that I set a horrible example as a father. There's that, too. Here's what set this off. Aaron's been sick for - oh I don't know, long time now. Nothing acute. Just feeling like a stack of shit on top of a bunch of mystifying symptoms. He's been to the doctor a few times now and they've turned up nothing - nothing in the bloodwork, nothing in the throat culture, no underlying pathology detected, nothing. I keep telling him that it's the beard, that he has toxic mold living in his beard, and that one day it's going to eat his whole head while he's not looking. My comments, of course, are borne out of beard envy. I cannot grow anything more than mange if given a month, whereas he can grow all of Fidel Castro (including the fatigues, the hat, and the cigar) practically overnight.

I mask my true concern with humor, of course, as no one likes to see their kid be sick. Did I say concern? I meant neurosis. Did I say neurosis? I meant a clawing, burning, self-immolating obsession with a mantra that goes "OM - ifIweren'tsuchahorriblefathermykidwouldn'thavethisproblem - OM"

You know what would probably be a good thing to do right now? That ABCDE exercise that I'm supposed to do for that University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology study that I'm part of. (Duh! -Ed.) I really don't think this whole "my kid's problem is all my fault" thing is going to do me much good in the long run, and may even result in me looking more like a fucking potato more than fucking ever. (I can think of at least two things fucking wrong with that statement. -Ed.) And it will probably only wind up annoying the h - e - double - ski -boots out of Aaron. You remember how I showed you this exercise previously using Lange as an example. The point of the exercise is to disarm pessimistic thought patterns by citing contrary evidence and then generating alternatives. Anyway, lemme give it a shot. But be forewarned. Like malaria, it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

Adversity (the bad situation): Aaron is still sick despite several trips to the doctor and negative test results.
Beliefs (what unrealistically pessimistic beliefs do I have about the situation): 1. That it's never going to end and there will be nothing I can do about it - just like his mom was sick all the time, just like my mom was sick all the time, just like I felt sick all the time when I was a kid. It's hopeless. There's never going to be a definitive diagnosis. Or worse, some well-meaning medic is going to doom him with some dubious and contentious illness (like fibromyalgia, a term that some people in the medical community believe is a wastebasket diagnosis). Or even more worser still, some really idiotic and well-meaning medic is going to tell him that he has MS or cancer - like they did to me. (You're fucking kidding me, right? -Ed.) (No, I am not fucking kidding you. -TRG) 2. This never would have happened if I had set a healthier example. When he was growing up, I was always Smokey McDrunkenstein, always complaining about my health and doing very little about it. A great role model for a healthy kid I was not. I may have changed my ways, but that's not going to make much of a difference now. I've gone and saddled my kid with a bunch of sickness behaviors and not a single wellness behavior. It's my fault, I tell you! My fault!
Consequences (what happens as a result of harboring those beliefs): I swear a lot. And I feel like a big steaming turd of poo. I'm generally angry and irritable and no fun to be around. I feel like I'm snapping at everybody, including Aaron. I feel like I just went and undid all the work I did on my happiness. My nose is stuffy.
Dispute (disarm pessimistic thinking with specific, concrete examples): What am I, nuts? Turn that frown upside down! For starters, Aaron isn't my mom or his mom or me. He loves his job, so he's not using illness as an excuse to blow off responsibility. How he handles either his wellness or his illness will be authentic to him. He has an excellent network of friends, so he's not dependent on me for...well pretty much anything, come to think of it. It's not my responsibility to prevent, cure, or over-parent him. He's a grown-ass man (Point of proof: awesome beard. -Ed.) and will make his own decisions. I can go ahead and relieve myself of a responsibility that wasn't even mine in the first place, and stop driving myself nuts.
Energization (a word they had to use to be consistent with the alphabet theme): My head feels clear, I don't feel as tense, my thoughts are no longer racing. However, I still look like a potato.

Well, three out of four ain't bad I guess. Thanks for listening.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

WTFWBD?

Michael Coates today. You've probably never seen anyone so happy to see
a dentist.

Greg:

First things first. Michael Coates is gonna be okay. Like I told you in my last letter, an oral surgeon is going to do the work pro bono. I'm sending the money I was going to use for his care to the Auburn Community Dental Clinic instead because as they said in the follow-up article in the Seattle Times ...

...to really get an idea, people should visit a community dental clinic at dawn on the days they treat poor people needing urgent care. "You'll see a line of people holding their teeth and crying," [Coates] said. "I'm not a special situation."

I did write him a letter directly and sent a few bucks for him to get some ice cream. I told him that when I got my wisdom teeth pulled that's about all I could eat. I told him that I even had to put my birthday cake in the blender. (Cake shake is freakin' ossum, by the way. You should try it!)

Onward.


Mahakala, the wrathful deity of violent compassion. He will
kick your ass, but in the nicest way possible. This is the thangka
that hangs in my dining room. Mahakala reminds me to eat
my vegetables...or else.

I watched a documentary yesterday about the destruction of the giant Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. You may remember that the Taliban government sent out a decree back in late 2000 that all non-Muslim art and statuary was to be destroyed, so that meant the two 1,600 year old giant Buddhas of Bamiyan (180 and 121 feet tall) had to go. So the Taliban rolled up there with a shitload of explosives and spent a couple weeks trying to blow them up. Eventually they were successful. Sixteen hundred years of history and culture blowed to hell.

Seem like a shame? Well here's the ironic thing. Think of it from the dhammapada's perspective. Didn't Buddha preach that "nothing is permanent; everything changes"? As great a loss as it was of irreplaceable historical objects - to paraphrase the ubiquitous bumper sticker, What The Fuck Would Buddha Do? I'll tell you what he'd do. He'd prolly just say, "See? Like I said." And then go off and do shots of rice milk with the monks. I mean, c'mon. Ever seen the kalachakra ritual? A whole phalanx of monks spend a week or more laboring over an exquisitely detailed sand mandala, only to have the Dalai Lama come along and fuck it up. Either it's an object lesson in impermanence, or those monks really have to figure out a way to keep His Holiness' mitts off their sand paintings.

Okay, so the site where the giant Buddhas stood was not uninhabited, mind you. There were hundreds of rooms carved into the cliffs around them, vestiges of an ancient monastery that was part of the whole complex. These rooms were inhabited by the Hazaras, the most persecuted ethnic group in all of Afghanistan. They had been the protectors of the giant Buddhas for the past 1,600 years. Even when the Taliban blew up the statues, they left the Hazara there. It wasn't until some very well-meaning folks from UNESCO and several art-hugging European nations got together and decided that they would rebuild the statues that the Hazara got removed from their ancestral homes. Seems like once you turn something into a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it's okay to keep the frescoes and kick out the folks. No longer living in their cliffside caves, the Hazara have been relocated to a windblown plateau somewhere out in the desert. They're now half an hour from their water source, three hours from the closest bazaar, and freezing their Buddha-loving asses off in the howling wind on a daily basis. Where's the love?

Again, I ask What The Fuck Would Buddha Do? In my self-serving fantasies, I see the Buddha calmly taking in the situation through his all-seeing eyes. Then raising his right hand in the mudra of blessing he says, "Verily, that is some fucked up shit, man." Then, instantly trans-carnating into the form of Mahakala, the deity of violent compassion, he busts down the door at UNESCO HQ and kicks every ass in the place twice. (Those who are not present at that time because they're traveling for business or out sick will have their names taken down by the Buddha for ass-kicking at a later time.) Then re-forming himself into Avelokiteshvara, the Buddha of compassion, he bandages their wounds. Finally, transforming himself one last time back into the Sage of the Sakya tribe, he does shots of rice milk with the entire posse. Then the Hazara go back to their ancestral homes in the Bamiyan Valley caves and live happily ever after. Amen.

So yeah, I know I'm not waking you up to the fact that there's a shitload of misery in the world whether it's infected teeth or eviction from one's ancestral home by well-meaning dipwads. Like I said in my last letter, with so much misery going around, I can see why people do nothing. There's just too much of it, the problem is just too big, and one person can't do anything about the whole problem. But I think that a solution that keeps getting missed is that one person can help one other person. That's not too much to do. There has to be a way to do just that little bit and make a huge difference. Each one help one. That is my rumination for today.

All of this reminds me somehow of my favorite quote from Shantideva. It needs a little introduction if you're not hip to how reincarnation figures into the Buddhist religion. The point is not to try to reincarnate, but to break the cycle of samsara and quit reincarnating. Boddhisattvas are folks like you and me who have sworn off enlightenment and nirvana for themselves so that they can assist all other sentient beings in attaining Buddhahood. Sound like a big job? Oh mais oui. It's probably both the biggest project and the most shit detail on the Buddhist job roster. It's tantamount to saying, "I'm going to forego nirvana and spend eternity trying to bring shitheads to Jesus." (...or possibly bring them to some more appropriate Buddhist deity. -Ed.) So bearing that in mind, it takes compassion-balls the size of pickle jars to say what Shantideva said way back in the 8th century:

For as long as space endures,
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.

Hopefully he got his wish and he's still out there somewhere, bringing shitheads to the Buddha.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

A Good Turn

From the Seattle Times, January 30th, 2007:
Michael Coates cries after Dr. Heather Olson, left, of the Auburn Community
Dental Clinic, tells him his blood pressure is too high for her to administer a
pain-relief injection. Coates, suffering with four infected wisdom teeth, got the
shot later but cannot afford to have the teeth pulled as needed.
PHOTO BY JOHN LOK, SEATTLE TIMES

Greg:

Okay, you know how much of a soft touch I am when it comes to giving away money so this probably won't surprise you much. I have a funny story about how I tried really hard to help somebody by sending them some money and as hard as I tried, I just couldn't find anybody to take it. Not even the person I was trying to help.

Just a couple of days ago I saw an article in the Seattle Times that made me an amalgam of sad, outraged and filled with compassion for somebody I don't know from - well, from somebody I've never met. The story bore a picture of a man named Michael Coates. He was weeping in agony from four infected wisdom teeth, and from the dire news that he had received from the dentist. Mr. Coates has no dental insurance, being that he's from a very low income bracket, and could in no way afford to have the oral surgery he needed. To ameliorate his pain, he was numbing his mouth with ice water from a pitcher that he carried with him. And I thought Christ Jesus! How's that a way to live? Here's a grown man who works his ass off for a living (delivery driver and odd jobs) in complete agony, weeping because he can't get his teeth pulled.

There are one of three ways people - including myself - respond to things like this. 1) We're usually overwhelmed by the immensity of the problem and feel that we're completely helpless and impotent in the face of such things, shake our fists at our God, legislature, or health care system, affirm to ourselves that "something really oughtta be done about this", and turn the page. Or 2) we huck a bunch of money at the ponderous maw of such problems through the organ of some well-meaning charity organization, not meaning to stay insulated from the effected individuals, but staying several bills-length away from them anyway. (For instance, I send money to Amnesty International but I don't make a point to visit prisons.) Or finally option 3), which is to say fuck that noise, I as an individual am going to do something about the problem by helping that distressed individual right there rightfuckingnow!

I took option 3.

First I emailed the journalist who wrote the story to find out if there were other people who had expressed interest in helping Michael out. Then I called the community dental clinic mentioned in the story and asked them if I could contribute directly to them for Michael's care. After being forwarded to several King County Health offices, I had a very long conversation with a director who gave me the funky lowdown on dental coverage for the poor. It's a very short story. They've got fucking ZIP. They have general health coverage available, but dental? Forget it. And this is neverminding the fact that neglected oral care becomes very serious health issues in very short order - like heart attack and stroke. In the end, they told me that they couldn't do the surgery at the community clinic, so they had referred him to the University of Washington dental program. If I wanted to make a contribution to his care, I'd have to call them.

Meanwhile, the journalist emailed me back, told me that Michael had been screened as a patient at the UW, and with his permission, forwarded me Michael's address and phone number. I called the UW first, went through a mighty (although friendly, don't get me wrong - very friendly!) clusterfuck there which - look I won't bother you with it, but it netted zero.

You may be asking yourself why I didn't just call Michael when I got his number from the journalist. Well, you may find the answer quite revealing about my character. Although I'm quick to be a philanthropist, I also have a tiny, anxious homonculus in the back of my skull who shrieks caution and vigilance at me constantly. So I had decided that I would not make a contribution directly to Michael way back before I started making phone calls. However, I did want to make good and goddamn sure that the money I sent would be specifically for his care. I really didn't want to get on the phone with a guy who was clearly in agony, and then have him hit me up for money directly whether he completely deserved it or not. I didn't know the whole story, so how did I really know what was up? I get hit up on the streets of Chinatown by guys claiming to have fucking Ebola virus or whatever, like, every day. And I offer to buy food for panhandlers and most of the time get turned down. So there you go. And somehow I think that makes me a big jaded bourgeoisie fuckup. I'm conflicted. And I digress. So onward.

So yeah. I called Michael Coates finally. And he didn't shake me down. He was a really nice guy, albeit in a shitload of pain. I just happened to call while he was sitting in a dentist's office in Burien. I told him that I really wanted to help him out, that I knew exactly what kind of pain he was in. I told him that I had been without dental coverage once, and had four infected wisdom teeth and couldn't get them pulled for love or candy. I was living in my car some of the time back then and my life sucked from about every angle of the compass. But I, like him, went looking for help and got none. Not from friends, not from the county, not from nobody. People tend to crap their pants when you tell them that you have no income but need to find a couple grand to get your teeth yanked before you find someone with a shotgun to blow them out for free. The problem is just too big. It's just too much money. It's not that they don't want to help. They just crap themselves in a fit of financial impotence. But I told him that I had lived through that pain and I wanted to make good and goddamn sure another person didn't have to, and I was going to help. I told him I couldn't cover his whole cost (estimated at $3,000), but that I could help knock a chunk out of it. He thanked me and gave me the number of the dentist who was going to treat him and told me to give them the money. He wasn't going to take money directly from me. He said that the dentist - J. Scott Moffitt - did this kind of work out of the kindness of his heart every Friday for folks in the community.

So I called Dr. Moffitt's office and they wouldn't take my money either. They just took my name and number down and said they'd give me a call back, which they did the next day.

So here's the kicker. The oral surgeon who was scheduled to do the work on Michael said he would do it FOR FREE. That made me just about weep with joy right then and there. And they thanked me for my intended generosity and encouraged me to donate the money instead to the charity of my choice. (I'll be donating it to the King County Community Dental Clinics, and I'm gonna send Michael a few bucks directly to buy some yogurt and ice cream. I remember what it was like to get my wisdom teeth yanked. I had to use a blender to eat my birthday cake.) So the question remains: who the hell do I gotta blow to do a good deed around here?

Look, I'm really not looking for karma points or anything. I just saw a guy who was in exactly the same kind of physical and emotional pain that I had been in once, and I just really wanted to put a stop to it right the hell then. I couldn't stand the thought of him going on another minute in that state. I think it's a lot easier to approach an individual and help to relieve their suffering than it is to take on the subject of suffering as a whole. Maybe that's what keeps people - and myself - from reaching out more often. When we see one person suffering, we want to end all suffering, and the prospect of that is just too immense for one person.

I remember after September 11th, when all the politics and bullshit blew up around it. I think in some ways all of that cheapened the value of the individual lives lost. In my view, the people who died then were something greater than heroes or martyrs or victims. They were people's friends. They were somebody's wife, somebody's husband. They were mommies and daddies. The little girl I saw crying on the news that day wasn't asking her country to rise to a cause to protect our freedoms. She was asking the reporters to help her find her daddy. I felt like the importance of the death of the most significant person in her life was being both overshadowed and diluted by circumstance and politics. And that was a real tragedy in my mind. Months later, I found her daddy's name on a registry of victims and wrote a letter to her and her family. I said I was sorry, that I knew this was really out of the blue since they didn't know me, but I really wanted them to know that I was very sorry that they lost their daddy. And that was pretty much all I said. No politics, no BS, just a simple letter of condolence. They wrote me a letter back and told me how much they appreciated that. Maybe sometimes sharing a little grief is the most appropriate thing one can do. And maybe it just has to be one helping one for the business of suffering to be worked out.

Cheers. Remember to floss.

-Thaddeus

Discovering Crater Lake

July 18th, 2006: The Little Merman basks on the sunny shore of Crater Lake.

Greg:

I discovered Crater Lake this weekend!

I flew into a fit of organizing. It was ossum. I opened up all my file drawers, pulled out the detritus of my past, and fired up the shredder. I got one of those MailMate(tm) jobbies from Staples a couple weeks ago, the ones that'll shred junk mail, CDs, small automobiles, and the bones of your victims. Not that this is a product endorsement or anything, but - damn. That thing turns crapmail and old paper files into a fluffy pile of It Never Happened in no time flat. And you know all that "Easy Button" stuff Staples shows in its advertising? They do not lie. They are not shitting you. I ordered it online and they processed the rebate right then and there - none of this mail-in stuff - and, oh yeah, free shipping - and then it showed up the next day. It's as if they were waiting in the apartment downstairs. Maybe they are. I haven't looked recently. Maybe Staples is becoming as ubiquitous as Starbucks.

Anyway, my point is that were it not for the insatiable need of my new shredder, I probably wouldn't have gone on an organizing spree, which means those rolls of film that I shot on my vacation to Crater Lake last year would've gone undiscovered until my widow was cashing my life insurance check.

So enjoy these photos of Crater Lake courtesy of my new shredder. Cheers, -Thaddeus

Crater Lake selections

The World's Happiest Guinea Pig

Matt Lange, drinkin' up all the
f-in' Sunny Delite.

Greg:

Now I've gone and done it. I went and signed up to be a participant in a gen-u-wine psychological experiment being conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. You may know U Penn as the home of the Quakers football team (I shitteth thee not, friend) who finished the ought-six season with a peaceful, fair and equitable 5 and 5 record against such college gridiron giants as Yale, Harvard, and the Bucknell School of Yeoman Faggot-Making. Quaker football, it appears is a veritable juggernaut of mediocrity.

But you may not know the other U Penn, home of Dr. Martin E P ("Ever Publishing") Seligman, former head of the American Psychological Association and me-proclaimed Jolliest Fucker In The Universe. He's a positive psychology maverick-slash-edifice he is, and one of my personal heros. The Authentic Happiness Website resides deep in the sunny heart of the U Penn InterWebs, and is a swell place to get a well-rounded view of what the hell all this positive psychology stuff is about.

Best of all, you can sign up as a research participant for authentic happiness studies there. If you go to the website, there's a jolly little banner in the left column asking for participants that practically begs you to click it. Of course I could not resist, and better yet did not resist, and so here I am. They gave me an assignment which I have been pursuing semi-diligently ever since. Here it is in a nutshell: (Copyright 2006 Martin Seligman, all rights reserved, I'm jolly but don't make me come down there and kick your ass you goddamn plagiarist, world without end, amen.)

It's called ABCDE. It's a journaling exercise. First you think back on an Adversity that occurred during the day and write it down. Then you write down your pessimistic Beliefs about the event, and write down the Consequences that you suffered because of those beliefs. Then you Dispute those beliefs using specific, concrete evidence, and in the end describe the Energization that you felt as a result of disputing your beliefs.Let me give you an example. For purposes of illustration, I will pretend that I am my friend Matt "Douchebag' Lange of Buffalo, New York (go Bills).

Adversity: My fuckin' sister drank all the fuckin' Sunny Delite again.
Beliefs: She doesn't fuckin' care if I fuckin' die of thirst and scurvy. Where's the fuckin' love?
Consequences: I got really angry and decided to take revenge by taking all her fuckin' diet pills and washing them down with her fuckin' half-rack of Tab.
Dispute: Oh wait. There's the Sunny Delite. It was behind the Tab. How wrong I was. And I just ate all that... Uh oh...
Energization: ENERGIZED?! ENERGIZED?! MY HEART IS ON FIRE AND THERE ARE WEASELS IN MY DUODENUM! HELL YES I'M ENERGIZED!!

See? Pretty simple. I don't know if it was because of this exercise or whether it's the nexus of all of the three exercises that I'm doing simultaneously that has caused me to chill ever-so-slightly over the last couple months. It's not that I don't get mad. I do. It's just of much shorter duration with long periods of chill in between. I got mad as a wet hen covered with wet hornets on Monday, but it only lasted exactly 17 minutes. For comparison, I once got angry in 1977 and stayed mad until 1983. This is a big improvement.I'll keep you posted on further developments.

In the meantime, go visit the Authentic Happiness site and take a few of the tests. You may find out that you're happier than you think.

Cheers,-Thaddeus

I Wrote My Own Goddamn Book On Happiness - And Other Brief News Items

Greg:

I did what I said I was going to do. Namely, I wrote a book on happiness, what it is, and how to get more of it without becoming a blissed-out mantra-yodeling hippie. I took a week off from work to write it. That alone made me happy. I should've made the first suggestion in the book "take a week off from work". I'm self-publishing it through XLibris. I think they have about a five-month turnaround window, so it should hit Amazon, Borders and Barnes and Noble just in time for bikini season.

Actually, it's a lot more than a book of suggestions. Truth be told, I don't think there's a single suggestion in the book. There's one very simple exercise, the one I told you about before, only it's gone into in detail and gives some of the current research that brought it about. I also came up with an additional exercise that compliments the first one and put that in there after I tested it rigorously on my own brain. And there's some in-depth discussion of the definition of happiness that I use for the book, of course. Oh yeah - there's also some discussion of hilariously miserable events in my childhood, most of them having to do with dog poop. Anyway, as I am "too close to the subject", I think I'll hire somebody else to write the foreword. I think authors do that as a means of clarification - "what my friend meant to say was..."

So yeah. So there you go. I just got so tired of all these self-help books that either tell you how to be happy by doing something else (make a million dollars, lose a jillion pounds, have a zillion friends) rather than just getting to the point and saying "do this to be happy". I hope my book accomplishes that. It's really short, to the point, includes damn near everything I learned in all the years I obsessively studied the cognitive sciences, and will cost something like ten bucks (I think). And I promise that it doesn't ask you to change religions, get a color drape, tote a bag of crystals or learn Sanskrit. You can experience loads more happiness and still be the loveable old crank you are right now.

Which brings me to my next point, which is snowshoeing. I went for the first time a few days ago and it was a HOOT. I think it's going to be my new wintertime sport. It's a great way to extend the hiking season and it doesn't require any verve, brio, daring or hipness (unlike snowboarding, which I used to do) - or a hogshead full of cash. And it's quiet. Just you, the snow, and the SCRAPE-SCRAPE-SCRAPE-THUMP-SHRRRUK-SCRAPE-SHUUURRRSH of your snowshoes on the the hardpack. No, honestly, it's much less cumbersome than it seems it would be. I thought that I'd have to shackle my feet to bedframes and sacrifice my hip flexors. As it turns out, modern snowshoes (pictured, above) are delightfully lightweight and easily maneuverable. And grippy, too! They're tenacious little buggers! It beats the crap out of trying to negotiate snow-covered trails in your hiking boots. And best of all, it doesn't matter how cold it is outside, the joyful exertion keeps you warm. It was only 19 degrees with a hell of a wind when I went, and I worked up a sweat that soaked through to my jacket. (I know that's not too smart. I should've dressed lighter, but how was I to know?)

I'm going to leave off now and end with some pictures of my snowshoeing adventure, which is hopefully the first of many to come.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus


Regardless of what the name might lead you to believe, there are no whales in Humpback Creek. My theory? Too shallow. Way too shallow.

Me (foreground) and Elizabeth (background) on the bridge at Humpback creek on January 15th (Martin Luther King Day). Teresa couldn't come because she had to work even though it was a holiday for the rest of us. My theory? Microsoft just hates black people. That's all there is to it.

Still life with dog: Pete Aiken with Cassidy on the bridge at Humpback Creek. If you were thinking that Humpback Creek was the only photo op we took while we were on the trail, you're right. Trying to wrangle a camera out of your pocket with gloves on is a pain in the ass.

Happiness, Pt. 3: Hey, This Shit Works!

Vincent Van Gogh's Moleskine notebook.
For years, creative nutbags the world over have
used the Moleskine notebook to record the erratic
pulsations of their nut-gland. Hey, if it's good enough
for low-life chumps like Hemingway and
Picasso, it's good enough for this low-life chump right
here!

Greg:

You know about my "happiness" experiment, right - the one where I take a moment before I go to bed each night to write down three things that made me happy that day in my Moleskine notebook. The effects have been remarkable. First, I sleep much more soundly and dream more. (I might sleep even more soundly if I weren't quite so vain, and didn't spend a few mornings each week turning my chest and forearms into throbbing bands of blazing soreness. That's the only thing that interrupts my sleep at the moment. Still, that's better than being shocked awake by nightmares of long division as though demons were hurling ice-balls filled with math at my groin. Am I a little disturbed? Oh mais oui.)

Second, when I do get angry or upset, it's for a much shorter time. In fancier and more science-y terms, the amplitude of the emotion seems to be about the same as it always was, but the refractory period seems to be a heck of a lot shorter. I'm talking about ten to fifteen minutes as opposed to a couple hours or half a freakin' day. Furthermore, whereas the same little things seem to irk me, the episode of irksomeness, the inclination toward irkitude, and the wildly arcing parabola of irkotasticity all seem to be lessened a great deal. Or there is greater time when I feel less of it. In other words, I'm feeling more of that less pissed off feeling. You get my point.

I made another discovery about how this exercise works completely by accident. On a couple of occasions, I choked and forgot to write down my list of three before I went to bed, so I did it when I got up in the morning instead. Lo and behold, doing the exercise first thing in the morning instead of last thing in the evening has a tonic effect on my mood as well. It seems to impart a general feeling of optimism that lasts through most of the day. When I went back to school in 2001, I discovered that whatever I studied first thing in the morning kind of got "stuck in my head" - pretty much the same way a song gets "stuck in my head" if I think of it first thing in the morning. Perhaps this has happened to you. (Try not to think of "ABC" by the Jackson 5. Whoops! Now it's stuck in your head! See what I mean? Now go listen to some Edgard Varese until it goes away.)

So knowing that, here's a new twist I'm gonna add to the exercise. I'm gonna get another Moleskine notebook, this one for the morning. Every morning when I get up, I'm going to write down three things that I have to look forward to that day. Nothing will be too small, although I'll try to keep it realistic and attainable. Like I don't think it's too constructive to look forward to curing all disease that day or attaining perfect enlightenment by noon although, hey, it could happen. However, getting a really good workout, finishing my tax return or having a really tasty new scone will all be candidate events of equal importance. (I found a cherry almond scone that completely kicks ass. It may also give me superpowers. Although I'm not sure if it's the scone itself or the scone in conjunction with heavy doses of my Super Black drip coffee that give me the ability to fly* and fold space.) Likewise, if I don't achieve any or all of the things on my list, that's okay too. This isn't supposed to be a "to do" list. It's just a list of possibilities - some things that would be nice if they happened, but aren't going to cause me disappointment if they don't. I'll let you know how that one works out.

And finally, another pleasing discovery. Speaking of my notebook, it turns out that Moleskine is pronounced "MOH-leh-SKEE-nuh", and not pronounced like that other word that refers to either those pads Dad used to put on his corns or the pelt of a tiny burrowing varmint. Now when I refer to my notebook by name, I'll sound more like a smarty-pants intellectual and less like a backyard fur trader.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus


*I can too fly, dammit! It's just that I can never get cleared for takeoff by any of the candy-ass flight controllers at Boeing Field. They keep telling me a I need an "airplane" and "serious time in therapy". Bastards.

Happiness - Now With More Football Added!

Put me in coach! That's right baby. You're looking at a genuine
NFL issue on-field Seahawks home jersey - with my name on it!
If we lose one more guy to injury, I may just have to play.

Greg:

I know that when I mention football it makes you want to scurry deep within your tuba and feign death hoping that I’ll go away. As you recall, I started a blog specifically to talk about football with people who, unlike yourself, are actually interested in it. But my blog partner, one Matt “Douchebag” Lange, wound up as a guest of the county by trying to defy physics. I told him that it doesn’t matter how much “magical disappearing fluid” you drink, you still cannot pass your car through another car at a high rate of speed. Not on this planet, anyway. On Cartoon Planet maybe. But not here. No.

But this did not deter the Lange.

So yeah, so he wound up with a fancy new pair of stripey overalls plus three hots and a cot, and I wound up short a writing partner. Thus, All Ghey For The Football hasn’t been very ghey for the football for, oh, any number of months now. But oh so much has happened in the world of football that I simply must expound upon it! And you shall hear it! Into the bell of your tuba I pour my sports-related diatribe at full Qwest Field volume!*

The Seahawks are in the playoffs! And they’ve won their first game! Why is this so amazing? I mean, c’mon, aren’t they the defending NFC Champs? Why, mais oui – however, since sportswriters take a solemn oath not to cover teams based north of 47 degrees north latitude or west of 122 west longitude, it is highly unlikely that you will ever hear anything about the Seahawks – that is unless you have a relative who writes a blog wherein he blathers on about the Seahawks all the time. Or you are a resident of Norway. So you most likely will not have heard that every single member of the team is injured. That includes the guy who stitches up their pants, the waterboy, and the folks in the back of the stadium who make the hot dogs. They’re all beat to shit. Even a number of our fans are injured. I myself am sporting quite a handsome shiner at the moment. I have no idea how it got there.



Wearing my heart on my chest. Some call 'em "man teats".
I prefer the term "chesticles".

So yeah – everyone is beat to hell. Our QB had a knee sprain and was out for four or five games. Our NFL MVP running back broke a bone in his foot and was out for, like, a long-ass time. All in all, we were without 7 of our 11 starters on offense for most of the season. And then – and then! - all of our cornerbacks got shelled in the last regular season game, and none of the front office girls wanted to take the gig. So they dialed up some guy in Texas who was a loan officer (shitting you not am I), and it turns out he’s a pretty decent player. Pete Hunter’s the name. They called him in a week before the Cowboy’s game on Saturday and he stepped up big time. After a game that could be best described as myocardially infarctive, the Hawks prevailed 21-20 through some last minute defense. (To wit – the Hawks were up by one point when a snap for a Cowboys field goal was bobbled. The Cowboys’ QB then snatched the ball and made for the end zone only to be grabbed by the ankles and snapped like wet towel, leaving him lips-down on the 1 yard line. The ball was fumbled again, Seattle recovered it, hijinx ensued. Seattle won. Watch the unbelievable replay.)

So that means the Cowboys are out, done, finished, cryin’ home to mama, and the Seahawks move forward in the playoffs to face the Chicago Bears (ursus chicagoensis) at Soldier Field on Sunday, where they will play on 100% real dirt. Word on the street is that the Bears are favored by nine points and have necks like mighty beeves. However, they’ve also been known to choke like a harelip at the Wing Dome, so it’s anybody’s guess as to how this one will play out. Last time we played them, they shellacked us to the tune of almost thirty points. But since then they’ve been beaten by inferior teams. So. Well. Hell. Who knows.

But I will say this. Regardless of how the season ends, I’m mighty proud of how our defense played against the Cowboys last Saturday. Hopefully they’ll give the Bears a run for their money next Sunday. Or they could get a fresh coat of shellack. Either way, I’ll still be rooting for the Hawks.

Oh by the way – Bears wide receiver #87 Muhsin Mohammed is the reincarnation of our grandpa Teachout. No, seriously. Hand to God. But more about that later.

Okay, you can come out of your tuba now.

-Thaddeus

*From Wikipedia.org: Qwest Field has earned a reputation as arguably the loudest stadium in the NFL. Since the 2005 season, more penalties for false starts have been called against visiting teams in Qwest Field than in any other NFL stadium. At one point during the 2006 season, the New York Giants complained that Qwest Field was artificially piping in noise in order to distract visiting quarterbacks from running a count. During the 2005 NFC Championship Game against the Carolina Panthers, the decibel level recorded by Fox reached 137db.

I'm Going To Write My Own Goddamn Book On Happiness

Is this woman really happy, or is she just
being stabbed in the ass by a vengeful Turk?
You be the judge!

Greg:

You know me well enough to know that there are two things in this world that I eat with abandon. One is cheese. The other is self-help books. I became intrigued by the whole self-help genre when I heard about how many billions and gazillions of dollars people spend on that stuff each year. Self-help is the top category by a country mile. They've got everything from books on smoking cessation to websites about dynamite sex for septuagenarians. (Warning: sex and high explosives do not mix, especially if you're old and you have that shaky-old-guy-thing going on. -Ed.) So I thought to myself, hey, what's up with this stuff and why do people buy so much of it? Well I found out after reading everything from the venerable Think And Grow Rich to Change Your Life With St. John's Wort that the single point of all these books is - wait for it - happiness. Period. That's all they're talking about. They're all advocating different ways to make yourself happier. (Or happy at all if you're talking about books on suicide prevention. -Ed.) You could make "How To Be Happy" the title of every single piece of media in the category, and make the current title the subtitle. Like this - "How To Be Happy by not drinking so goddamn much." "How To Be Happy by squirreling away a jillion dollars." "How To Be Happy by losing 38 pounds." "How To Be Happy by smoking an ounce of Jesus every day."

So I found a book simply titled "Happiness" by a fellow named Mathieu Ricard and put it on advance order. It came with endorsements from practically all of my favorite self-help authors, like Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence), Martin Seligman (Authentic Happiness), and Jon Kabat-Zinn (Wherever You Go, There You Are). But in the meantime, I started doing that very simple happiness experiment that I told you about in a previous letter, the one where all you do is before you go to bed each night write down three things that made you happy that day. The effects have been amazing, but I'll tell you more about that in a minute.

Lo and behold, the book shows up seemingly out of nowhere (as I had forgotten that I advance ordered it). And I got about one and a half chapters into it when I suddenly hit my threshhold for self-help books. Something just clicked. I mean, I don't want to sound dismissive of self-help books certainly, as there's a lot of good in them. The thing that made me finally say (internally, thankfully), "OH for the LOVE of PETER DINKLAGE!" was that chapter 2 was all about the Buddhist idea of reality. Look, I'm already a Buddhist, and just thinking about that stuff makes me feel like my ears are screwed on too tight and I'm just about to start peaking on 'shrooms. I can't understand how a non-Buddhist would ever make it past the first three paragraphs.

I mean isn't there a single book out there that goes, "Here's how to be happy. You don't have to understand or adopt an Eastern philosophy. You don't have to be a PhD. You can smoke or not, we don't care. We're not going to beat around the bush. We're going to go straight to the fuse box and touch the freakin' wires. Ready? Here we go." There has to be a completely secular, non-philosophical sort of mechanic's guide to happiness. Call it "Happiness for Shmoes" or whatever. But c'mon, enough with all the method and dogma. Words are a precious resource. They should be rationed. So to all you guys in the self-help business, just shut up and get to the point already before you eat up all the words in existence. "To be happy, just do A) followed by B). The End." Good enough for me.

Why do I believe that it's that simple? The only way to show is you is to have you do it. So here you go. Get a journal - a wirebound notebook or whatever - and a pen and put them on your nightstand. Every night before you go to bed, write down three things that made you happy that day, and what it was about it that made you happy, even if you can't explain it well. No less than three. And they don't have to be complex. I note when I saw a really great sunset, or if I made a particularly bitchen cup of coffee that morning. Little things. Nothing is too small.

But no fucking around! You must do it every night, night after night, without fail. If you choke and fall asleep too quickly one night, do it first thing in the morning. But regularity is key.

I can tell you from experience that this will not make your problems go away. What you will notice, aside from the fact that you will start having a solid night's sleep every night, is that you start reframing your diffculties. You will not see them as less severe or bothersome, but instead will see them against a backdrop of expansive possibilities and options. This will go a long way to reduce your desire to choke the living shit out of the guy who drives the street cleaner past your window at 3:30AM every Saturday.

One of the forefathers of our country - I think it was the guy with the wig - wrote about happiness (or the pursuit thereof) as being a birthright of humanity. I mean look, when you get right down to it, what is our only pursuit in life? Happiness. Life is a means to experience happiness. Liberty is supposed to beget happiness. Either the job you have or the one you want is the thing that'll make you happy. Either the relationship you have or the one you want - your body, diet, wardrobe, car, hair, batting average, four-foot blown-glass multichambered bong - all routes we embark on hoping for that same end: happiness.

Look, we'll talk about this more. I know you're going to hit me with a ton of questions, like about what definition I'm giving for happiness. Or like what a grumpy old fucker like me could possibly know about happiness? Or if I'm so goddamn happy, why did I give a complimentary pressed ham to that guy who stole my parking spot? The answer to these questions and more will come in short order. In the meantime, just put down that tuba, grab a journal and a pen and hit the hay. You have some writing to do.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Best. Christmas. EVER.

The nave of the chapel at Epiphany Parish, Seattle.
Beautiful church, charming pageant, saucy parishioners.
What's not to love?


Greg:

Merry Boxing Day! If I were British - or Canadian (...that's "British Lite". -Ed.) - I'd be wrapping up some cock-a-leekie soup for the charwoman, or putting a shilling in my knickers for a blessing from St. Heiner. Or something like that. I'm sure my British constituency will correct me.

But speaking of holiday traditions, Teresa and I did the unthinkable on Christmas Eve morning. We went to church! I thought it might be a laff riot to go see a children's Christmas pageant, so I rummaged around on the InterWebs to see if there was one we might crash. And lo, the InterWebs didst reveal that a children's Christmas pageant shone 'round about Epiphany Episcopal Parish at 9:30AM, and even provided a map to show me the way there. (It is my confirmed opinion that online mapping services should be outlawed inasmuch as they enable people like me to crash children's Christmas pageants, and should be therefore likewise be regarded as a Tool of Satan.)

So we donned our gay apparel and made our way there with plenty of time to spare. Epiphany Parish, as it turns out, is a stunningly beautiful turn-of-the-century church with a parochial school attached and a very young and joyful congregation. The minister, Father Conklin I believe, greeted us warmly at the door, and asked us if we had children in the pageant. I said no, which prompted him to ask again, very politely, just exactly what the H we were doing there. Several smartass replies sprang to mind, such as "reviewing the show for The New Yorker" or "prowling". But instead I told the truth. I said that my father was an Episcopalian minister, that I was raised Episcopalian, and even though I had converted to Buddhism years ago, I still celebrated Christmas. It's one of those answers that makes the querist's brain lock up, as Father Conklin's did, freezing his smile just long enough for me to see his teeth go completely dry. He said Merry Christmas, I guess, and we took a seat.

The pageant was a scream. The Angel Gabriel had to read her lines from out of her sleeve, which meant that she didn't have an extra hand to keep her halo from falling down over her eyes repeatedly, which also made the whole thing a sort of Sysyphean proposition for the poor girl. The dozen or so toddler-aged heavenly hosts seemed befuddled at the birth of the Christ Child and needed to be prompted - LOUDLY - from the pulpit to rejoice, which they then expressed by frenzied bouncing. And at the curtain call, the Virgin Mary held her infant son high above her head and made him bow to all four corners of the sanctuary. Best. Christmas. Pageant. EVER. We wept with joy.

But the thing that made me really love this congregation was the Wassail party in the congregation hall afterward that featured two bowls of Wassail. One of them was completely inocuous but the other was fortified with The Blood Of Our Lord And Savior John H. Daniels to turpentine-like strength. A napkin was placed next to it with a simple caveat pencilled on it for potential meddlers: wArnIng - AlcOhol! I guess it's true what the holy scriptures said about Episcopalians: where there's four, there's a fifth. Even though I don't drink, I seem to enjoy people who do. And of those who do, I enjoy those most who do it most brazenly. Epiphany Parish seems to have beauty and brass in equal measure, and I may just adopt it as my Christian holiday venue of choice.

Afterward, Teresa and I donned our Seahawk apparel and went to the Blessed Sanctuary of The One True Religion to watch the Seahawks host the San Diego Chargers. It was a very exciting game, but heartbreaking nonetheless. Our beloved Seahawks came from behind in the third quarter only to be vanquished in the last 30 seconds of the game. The loss was made that much more poignant by the incredible effort that the Seahawks put forth to beat the team that is arguably the best in the NFL right now. The upside is that because our division rivals the San Francisco 49ers lost that day, we're still in the playoffs. Not exactly the way you want to get into the playoffs, mind you, but we'll take it anyway. We'll just have to wait and see what the future will bring. Go Hawks.

The rest of the holiday was spent gorging myself on candy until I was blue-in-the-lips from insulin shock (...he kids. But not much. -Ed.), so my memory is spotty. I'll have to piece the events together from the tears in my clothing, the angry voicemails on my telephone, and the numerous warrants stapled to my front door. I'll write again when I have a clearer picture.

Cheers and Merry Christmas,

-Thaddeus

The New Gunnsberg Miracle: A Christmas Story

Gunnsberg (founded 2005) as it currently appears on my sideboard.
Mount Fridgidaire is visible in the background.

Greg:

As our uncle Gerald used to say, "Merry Christmas, old man! How's your cotton pickin' liver?" I didn't know exactly what he meant by that then, and I still don't know for sure now. Still, I understand the importance of visceral fortitude during the holidays, especially when it comes to things like aunt Margaret's rum balls. As it is with jumping off a bridge, one must first take at least thumb-gauge measurements to make sure that thirty-two feet per second squared moving vertically won't equal sixty four days in horizontal repose. So I repeat Gerald's greeting here as an invitation to take a dipstick to your innards before you joyously leap off the lip of your beloved holiday bottle of Thunderbird. How is your liver?

As of yesterday, the Gunn household experienced its first miracle of the Christmas season. I don't know if I told you before or not, but when I first erected my tiny porcelain Christmas village last year, Teresa rolled her eyes at it in disgust. It's chotchkes, she said, psuedo-Bavarian miniature kitsch, nothing but a dust magnet, and if I had a pellet gun - ! But manifold pleadings and cajoling and threats of insanity held her at bay, at least for the remainder of last Christmas season.

And then came this year when I re-erected Gunnsberg (which makes it New Gunnsberg, I guess) and she perceived - correctly - that my tiny village was now suffering from urban sprawl. Oh dear GAWD! she cried. Mary, Joseph and diaper-wearing Jesus, how did this happen?!

So I explained to her that last year, the day after Christmas, I was only crossing the street when time and space folded - folded, I tell you! - and suddenly I found myself at Tweedy and Popp Ace Hardware - barely six miles from here - and lo, gloriously low prices on last year's Christmas decorations didst shine 'round about the Seasonal Aisle, and I was sore afraid. I was sore afraid that if I did not avail myself of these deep, deep discounts on tiny, tiny houses that they would be snatched up by those less deserving - Filipino ladies with pellet guns, for instance. So I dug deep and secured not one, not two, but three more tiny porcelain houses, a covered bridge, and a freakishly out-of-scale horse and carriage. (I reasoned that the citizens of New Gunnsberg needed a means of ingress to and egress from Kitchenland and Mount Fridgidaire and, commensurate with that, a mode of transportation. I figured a giant with a horsecart was as good as any.)

So the triumvirate of Hardware Coots at the checkout counter eyed me suspiciously - me, a middle-aged man with a Jesus-load of tiny porcelain domiciles. I was not their kind, apparently. They clucked and cocked their heads and plugged their armpits with their thumbs. They asked one too many times for a price check. Apprently they wanted to make me stand still so they could get a real good look at Mister Dolly Houses. They were mostly wearing coveralls of various dirt-tones and splat-o-flage patterns, accessorized with - who knows why - day-glo orange deerslayer caps. I was in my usual North Face bourgeousie deluxe "steers & queers" model parka, convertible "tree-hugging faggot" pants, and Asics "they sell men's clothes were you got them, boy?" trail running shoes. Not to mention my half-horn-rimmed Giorgio Armani eyeglass frames with a very large "aim fist here" sign on the nose bridge. (Insert banjo chorus. -Ed.)

So the Head Coot says to me - real suspicious-like - he says, "Looks like you take a fancy to these little houses."

To which I replied, "Not so much, really."

So he says, "Why for not? It looks like you got you a load of 'em."

I said, "Yeah - because they drive my wife completely nuts!"

There was a moment of silence and then the Three Coot-A-Teers exploded into guffaws, slapping the counter, bending at the waist, and fanning themselves with their day-glo deerslayer caps. One even underscored his joy by throttling a scythe.

"That's a good one!" they hollered, "We gotta try that!" And with that I was on my way, my city-boy faggot ass miraculously un-kicked.

So yes, my purchase remained hidden in storage for the rest of the year until two days ago when Gunnsberg made its seasonal reappearance on the sideboard. Then my treachery was revealed. Teresa watched the rise of New Gunnsberg with arms crossed and as much scowl as she could muster, muttering threats and accusations whenever possible.

BUT! Just as Aaron and I arranged the last of the little fir trees and streetlights, plugged in the power strip and threw the switch, I caught a glimpse of Teresa's face in the golden glow pouring from the tiny windows. Her features softened. A smile crept across her lips. And then she uttered the unthinkable: "It's cute!" It was a Christmas miracle! The tiny, invisible citizens of New Gunnsberg had softened my wife's ice-cold coal-black heart, warmed her cockles with the Yuletide spirit, and insured their survival for another year. There would be no pellet gun assault from the Filipino infantry! Christmas was saved!

And that's why chickens wear hats. The End.

Cheers and best wishes for the holiday season to you and yours. And if this letter made you laugh once or twice, that too is a Christmas miracle.

-Thaddeus