Month: December 2008

I’m not posting any pictures of my family because I don’t like how any of them came out. I’m not very good with candids, it turns out. I can take decent portraits, when someone has agreed to let me take their picture, but not when their attention is elsewhere and I can’t call out, “Okay everyone, chins down!”

But there was great company, great food, lots of wonderful presents, a Christmas tree—and I still don’t get how other cat owners get to have a tree, so no fair, is all the cat-evil of the world concentrated in my cats alone? 

My sister-in-law Karen (who sent me home piled down with great food) so nicely timed everything so that I didn’t have to come home and arrive in Penn Station at a misery inducing hour.

Incidentally, the only good Christmas shots I got yesterday were in Penn Station, when I walked around taking pictures of everyone’s efforts to dress up the place. I was most focused on the token booth, such a sad structure, and my intention was to show the hopelessness of trying to brighten it, but then this girl smiled! And turned a somewhat dreary shot into a happy shot.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to retain the quality when uploading videos to YouTube.  Also how to keep the text sharp (haven’t figured that out yet). Here’s a short video with a kinda Christmas theme, and a funny angle on Finney.

Last night I watched another West Wing Christmas episode. This was the one where Josh sees the therapist who tells him he is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.  I forgot about this one!  I always loved this one.

I used to suffer from PTSD myself except I never knew it until I saw this show. The key thing I learned was people with PTSD not only remember an awful thing, they re-live it whenever they remember.  By the time I saw this show episodes of this kind were rare for me, but it just gave me enormous peace to know this.  It still does. And the way they wrapped it around a Christmas story.  Seeing it was liking getting a Christmas present.  It gave my past back to me, wrapped in nicer memories. So I was happy to see this episode again last night.

I’m going out to Long Island later this afternoon.  Hi Karen!!  (Actually, I’m guessing she is WAY too busy today to be reading my blog.)

I’ve still got two more Christmas tv shows to watch, another Bones episode and the Charlie Brown one.

I’m taking a break from my orgy of Christmas tv-watching to give you a peak of New York City from my roof just now, in the rain.  In the distance is the holiday Empire State Building. Two sides are blue and white for Hanukkah, and the other two sides are red and green for Christmas.

It reminds me of a respectful tradition they have for burials in New York City’s Potter’s Field. Since the religion of many of the people buried there is unknown, everyone is buried because some religions forbid cremation. I like that they don’t want to take chances with anyone’s afterlife.

Sometimes people are so beautifully kind and tolerant, and sometimes they are not.  And I guess the saddest thing about that memory is that anyone ends up in Potter’s Field at all.  Although what does it matter.  And how did I get from Christmas to this??

Best Christmas tv episodes so far:  The Bones one where they’re all locked up in the lab over Christmas, and the Roswell one where Max goes to the hospital and cures all the kids.  Oh, and the West Wing one with Toby and the homeless vet who dies.

Don’t those apartments with the lighted windows on the lower right look cosy and inviting?

Is it ever white??  Ever???  The playground on Bleecker Street is just littered with abandoned toys.  I’m a little amazed everyone leaves them out.  There are a bunch of tricycles just sitting out there right now.  It’s like the Island of Misfit Toys or something.