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For whatever reason I was feeling so overwhelmed by the idea of decorating. I solved it by just dressing up one area. In one small corner in my apartment it’s festive.

Everywhere else it’s bah humbug and “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”

Not really. So hallelujah! Which I swear to god is playing right now.

I just skipped ahead to the Snoopy Christmas song, though.

The Grace Church Choral Society concerts are this week. This whole week is singing heaven for those of us in the choir. The best part has to be the dress rehearsal with the orchestra. Singing with the orchestra is so exciting and since there’s no audience we’re all singing and playing for ourselves and each other and it’s both relaxed and thrilling at the same time.

But pray for the tenors and basses. From Wikpedia about The Chicester Psalms, one of the pieces we’re doing:

“The Psalms and the first movement in particular are noted among performers for their musical difficulty, with the opening section of the first movement often considered one of the hardest passages for choral tenors ever written, owing to the range of the piece, its rhythmic complexity and the consistent presence of the strange and difficult-to-maintain interval of a major 7th between the tenor and bass.”

Okay, I should get ready.

And do some work.

And eat these Cheetos equivalent called Smart Puffs.

This warmed my heart. These “Cat Found” signs were up and down 11th Street.

For some reason she popped into my head last night and this morning I did a search on YouTube.  God I love YouTube.

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

A friend of mine, Brian Nelson, died this month. He had such a horrendous medical history, multiple transplants, cancer, the guy was just hit with so much.

He started to blog about it here.

A friend of his posted about him on the Times, and I responded to what his friend said.  He talked about how he and a couple of other friends were helping Brian build a kayak before he died. One thing he wrote stood out for me. He described Brian admiring the kayak they were building.

“Walking her length, he would trail a hand along her contours with a pleased smile, pause for breath and place a finger over the tracheal tube to speak. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ Then, ‘Let’s get her finished.'”

Brian was really like that, relentlessly positive.  He played the cards he was dealt as best he could.  I posted that I would have been miserable and bitter in his shoes.

But I thought about it later and realized no, my over-riding emotion would definitely have been fear.  I most assuredly would have spent my last months terrified, not able to see the beauty in a grain of wood.  And I would have wasted the time I had left.  So now I’m not only impressed by how Brian was able to maintain a positive attitude about life, but by his courage.

That picture was from Brian and Diane’s wedding in 2006.  My condolences to Diane and everyone else who knew and loved Brian.

I found this picture on the New York Public Library website. It says it’s a post office in Chicago at Christmas, but those packages don’t look very festive or inviting.

I have yet to put up my Christmas decorations. Why am I resisting? Could it be that these rituals have finally lost their charm for me?